Thirty or forty years ago,
a stock of shoe-buckles would have been an addition to the real wealth of
this country; at present, they would be valuable only for the material
which composes them; and those who should now be employed in working them
up, instead of adding, would, in fact, detract from the value of the
subject on which their labour was bestowed. We have therefore the
definition of value or wealth confined between two limits, and we shall
come to a sufficiently correct, if not a sufficiently comprehensive notion
of what that is which constitutes wealth or value, if we can but discover
what that is which existed in these shoe-buckles thirty or forty years
ago, and which does not exist at present. They are as substantially
material now as they were before. Were they manufactured, there would be
as much labour wrought up in them as ever, and the only change that we
know of, that has taken place with regard to them is, that they were in
fashion then, and they are so no longer; they cannot now minister to the
enjoyment of the community. So that we must conclude, that these
commodities, or any other commodities whatever, which are the produce of
labour, form a part of the wealth of a country, just because they
minister, in some way or other, to the convenience or enjoyment of its
inhabitants; and because, since they are the produce of the labour of man,
they must have an exchangeable value, if there be any demand for them.
Now it seems to us
remarkably unfair, that of two men, whose labour has precisely the same
effect on the wealth of the society, the one should be denominated a
productive, and the other an unproductive labourer, merely because the
labour of the former is realized in some material commodity, while that of
the latter is not; that, of two men, for example, the object of both of
whom it is to minister to the enjoyment of society, by furnishing them
with music, he who makes a musical instrument should be called a
productive labourer, while he who performs upon that instrument, and but
for whom it could have no value whatever, is stigmatized with the epithet
By Dr. Smith it is
asserted, that the former of these individuals produces a value, while the
other does not. Now, if in this respect there be any difference at all
between them, it seems to us to be, that the one needs materials to work
upon, while the other does not; that the one merely adds to the value of
what was valuable before, while the other creates a value altogether; that
the maker of the instrument merely increases by his labour the value of
brass and wood, and other exchangeable commodities, while the performer on
the instrument gives a value to the unbought air of Heaven; and on this
account, were we to make any distinction, should we deem the labour of the
latter to be much more productive than that of the former.
But it may be said that
this is a mere cavilling about words. It must be remembered, however, that
words are the symbols of ideas, and that the sign necessarily affects the
thing signified. The very distinction against which we have been arguing,
seems to have confused the views of our great author through the whole of
his chapter on labour. After having once associated, with a certain kind
of labour, the idea of unproductiveness, he seems ever after to have
contemplated it with an evil eye, and to have loaded it with the burden
not only of its own faults, but also of those which did not belong to it.
Through the whole chapter
there seems to run a confused notion of a subsisting connection between
expenditure and the support of unproductive labour, and a connection, on
the other hand, between the employment of productive labour and the
accumulation of stock. And thus it is that Dr. Smith attributes to the
supporting of unproductive labour all those evils which are the result of
prodigality and extravagance.
It is some indistinct idea
of a connection between the employment of productive labourers and the
accumulation of capital which Dr. Smith entertains, where he tells us,
that "a man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers, while
every body knows that a man may waste his whole fortune in the purchase of
manufactured commodities; and thus, far from growing rich, may ruin
himself,ó just by employing a multitude of manufacturers."
The same confused ideas
seem to have clouded our authorís understanding, when he wrote the
"Whatever part of his stock
a man employs as a capital, he always expects it to be replaced to him
with profit. He employs it, therefore, in maintaining productive hands
only. Whenever he employs any part of it in maintaining unproductive hands
of any kind, that part is from that moment withdrawn from his capital, and
placed in his stock received for immediate consumption."
If a person worth 1000l..
can employ it in two ways, he can either on the one hand, employ it as a
capital, either directly, or through the medium of the bank; or, on the
other hand, he can use it as a stock reserved for immediate consumption.
In either of these ways I can employ it in supporting indifferently either
productive or unproductive hands; and it does not appear that my success
or my failure will be at all necessarily influenced by this circumstance.
If I use it as a capital I may choose to embark it in some manufacturing
or mercantile speculation, and thus employ productive labourers; or I may
become the manager of a theatre, and thus take into my service a number of
unproductive hands. And this last scheme may be just as profitable, or
even more so than the other.
On the other hand, I may
use the whole of my fortune, or too great a part of it, as a stock
reserved for immediate consumption; and, if I do so, I shall most
certainly go to ruin, whether I spend it in the employment of productive
or unproductive hands. In such a case it will not be the direction, but
the amount of my expenditure, that will bring me to beggary.
But it may go far to
demonstrate the absurdity of upholding the distinction between productive
and unproductive labour, if we can show that one of those whom Dr. Smith
most unequivocally sets down among his unproductive labourers, can be
transferred without any change in his occupation from the service of the
spendthrift to that of the capitalist; for we shall thus prove, first,
that he has become a productive labourer, as Dr. Smith tells us, that
"that part of the annual produce of the land and labour of any country
which replaces a capital, never is immediately employed to maintain any
but productive hands." It pays the wages, he says, of productive labour
Now, let us suppose that a
musical amateur has so impoverished himself by maintaining a full band of
performers for his own entertainment, that he finds himself almost ruined
by his extravagance; but that rather than give up this his favourite
amusement, he resolves, with the wreck of his fortune, to set up an opera,
and offers to retain in his professional capacity still, those performers
who had hitherto ministered to his private enjoyment. And, we may suppose,
still further that they accept of his terms, and that matters go on so
well, that he recruits his fortune by the profits of this speculation.
There does not seem any thing very improbable in all this,ó the difficulty
is to reconcile it with Dr. Smithís chapter.
These men are now supported
by capital, and therefore are productive labourers; but they are
musicians, and therefore are unproductive labourers. Again; they ruined
their employer, and therefore a man may grow poor by employing
unproductive labourers, but they have also again enriched their employer;
and therefore a man may accumulate capital by employing unproductive
There does not seem then to
be any real distinction between productive and unproductive labour; and
even supposing that there is, there seems to be no good reason for Dr.
Smithís idea of a necessary connection between the employment of
unproductive labour and expenditure, or between that of productive labour
and the accumulation of stock.
Dr. Smith seems to have
gone on with the popular idea, that wealth consists only in material
commodities, without much consideration; and the wonder is, not that in
one or two instances his acute understanding has been misled, but that in
by far the greater number he has so successfully succeeded in clearing
away the mists of popular prejudice and error.
Even with regard to the
definition of wealth, it seems to have been our authorís own opinion, had
he kept by it, that it was not confined to material objects. Had Dr. Smith
but remembered his own aphorism, that "every man is rich or poor according
to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries,
conveniences, and amusements of life;" and had he, by his usual train of
reasoning, generalized this proposition, by applying to the whole
community what may be said of every one of its members, we should in all
probability never have heard of productive or unproductive labour.