Principles of Political Economy Part 25

But (-- I) a higher civilization always finds expression in an increased number and an increased urgency of satisfied wants. Yet, there is a limit at which new or intensified wants cease to be an element of higher civilization, and become elements of demoralization. Every immoral and every unwise want exceeds this limit.[224-2] Immoral wants are not only those the satisfaction of which wounds the conscience, but also those in which the necessities of the soul are postponed to the affording of superfluities to the body; and where the enjoyment of the few is purchased at the expense of the wretchedness of the many. And not only those are unwise or imprudent for which the voluntary outlay is greater than one's income, but those also where the indispensable is made to suffer for the dispensable.

Thus it was in Athens, in the time of Demosthenes, when the festivities of the year cost more than the maintenance of the fleet; when Euripides'

tragedies came dearer to the people than the Persian war in former times. There was even a law pa.s.sed (Ol. 107,4) prohibiting the application of the dramatic fund to purposes of war under pain of death.[224-3]

In the history of any individual people, it may be shown with approximate certainty at what point luxury exceeded its salutary limits.

But in the case of two different nations, it is quite possible that what was criminal prodigality with the one, may have been a salutary enjoyment of life with the other; in case their economic (_wirthschaftlichen_) powers are different. Precisely as in the case of individuals, where for instance, the daily drinking of table wine may be simplicity in the rich and immoral luxury in the case of a poor father of a family.[224-4] Healthy reason has this peculiarity, that where people will not listen to it, it never hesitates to make itself felt.

(_Benjamin Franklin._)[224-5]

However, the luxury of a period always throws itself, by way of preference, on those branches of commodities which are cheapest.

[Footnote 224-1: _Stuart_, Principles, II, ch. 30, _Ferguson_, History of Civil Society, VI, 2. Thus _Dandolus_, Chron. Venet., 247, tells of the wife of a doge at Constantinople who was so given to luxury that she ate with a golden fork instead of her fingers. But she was punished for this outrage upon nature: her body began to stink even while she was alive. In the introduction to _Hollinshed's_ Chronicon, 1557, there is a bitter complaint that, a short time previous, so many chimneys had been erected in England, that so many earthen and tin dishes had been introduced in the place of wooden ones. Another author finds fault that oak was then used in building instead of willow, and adds that formerly the men were of oak but now of willow. _Slaney_, On rural Expenditure, 41. Compare _Xenoph._, Cyrop., VIII, 8, 17.]

[Footnote 224-2: Biblically determined: _Romans_, 13, 14.]

[Footnote 224-3: _Plutarch_, De Gloria Athen., 348.

_Athen._, XIV, 623. Pet.i.t. Legg. Att., 385.]

[Footnote 224-4: _Livy_, x.x.xIV, 6 ff.]

[Footnote 224-5: Most writers who have treated of luxury at all have generally confined themselves to inquiring whether it was salutary or reprehensible. Aristippus and Antisthenes, Diogenes, etc.; Epicureans and Stoics. The latter were reproached with being bad citizens, because their moderation in all things was a hindrance to trade.

(_Athen._, IV, 163.) The Aristotelian _Herakleides_ declared luxury to be the princ.i.p.al means to inspire men with n.o.ble-mindedness; inspired by luxury, the Athenians conquered at Marathon. (_Athen._, XII, 512.) _Pliny_ was one of the most violent opponents of luxury. See _Pliny_, N. N., x.x.xIII, 1, 4, 13, and other places. The controversy has been renewed by the moderns, especially since the beginning of the 18th century, after luxury of every kind had previously (for the most part on theological grounds, but also by Hutten, for instance) been one-sidedly condemned. Among its defenders were _Mandeville_, The Fable of the Bees, 1706, who, however, calls everything a luxury which exceeds the baldest necessities of life; _Voltaire_ in Le Mondain, the Apologie du Luxe, and Sur L'Usage de la Vie; _Melon_, Essai politique sur le Commerce, ch. 9; _Hume_, Discourses, No. 2, On Refinement in the Arts; _Dumont_, Theorie du Luxe, 1771; _Filangieri_, Delle Leggi politiche ed economiche, II, 37; and the majority of the Mercantile school and of the Physiocrates. Among the opponents of luxury, _J. J.

