The wealth of a nation is that which contributes to its real and lasting well-being, which makes it powerful in the present, and durable and progressive in the future. A happy and intelligent people, with just and far-seeing rulers or guides amongst them, is a rich nation, and one that is fulfilling its duty by carrying on the gradual growth and ever higher development of the human race.
Political economy is the study of wealth, and particularly of those results of human activity, which spring from the necessary physical relation of human beings to their surroundings. It is this relation which makes the firm foundation on which political economy rests.
The subject leads to three great branches of inquiry—viz., the things which constitute wealth, the method of their production, and the way in which they are distributed.
The study of wealth must always take in this large scope in any lasting system of political economy, because the many special branches which the subject includes are all connected together. Every part is built up on the sure foundation of the relation of human needs to their surroundings. If our knowledge of this relation is unsound, the edifice will in time fall down.
In seeking truth in any branch of political economy, whether it be the relations of labour and capital, land tenure, or free trade, etc., examination must be made of this foundation of knowledge. Artificial arrangements which do not recognise the primitive needs of human nature can only lead at last to misery.
Reason shows us that physical needs are imperative in a material world where mind works through matter. They come first in order of growth as the primary condition of life, through which and out of which the higher moral and intellectual forces grow. They are like the first gasping inspiration of the infant, which sets in motion the astonishing mechanism of conscious human life. Trade and commerce are a necessary first outcome of a nation’s physical needs; the nature of its trade and commerce and the methods by which they are carried on are inextricably woven in with social life, and stamp the character of a nation.
Trade and commerce being the direct result of human needs in relation to the material world will be governed by fixed laws respecting the production and distribution of wealth.
The term ‘law,’ however, is often erroneously applied to temporary phases in the arrangements of human industry, which vary with age and country. But a fixed law in political economy can only become such when, and because, it expresses the necessary relation between human growth or nature, and the conditions which promote it. It is only the result of this necessary relation that can claim the name of Law.
Political economy must, therefore, necessarily be a progressive study, because, although human desires are unlimited, human power or ability to discover law is much more limited. This power grows with intelligence, and intelligence is of slower development than the motive-spring of human life, which is desire, emotion, will.
The methods of producing and distributing wealth must, therefore, necessarily vary. The interval of growth between the Esquimaux bartering his skins, and the Englishman exporting machinery is great. Even the objects and definition of wealth change with race and epoch. There can be no such thing as finality in the applications of human knowledge, because the law of progress—progress of individuals and of races—is stamped on our nature. Political economy, as every other subject of knowledge, must be revised, extended, and re-adapted from age to age.
Although the methods of producing and distributing wealth may vary, the creative Divine laws which determine the welfare of the human race cannot vary. Below the changing phenomenon of epoch, country, and race are fixed principles on which trade (which may be designated human) must be based. The search for these necessary or fixed laws, and their discrimination from temporary arrangements or adaptations, is not only a legitimate but an indispensable subject of inquiry. It affects not only the foundation, but also the whole edifice of life, which is built upon it in every stage of its construction, helping or injuring each individual of the community, as well as that collective mass of individuals which we vaguely style the nation.
No religious teacher, any more than the (technically styled) social reformer, can afford to ignore this great subject of political economy. A knowledge of its objects, and of the laws which must govern industry, in its march to the promised land of human welfare, constitute a Divine revelation. It is a revelation gradually made through the honest use of our intellectual faculties, and constantly grows from imperfect beginnings, to clearer guidance under an earnest search for truth.
A distinct recognition of the different kinds of wealth must precede any wise or efficient regulation of trade and commerce; for the same method of production and distribution cannot be applied to all. We can neither produce air nor sunshine, nor legitimately attempt to make them the subject of trade, as, being essential to life, they are necessarily supplied free to all. Neither can we produce earth, which (as far as it is essential to life) cannot be made a subject of trade on exactly the same methods, as products which can be indefinitely multiplied. Neither can strength, energy, or character, which constitute a valuable part of a nation’s wealth, be grown in a similar way to corn, or thrown off by machinery like calico. Education is a different process from printing, and if reduced to the mechanism of manufacture, or converted into a system of money-getting, is self-destructive, frustrating the object of education—viz., the drawing out of the infinitely varied human faculties.
