CHAPTER III.

§ 1. The Meaning of Wealth or Riches.

POLITICAL economy is the science of the Useful, or of riches or wealth. We must therefore form an exact idea of what riches consists in.

The word "riches" comes from the Gothic Reiki, in Old German Rike, in Modern German Reich. It is connected with the Sanscrit root raj, " to be powerful," whence the title of Indian princes, rajah, Latin rex, and in German Reich, "empire." The ricos hombres of Spain were the "great" and "powerful.”

Riches or wealth is, in fact, power; the power of getting what one wishes done by other men, either by remunerating them directly, as in the case of servants, or by purchasing the products to which their labour must be applied. In the middle ages a rich man kept in his pay a number of retainers ready to obey him. Thus Warwick, "the kingmaker," is said to have constantly maintained more than three thousand persons. In the present day the wealthy command the obedience of even more men; but indirectly, by paying for the commodities they consume.

Wealth, then, may be defined as everything which answers to men's rational wants. A useful service, or a useful object, are equally wealth.

But what is a rational want? The complete and harmonious development of every human faculty being the object in view, all wants, the satisfaction of which tends to this end, may be considered rational. Psychology, or the knowledge of our intellectual being, will teach us the wants of the mind; hygiene will teach us the wants of the body.

It was long thought that the wealth of nations consisted chiefly in the amount of gold and silver which they could draw to themselves. As this quantity is limited, every state endeavoured to obtain from other states as much of it as possible by bounties, by customs dues, and by regulations restricting trade with foreign countries. Hence arose commercial rivalry, political hostility, and finally open war.

A well-known economist, J. B. Say, remarks that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more than fifty years' war was caused solely by this false idea of wealth. In social science errors are fruitful in evils which afflict mankind and ruin nations.

Many economists have regarded as wealth only such things as can be bought and sold. This is an error, in our view. Wealth is what is good and useful-a good climate, well-kept roads, seas teeming with fish, are unquestionably wealth to a country, and yet they cannot be bought.

"Goods" (nearly synonymous with "wealth") is an admirable word. The supreme good is the subject of philosophy and religion, and "goods" the

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subject of political economy. In “goods” or wealth must be included all that is good for the advancement of the individual and of the human race.

From this idea of wealth it follows, that besides material riches there is also immaterial riches, such as knowledge, manual skill, or the taste for work. The growth of riches is not an unmixed benefit unless it be accompanied by the growth of justice and morality.

It is the abundance of commodities, and not their money value, which constitutes wealth. The greater the abundance of useful objects the less will be their price and money value; but, meanwhile, real wealth is increased.

§ 2. Wants.

A want is the being without something that is necessary, useful, or agreeable. Want begets desire, and desire action. Action, in this view, is the pursuit of objects desired because they answer to wants.

These objects are good, inasmuch as they are the condition of that development of our nature which is the supreme good. The abundance of goods or commodities constitutes wealth. Man attains to it by labour, which is regulated by reason and directed by knowledge, under the sway of law and right.

Political economy tells us what social laws best enable human labour to satisfy human wants. The science of economy is therefore based on the notion of want. In order to satisfy his wants, man labours

and saves, and seeks incessantly to improve the instruments and processes of his labour. Wants, labour, the satisfaction of wants-such is therefore the economic circle, in which nations and individuals are moving day by day and year by year.

Food, clothing, lodging, and furniture are the chief wants of the body. The cultivation of the mind and the moral sentiments, of taste, and of family and social relations, is a want of the moral kind.

The number and nature of rational wants varies with the climate and the state of civilisation. It may be good to satisfy more and more wants, in proportion as the means of producing useful commodities are improved. Still it is not true that the progress of civilisation must be measured by the number of wants satisfied; nor that it is necessary to the solution of economic problems that they should be constantly multiplying. Ancient philosophy, as well as the Christian code, preached the moderation of wants, in accordance with the fine maxim of Seneca: Si quem volueris esse divitem, non est quod augeas divitias, sed minuas cupiditates. If you would make a man rich, you need not increase his wealth, but rather diminish his desires. The economist will not gainsay Seneca.

The time devoted to the creation of superfluous commodities, useless alike to the body and the mind, is time wasted; and time is the material of life. It should be turned to good account, for it cannot be

recovered. Bodily wants, however refined they may be, only plunge us doubly into materialism, at the time when we satisfy them, and at the time when we are procuring what is necessary for their satisfaction.

To encourage the indefinite multiplication of wants is to drive humanity into sensualism, which is the death of virtue, and therefore of liberty. Aristotle spoke very truly when he said: "The quantity of things which suffice to make life happy is limited." The greatest of human benefactors, Christ, Buddha, Zoroaster, all lived on little, because they lived the spiritual life, which is the true one. The spirit of an apostle in a body inured to all hardship, a combination of which Socrates and St. Paul are examples-this is the model which the economist will recommend.

The end of human existence is not eating and drinking, but happiness, which is made up of health, leisure, artistic or intellectual enjoyment, and the pleasures derived from intercourse with our fellows. There is no need to deprive either ourselves or others of everything in order to be always accumulating more wealth. This is the error stamped by Juvenal (viii. 84): Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere caussas— for life's sake to forfeit all that makes life worth living.

§ 3. False Wants and False Wealth.

By false wants I mean wants, the satisfaction of which carries man farther from his aim, which is the