Rousseau_ towers over almost all others. Further, _Fenelon_, Telemaque, 1699, L. XXII; _Pinto_, Essai sur le Luxe, 1762.

The reasons and counter-reasons advanced by those writers apply not only to luxury but to the lights and shades of high civilization in general. When a political economist declares for or against luxury in general, he resembles a doctor who should declare for or against the nerves in general. There has been luxury in every country and in every age. Among a healthy people, luxury is also healthy, an essential element in the general health of the nation. Among an unhealthy people luxury is a disease, and disease-engendering.

For an impartial examination of the question, see _Ferguson_, History of Civil Society, towards the end; see also _Beckmann_, in _Justis'_ Grundsatzen der Polizei, 1782, -- 308; _Rau_, Ueber den Luxus, 1817; _Roscher_, Ueber den Luxus, in the Archiv der Politischen Oekonomie, 1843, and in his Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft, 1861, 399 ff.]

SECTION CCXXV.

THE HISTORY OF LUXURY.--IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

During the middle ages, industry and commerce had made as yet but little progress. Hence it was as difficult then for luxury to be ministered to by fine furniture as by the products of foreign countries. Individual ornamental pieces, especially arms and drinking cups,[225-1] were wont to be the only articles of luxury. We have inventories of the domains of Charlemagne from which we find that in one of them, the only articles of linen owned were two bed-sheets, a table-cloth and a pocket handkerchief.[225-2] Fas.h.i.+on is here very constant; because clothing was comparatively dearer than at present. And so now in the East. In the matter of dwellings, too, more regard was had to size and durability, than to elegance and convenience. The palaces of Alfred the Great were so frailly built that the walls had to be covered with curtains as a protection against the wind, and the lights to be inclosed in lanterns.[225-3]

Hence the disposition to use the products of the home soil as articles of luxury was all the greater, but more as to quant.i.ty than to quality.[225-4] Since the knight could personally neither eat nor drink a quant.i.ty beyond the capacity of his own stomach, he kept a numerous suite to consume his surplus. It is well known what a great part was played among the ancient Germans by their retinues of devoted servants (_comitatus_), which many modern writers have looked upon as const.i.tuting the real kernel of the migration of nations.

In England, it was a maxim of state policy with Henry VII., whose reign there terminated the middle age, to prohibit the great liveried suites of the n.o.bility (19 Henry VII., ch. 14) as Richard II., Henry IV. and Edward IV. had already attempted to do. But even under James I., we find amba.s.sadors accompanied by a suite of 500 persons or 300 n.o.blemen.[225-5]

The rich man welcomed every opportunity which enabled him to make others share in a dazzling manner the magnitude of his superfluous wealth: hence the numberless guests at weddings who were frequently entertained for weeks.[225-6] These festivities are memorable not because of the delicacies or great variety of the dishes, but because of their colossal magnitude. Even William of Orange, 1561, entertained at his wedding guests who had brought with them 5,647 horses; and he appeared himself with a suite of 1,100 men on horseback. There were consumed on the occasion 4,000 bushels of wheat, 8,000 of rye, 11,300 of oats, 3,600 _eimers_ of wine, 1,600 barrels of beer.[225-7] In the ordinance of Munden regulating weddings, promulgated in the year 1610, it is provided, that, at a large wedding there should not be over 24 tables, nor at a small one over 14, with 10 persons at each table.[225-8]

The hospitality of the lower stages of civilization[225-9] must be ascribed as well to this peculiar kind of luxury as to mere good nature.

Arabian chiefs have their noon-day table set in the street and welcome every pa.s.ser-by to it.[225-10] (_Poc.o.c.ke._) And so, distinguished Indians keep an open cauldron on the fire cooking all the time, from which every person who comes in may help himself. (_Catlin._)

Compared with this luxury of the rich, the poverty found side by side with it appears less oppressive. There is no great gap between the modes of life of the different cla.s.ses.[225-11] This is the golden age of aristocracy, when no one questions its legitimateness. When, later, the n.o.bleman, instead of keeping so many servants, begins to buy costly garments for himself, he, indeed, supports indirectly just as many and even more men; but these owe him nothing. Besides, in this last kind of luxury, it is very easily possible for him to go beyond his means, which is scarcely ever the case in the former.[225-12]

[Footnote 225-1: Here, as a rule, the value of the metal was greater than the form-value; and hence the medieval monasteries frequently made loans of silver vessels, where of course, the form could not be taken into consideration.