The growth of reason and conscience in the leading nations of the world, is more and more differentiating the various kinds of wealth; data are thus being collected from which the progressive laws of political economy can be deduced. By the leading nations, of course is here meant those communities where a large number of unselfish and thoughtful men, inspired by truth, find their teaching accepted by the uncorrupted though crude intelligence of a patient multitude. Unfortunately, the so-called ruling classes in these nations, are now too often the creators or the creatures of the barbarous and savage hordes which false methods of political economy have produced in our midst. But the possession of a band of honest truth-seekers with earnest listeners eager to be guided, marks the really progressive nation.
It will be found that a true system of political economy must rest upon a moral basis. Trust, freedom, and gradually evolved sympathy are the foundations on which all systems of industry are built up that permanently civilize races.
Trust.—Trust is the beginning of exchange. Nordenfeld, in his record of observation round the Arctic circle, relates how money or articles were left in perfect safety, and faithfully replaced by equivalent articles in exchange. A striking instance of the necessity of re-creating trust as the foundation of industry where it has been lost by long-continued oppression, is related by a gentleman who many years ago went as mineral viewer to the Nerbudda Valley. Almost alone, and far removed from the possibility of obtaining white labour, the natives refused to dig for him. He felt compelled to capture a few men and enforce a day’s work, which he at once honestly paid for with the copper currency of the region. But it seemed to the natives the grossest folly on his part that, having gained the labour, he should pay for what he had already obtained, and feeling sure that he would not repeat such folly, they hid away on the following day. The capture had to be repeated during many successive days, and the heavy coin brought at great inconvenience for the daily payment, before the habit of trust could be fairly established; then an oversupply of willing workers crowded round the encampment.
Freedom.—A great advance was made in the onward march of humanity, when the reasons for abolishing slavery became clear to the conscience of the minority, those nations who lead the van of human progress. The production and sale of human beings as articles of merchandise can be made extremely profitable as a money-making trade. It has been truly said that ‘if the reproduction of capital is the one great means of a nation’s wealth’; if demand and supply, the employment of labour by capital, and profits limited only by the wages of maintenance, are laws of political economy and the right guides of industry, ‘why should sentimental notions about justice and abstract rights of freedom interfere with the national good? Why not grow corn on the sweating system? Why not buy slaves? There is no reason, on so-called economic grounds, why slaves should not be bred like cattle—bred to the exact wants of the agriculturist, and when no more wanted melted down in the sulphuric acid tank and drilled in with the root crops. Any farmer who would have courage to carry on the economy of labour and the reproduction of capital in that way, would farm at a splendid profit.’
For long ages the trade in human beings has been, and is still, carried on. It has only very gradually dawned upon human intelligence, that short-sighted trading customs which destroy the conditions of human development, injure equally the sellers and the sold, and gradually degrade and destroy the societies that practise them. This second foundation of political economy—freedom—still remains unrecognised by the large majority of the human race. But when the destructive character or essential wrong of human slavery was once thoroughly understood by a portion of our nation, they never rested from the fight until it was abolished. The abolition of slavery was the revolt of conscience and intelligence against a false mercantile system which converts everything into money value.
The wisdom of Wilberforce and his heroic band made a great step in advance by laying down a permanent law for the guidance of human industry. They saw that the human being belongs to a different category of creation from the subjects of his industry, and that he may not be made a thing of trade, that he owes duties to himself and to his neighbours, and that he can neither sell another adult, nor his child, nor himself; that the purpose of human life and the methods of attaining it, are both destroyed when the condition of human freedom is violated by converting human bodies into chattels. The abolition of slavery forbade henceforward the purchase or sale of any individual, whether adult or child.
The same uprisings against injustice in the kindred nation of the United States, has produced a similar advance in intelligent conscientiousness. However much the American Revolution may be misunderstood, the facts remain which prove the great moral movement which preceded it—two generations of united and resolute lovers of freedom, although a minority, had fought to the death for the cause of justice, and prepared the way for the great Emancipation Act of 1863.
It could not be denied that temporary phases of political economy were being set at nought by the abolitionists. There was no flaw in the logic of maintaining slavery as a money-making machine. Vast tracts of land were to be cultivated, useful products raised, craving desires satisfied, great profits realized, and a clever, energetic race was able to abuse a weak, childish one. But the abolition of slavery united the two leading branches of the Anglo-Saxon race in setting a limit to trade. They established the law that no human being may be bought or sold. They recognised the fundamental conditions of human industry, trust, and freedom, and thus established that higher law that removes human beings from the operations of a mercantile system which measures all things by the standard of money.
Sympathy.—Another great step in advance has been made by the dawn of the Co-operative movement amongst us. As Abolition set a limit to the subjects of trade, so Co-operation is setting a limit to its methods. True co-operators clearly see that to arrest the slave-owner and the slave-dealer by the strong arm of the law, is but a first step to human progress; it is only compelling a necessary condition, not insuring a good end.
