It is to be added that a large share of those features of consumable
goods which figure in popular apprehension as marks of serviceability,
and to which reference is here had as elements of conspicuous waste,
commend themselves to the consumer also on other grounds than that of
expensiveness alone. They usually give evidence of skill and effective
workmanship, even if they do not contribute to the substantial
serviceability of the goods; and it is no doubt largely on some such
ground that any particular mark of honorific serviceability first comes
into vogue and afterward maintains its footing as a normal constituent
element of the worth of an article. A display of efficient workmanship
is pleasing simply as such, even where its remoter, for the time
unconsidered, outcome is futile. There is a gratification of the
artistic sense in the contemplation of skillful work. But it is also to
be added that no such evidence of skillful workmanship, or of ingenious
and effective adaptation of means to an end, will, in the long run,
enjoy the approbation of the modern civilized consumer unless it has the
sanction of the Canon of conspicuous waste.
The position here taken is enforced in a felicitous manner by the place
assigned in the economy of consumption to machine products. The point
of material difference between machine-made goods and the hand-wrought
goods which serve the same purposes is, ordinarily, that the former
serve their primary purpose more adequately. They are a more perfect
product--show a more perfect adaptation of means to end. This does not
save them from disesteem and deprecation, for they fall short under
the test of honorific waste. Hand labor is a more wasteful method
of production; hence the goods turned out by this method are more
serviceable for the purpose of pecuniary reputability; hence the marks
of hand labor come to be honorific, and the goods which exhibit these
marks take rank as of higher grade than the corresponding machine
product. Commonly, if not invariably, the honorific marks of hand
labor are certain imperfections and irregularities in the lines of the
hand-wrought article, showing where the workman has fallen short in the
execution of the design. The ground of the superiority of hand-wrought
goods, therefore, is a certain margin of crudeness. This margin must
never be so wide as to show bungling workmanship, since that would be
evidence of low cost, nor so narrow as to suggest the ideal precision
attained only by the machine, for that would be evidence of low cost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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