New-York tribune., 1920-12-12
Liuing Standard
Set by Thrifty, Is View
Harvard Professor Says Persons Who Rank Eco
nomic Safety High Among the Desirable Things
of Life Constantly Improve Their Condition

q high standard Of living is not due
solely t0 their failure to understand
the real meaning of the standard of
living. 1t is sometimes due to a fail
not consist in refusing to spend money
or to buy things. 1t consists. under
money economy, in spending money
and buying things, but in spending
money for things Of kind different
rom that which thriftlessness buys.
Thrift buys things with relatively
vivid appreciation Of the future, thrift
lessness buys things with a relatively
dull or weak appreciation of the future.
Thrift regards future needs as COM
parable in importance with present de-
5ires, thrlftiessness regards present
desires as of greater Importance than
future needs.
Thrift vs. Hoarding
Thrift emphatically does not consist
in boarding money. In these days that'
can do with money. 1t consists in
spending money for things which will
bring a permanent or durable j.
vantage. 1t very generally, though not
exclusively. consists in investing
money; that is, in buying incomebear-
ing goods. This may be done directly,
es when q farmer buys a tractor. or
improves his farm as a producing unit.
1t may be done indirectly. rs when one
deposits money in q savings bank, buvs
an insurance policy. or corporation
bond. In all these and many other
cases the saver merely turns his money
over to other agencies and they do the
investing; that is, they buy the pro-
ducers' goods or the incomehearinY
goods with it.
1t is obvious, is It not, that when .
farmer buys q tractor he spends money
as truly as when he buys 4 luxurious
automobile, and that the money spent
employs as much labor and stim mulates
business as much in one case as in the
other, Temporarily. ne has. by SO d.
mediate enjoyment. In the long rum
however, farmers who undergo this
form of deprivation spend more money
and have more means of enjoyment,
possibly better automobiles, than those
thril tless farmers whose standard of
living never looks to the future. As q
matter of observation, thrifty COM
munities spend more money, in the
long run, than thriftless communities
for the sufficient reason that they have
more money to spend But, even with
they remain thrifty larger proportion
of their money is spent for producers
goods than is true in thriftless com
munity.
Too Little Saving
1t ought not 60 be necessary to add
that in advocating higher degree of
thrift one is not advising people to
spend all their money for producers
goods and none for consumers goods.
If it we're the writer's opinion that
any community was going too far in
this direction he would feel justified in
advising a lower degree Of thrift. even
at the risk of being accused of advising
the cessation of all thrift. The writer
does not know Of any such community.
1t seems that there is everywhere too
little rather than too much thrift. He
therefore feels justified in advocating
more thrift, even at the risk of being
accused Of advising people to invest all
their money and consume nothing.
Tho foregoing was .Orltten rs reply
20 charge by book revie,0er in The
Journal OF Political Economy that Pro-
fessor Carver had been Inconsistent IN
advocating both q high standard of to-
ing and high degree Of thrift. The
reply was ,0ritten for the same puttica-
tl0n.--Fsnanclal Editor.)