But co-operation will secure gradually the third necessary basis of progressive and durable human industry—viz., sympathy.
Doubtless this statement will at once bring to mind not only the selfish combinations of Civil Service supply, but the multifarious quarrels and departure from principle, in the great body of working people distinctively called co-operators.
Nevertheless, the statement is true that co-operation is a new development of practical Christianity, which can introduce that essential element of true political economy, sympathy, the hitherto missing guide of human industry.
The few friends who met in a small chamber in 1828 and initiated the Manchester and Salford Co-operative Schools were fired by enthusiasm. The poor weavers of Toad Lane, who saved their hard-earned pence and divided their first chest of tea, were filled with pity for their suffering brethren, and eagerly gave the poor room, the precious time, the exhausting thought—all they had to give—to establish the brotherly principle of mutual help. And the large-hearted leaders of the movement, who changed the name of Christian Socialist to Co-operator—Maurice, Kingsley, Ludlow, Hughes, and many another of the first noble little band—laid down a spiritual basis as the essential foundation of durable material success.
It has been said of the labouring classes ‘that they are unfit for any order of things which would make any considerable demand on either their intellect or their virtue.’ The enlightened co-operator perceives that this is true of all classes of men, rich or poor, in a state of things where industry is ruled by unlimited competition, and trade subjects everything to the domination of money. Where all restrictions are removed, but no sympathy developed, new forms of oppression and revenge arise.
Co-operation, therefore, announces a fundamental law of durable political economy. It adopts mutual aid instead of antagonism in industry, extends a share of the results of labour in equitable proportion to all who produce them, and replaces competition in money-getting by emulation in superiority of production.
Thus sympathy, the first necessary foundation of industry and social union, is being slowly evolved by the trials, the failures, but the ultimately assured success of the Co-operative movement.
This gradual recognition of the necessary basis of progressive political economy—trust, freedom, and sympathy (here slightly hinted at)—is itself founded upon a rock—viz., the immutability of the Creator’s law of Moral Government, the adaptation of the human constitution to its surroundings, the only method by which steady growth can be secured. The waves of selfishness and false theories dash themselves vainly against this rock, and race after race perishes in the foolish attempt to set aside the Moral Law.
The hopeful light thrown upon the future by the revelation of freedom and co-operative sympathy, as fundamental laws of true political economy, can only be fully perceived by those who have measured the evils of slavery and sounded the fearful depths of misery produced by unlimited competition. The revelations of the results of this phase of competition in which we are living are all around us, in every class of society, in every quarter of the globe. The mercantile system, which makes wealth and money synonymous, and reduces every interest to a subject of trade, spares no relation of life, and desecrates every rank of society. We need not go back to the crimes which Warren Hastings committed to fill his treasury. The same methods of crushing the weak for money, of bartering honour and conscience in the lust of gain, are going on at this moment in Asia and Africa, in the islands of the Pacific, in uncontrolled America, and enchained Russia. Its effects are seen in the Legislature and the courts of law, in all professions and trades, in the mansion and the lodging-house. Corruption and cruelty inevitably resulting from a false system of political economy, are barring the progress of the human race.
In the present day we prostitute the superior strength gained by us from the principles of Christianity, to the debasement of human beings. Money being considered identical with wealth, sensuality reigns supreme. Money having under this system become the great means of gratifying material desires, the strife to obtain it becomes ever fiercer. The statesman regards it as a highest duty to open new channels of commerce for national activity, quite regardless of the conditions of mutual freedom and sympathy which make commerce legitimate. Whisky, opium, and gunpowder bring rich returns from the ignorant peoples to whom their use was hitherto unknown, and this wicked abuse of our superior intelligence is in strict accord with the short-sighted teaching of the political economy accepted by trade.[14] This species of trade, carried on without limitation, without the large intelligence of religious insight, must produce a fall of any race equal to the height of its development; for although ‘religion without science is a purblind angel, science without religion is a full-blown devil.’
It is into the last possible phase of limitless competition in buying and selling, that our nineteenth century has entered, by permitting one-half the race to become the merchandise of the other half.
Under a specious hypocrisy, falsely styled freedom of contract, a modern phase of slavery is still exercising its influence in our midst; for the slave-holding principle that the human body may be an article of merchandise is still applied to women, and conscience is still dead to the essential principle of freedom—viz., the sacredness of the human body, through which the soul must grow.