The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
A similar example of forcible taking is seen in case of war. Savage
tribes plunder and take captive their weaker neighbors. Conquering
modern nations usually exact tribute from defeated enemies. Germany got
a billion dollars from France, Japan a quarter of a billion from China.
The terms of peace at the close of our great Civil War were the most
liberal ever granted by conqueror to vanquished; and yet the federal
pensions granted to Northern soldiers are a form of tribute, being paid
by taxes falling alike upon the North and the South. In all these cases
the distribution by force is unwillingly suffered. In none of them is it
reducible to economic rules or capable of a strict economic explanation.
[Sidenote: Charitable distribution within the family]
2. _Distribution may be charitable, that is, determined by
considerations of benevolence and affection._ Charitable is here used in
its original sense, as synonymous with love or affection. First to be
mentioned is the love of parents, the root and type of all the forms of
charity. The lack of economic equivalence in the relation of parent and
child is complete in early years. The helpless infant gives nothing
economic to the parent, the parent gives all to the child. Gradually,
however, the balance is regained; as the years go on, not only does the
child repay in affection but in many cases he repays in material ways.
In the factory districts and on the farm the child in early years begins
to reëstablish the balance, becomes a worker, and contributes as much as
the cost of his support, and finally more. A student of modern English
town life has traced the curve of poverty traversed by the average child
of the poor, as the family moves, now below, again above, the level of
minimum income required for physical efficiency. In the middle or
propertied classes the children do not for many years take the burden
from the parents, and it is doubtful whether in most cases the economic
balance is ever reëstablished. It is not to the parents, but to the
succeeding generation, that the debt is vicariously paid.
[Sidenote: And in larger circles]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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