On the other hand, in the case of the table service, presented by the king of Portugal to Lord Wellington, the metal cost 85,000 and the workmans.h.i.+p 86,000. (_Jacob_, Gesch. der edlen Metalle, translated by Kleinschrod, II, 5.) Compare _Hume_, History of England, ch. 44, App. 3.

Similarly under Louis XIV. (_Sismondi_, Hist. des Francais, XXVII, 45.) When Rome was highly civilized, C. Gracchus paid for very good silver ware, 15 times the value of the metal, and L. Cra.s.sus, (consul 95 before Christ) 18 times its value. _Mommsen_, R. Gesch. II, 383.]

[Footnote 225-2: _Specimen breviarii fiscalium Caroli Magni_; compare _Anton_, Gesch. der deutschen Landwirthsch.

244 ff.]

[Footnote 225-3: _Turner_, History of the Anglo Saxons, VII, ch. 6.]

[Footnote 225-4: In _Homer_, the kings live on nothing but meat, bread and wine: compare _Athen._, I, 8. In the saga-poetry of Iceland, _H. Leo_ does not remember to have heard any other food mentioned except oat-pap, milk, b.u.t.ter and cheese, fish, the flesh of domestic animals, and beer.

(_Raumer's_ Taschenbuch, 1835, 491)]

[Footnote 225-5: _Hume_, History of England, ch. 49, Append.

Similarly among all nations which have still preserved much of the medieval. Thus the duke of Alba, about the end of the last century, had not a single commodious hall in his immense palace, but 400 rooms for his servants, since at least all his old servants, and even their widows and families, continued to live with him. In Madrid alone, he paid 1,000 a month wages to his servants; and the son of the duke, Medina-Celi, 4,000 per annum. (_Townsend_, II, 155, 158.) In many palaces in Moscow, previous to 1812, there were 1,000 and more servants, unskillful, clad for the most part as peasants, badly fed, and with so little to do that perhaps one had no service to perform but to fetch drinking water at noon, and another in the evening. Even poor n.o.blemen kept 20 and 30 servants, (_v. Haxthausen_, Studien, I, 59.) _Forster_, Werke, VII, 347, explains Polish luxury in servants, by the poorness of the servants there: a good German maid could do more than three Polish servants.

Thus, in Jamaica, it was customary to exempt from the slave-tax persons who kept fewer than 7 negroes. (_B.

Edwards_, History of the W. Indies, I, 229.) Compare _Livy_, x.x.xIX, 11. The luxury of using torch-bearers instead of candelabra lasted until Louis XIV.'s time. (_Rocquefort_, Hist. de la Vie privee des Francais, III, 171.) Compare _W.

Scott_, Legend of Montrose, ch. 4.]

[Footnote 225-6: A Hungarian magnate, under king Sigismund, celebrated his son's wedding for a whole year. (_Fessler_, Gesch. von Ungarn, IV, 1267.)]

[Footnote 225-7: _Muller_, Annal. Saxon, 68. Several examples in _Sckweinichen's_ Leben von Busching, I, 320 seq.

_Krunitz_, Enclycopaedie, Bd. 82, 84 ff. The wedding of the niece of Ottakar II. in 1264, has long been considered a most brilliant event in the history of medieval luxury.

(_Palacky_, Gesch. von Bohmen, II, 191 ff.) Even yet, in Abyssinia, on the occasion of royal feasts, only meat and bread are eaten and mead drunk; but not only the great, but even common soldiers are entertained one after the other.

(Ausland, 1846, No. 79.) Magnificent as was the table of a West Indian planter, it was in some respects very simple. A large ox was slaughtered for the feast, and everything had to be prepared from that: roast beef, beef steaks, beef pies, stews, etc. (_Pinckard_, Notes on the W. Indies, II.

