The independent., 1903-04-30
ENEMIES OF LABOR

columns during the last few years and
the consequence is that these discus
sions must often be repeated to an
swer the inquiries of those who have
had no opportunity to acquaint them
selves with the science of political
economy, or gather the facts that are
necessary to know, when brought in,
to contact with those who defend the
aggressions of plutocracy. There
seems to one error that thousands of
the laboring population cling to with
all the persistency that they would to
what they believed to be divine rev.
elation and part of holy writ.
This error may be divided into two
separate parts. First, that the waste
full expenditure of the rich puts more
money in circulation, and, second,
that it adds to the welfare of the poor
Ii the millionaires had their millions
in gold and that gold locked up in
private vaults, when they gave ball
costing 100000, or built worthless
yacht costing half million, then they
would add to the money in circula-
tion those amounts. But that is not
the case at all. The average million
aire carries around with him and out
of circulation very little money, per-
haps not as much as the average man
of business. If he has much ready
cash it is deposited in the banks and
the banks keep it constantly in cir
culation. The waSteful expenditure
of million dollars would not add
one dollar to the circulation. Addi-
tional money must be created to do
that and as yet the government has
not delegated to the millionaires the
right to coin money.
The second part of the proposition
is an error as old as the hills and has
been refuted by every economist OF
authority who has written on the sub
ject. In discussing that question Mill
says:
THE person who expends his for
tune in unproductive consumption is
looked upon as diffusing benefits all
around, and is an object of so much
favor, that some portion of the same
popularity attaches to him who spends
what does not belong to him. +.
This popular error comes from at
tending to a small portion only of the
consequences that flow from the
spending or the saving; all the eff
fects of either, which are out of sight,
being out of mind. There is inSone
case the wearing out of tools, de-
| struction of material, and quantity
of food and clothing supplied to la
borers, which they destroy by use:
in the other case there is consumption
only, a destruction of wines, equipages
and furniture. Thus far the conse-
quences to national wealth has been
much the same; an equivalent guam
tity of it has been destroyed in both
cases. But in the spending, this first
stage is also the last stage; that par
ticular amount of the produce of la
Dor has disappeared and there is
nothing left, while on the other hand,
during the whole time that the de-
struction was going on, the saving
person mill here means the person
engaged in the production of wealth.
has had laborers to work repairing it;
who are ultimately found to have re-
placed, with an increase, the equiva-
lent of what has been consumed.
Almost all expenditure being car
ried on by means of money, the mon
ey becomes to be looked upon as the
main feature in the transaction and
since that does not perish, but only
changes hands, people overlook the
+ destruction that takes place in unpro-
ductive expenditure. The money be-
ing merely transferred, they think the
wealth has also been handed over by
the spendthrift to the other people.
But this is simply confounding money
with wealth. The wealth that has
been destroyed was not the money,
but the wines, equipages and furni-
ture which the money purchased, and
these having been destroyed without
return, society is poorer by that
amount. Not only the employment
for productive laborers is diminished,
but the subsistence and instruments
which are the means of such employ
ment do actually exist in smaller
quantity"
If the above extracts are closely
studied it will be seen that the only
conclusion that can be drawn is that
the millionaires who expend thou
sands of dollars upon horse and mon
key dinners, the building of million
dollar yachts and other things of like
nature, are engaged in the destruction
&c N uyno1tb nf tha ND ~