Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-28
AN ERRONEOUS THEORY.

The following query from reader
Of THE DISPATCH in Washington is
interesting as presenting difficulty to
those who are subject to the not uneom-
mon error of locking only at one side of
The questions of political economy:
Concerning your article on standing ar
mics. think the workers of Europe gladly
pay tax required to relieve them of all that
tremendous tax of competition. What would
become of their already overstocl1ed labor
market were all those superfiuous millions
sent to try to get work? l wish you would
explain this difficulty. Such armies are a
necessity in populations of those densities.
The difficulty stated here is the same as
that which lies at the bottom of the ideas
tGat labor-saving machinery takes away
wages from the laborer, or that over-pro-
duction can cause want, or, in other words,
lhat because there is too much grain, too
much clothing, too much iron, too many
sl0es, therefore people must suffer from
taa lack Of grain, clothing, iron, and shoes.
The one idea contradicts the history of
3=relOpment; the other when analyzed,
eautradietS itself etpeople assert them
almost as positively as our correspondent
does that the density of population makes
standing armies a necessity. If he
had taken the trouble to compare the
density of population in Russia, Turkey
or Austro-Hungary with that of New Eng
and, New York or Pennsylvania, and to
observe that England with the greatest
density Of population has the smallest
standing army of the Great Powers, he
might have been less positive in that as
sertion.
The error at the base of all these mistaken
theories is the failure to perceive that un-
der normal conditions every addition to
+he number of laborers in productive in
dustry means an exactly equal addition to
he number of consumers who are able to
pay for what they consume with the fruits
of their own labor. The soldiers of Europe
are consumers it is true; but who pays for
their labor? 1t is admitted by our cor
respondent that the productive laborers
must do so; and the utter falsity of his
further idea is. easily demonstrated even
with the supposition that if these idle mill
ions should be turned into productive
work there would be no increase of the
total production Of the various commodi-
pose that 100000 workers are Kept busy
in a single nation to earn a living
for themselves and 100000 of idle
soldiers. 1t is easily imaginable
that they must toll nearly every working
day in the year to do so; and 300 days
work for each of them would amount TO
total Of 1000, 600 days work Then
imagine that the 100000 soldiers are
at liberty to do part of the work. The
amount required to produce the same
suStenance for the total as before is not
changed; but there are 5000, 900 men to do
it, and 225 days work for each man, all
that is needed to supply the total with the
same living as they had before. In other
words, the result, even if there were no
general increase Of production, would be
relief for the workers of exactly one
fourth of their present labor.
But this is not all the gain, nor, indeed,
is it even an accurate statement of what
would occur, were the armies of Europe
mustered out The real result would be
that some of them would cause an
additional production in agriculture,
which would be the purchasing
power Of an additional consumption for
the products of mines, mills and textile
factories; Others would go into mining and
with the increased production of that in
dustry purchase more of the products of
agriculture, mills and textile factories;
and so on through the whole round of in