100 ff.)]

[Footnote 225-8: _Spittler_, Geschichte Hanovers, I, 381.]

[Footnote 225-9: _Tacitus_, Germ., 21 Leg., says of the Germans: _Convictibus et hospitiis non alia gens effusius indulget. Quemcunque mortalium arcere tecto, nefas habetur.

Diem noctemque continuare potando, nulli probrum._]

[Footnote 225-10: Entirely the same among the ancient Romans: _Valer. Max._, II, 5. Compare per _contra_, _Euripid._, Herc. fur., 304 seq.]

[Footnote 225-11: Think of nomadic races especially, where the rich can employ their wealth only to increase the number of their partisans, for war purposes, etc.]

[Footnote 225-12: _Ferguson_, Hist. of Civil Society, VI, 3; _Adam Smith_, Wealth of Nat., IV, ch. 4. Compare _Contzen_, Politicorum, 1629, 662. As to how in the lower stages of civilization, guests are used to supply the place of the post-office service, see _Humboldt_, Relation hist., II, 61.]

SECTION CCXXVI.

LUXURY IN BARBAROUS TIMES.

The luxury of that uncivilized age shows itself for the most part on particular occasions, and then all the more ostentatious, while in the periods following it, it rather permeates the whole of life. Even J.

Moser excuses our forefathers for their mad celebration of their _kirmesses_ and carnivals: _dulce est desipere in loco_, as Horace says, and that they sometimes carried it to the extent of drowning reason.[226-1] Among ourselves, the common man drinks brandy every day; in Russia, seldom, but then, to the greatest excess.[226-2] The well known peculiarity of feudal castles, that, besides one enormous hall, they were wont to have very small and inconvenient rooms for every day life, is accounted for in part by the great importance to them of festal occasions, and in part by the cordiality of the life led in them, in which lord and servants const.i.tuted one family. Nothing can be more erroneous than to ascribe great temperance in general to people in a low stage of civilization. Their simplicity is a consequence of their ignorance rather than of their self-control. When nomadic races have once tasted the cup of more delicate enjoyment, it is wont to hurry them to destruction.[226-3]

[Footnote 226-1: _Moser_, Patr. Ph. IV, 7. On the feast of fools and the feast of a.s.ses of the middle ages, compare _Dutillet_, Memoire pour sevir a l'Histoire de la Fete des Fous; _D. Sacchi_, Delle Feste popolari del medio Evo.

During the latter half of the 16th century, the first Hannoverian minister received only 200 thalers salary and pieces of clothing, while the wedding of a certain von Saldern cost 5,600 thalers. (_Spittler_, Gesch. Hannovers, I, 333.)]

[Footnote 226-2: _v. Haxthausen_, Studien, II, 450, 513.

Thus, in 1631, of those who had died suddenly, there were 957 who died of drunkenness. (_Bernouilli_, Populationistik, 303.) According to _v. Lengefeldt_, Russland im 19. Jahrh., 42, the number is now 1,474 to 1,911 per annum. On Poland, see _Klebs_, Landeskulturgesetzgebung in Posen, 78. When the South American Indians begin to drink, they do not stop until they fall down senseless. (_Ulloa_, Noticias Americanas, ch. 17.) The old Romans considered all barbarians to be drunkards. (_Plato_, De Legg., I, 638.) In eating, also, uncivilized people are extremely irregular. A Jackute or Tunguse consumes 40 pounds of meat; three men devour a whole reindeer at a meal. (_Cochrane_, Fussreise, 156.) One ate in 24 hours the back quarter of a large ox, or a _pud_ of fat, and drank an equal quant.i.ty of melted b.u.t.ter. (_Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, III, 18.) Similarly among hunting races. See _Klemm_, I, 243, 339; II, 13, 255.

On the South Sea Islanders, see _Hawkesworth_, III, 505; _Forster_, I, 255.]

[Footnote 226-3: Rapid degeneration of almost all barbaric dynasties as soon as they have subjugated civilized countries.]