Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy
John Stuart Mill · en
The principle on which the distinction is made is perfectly clear,
but in many cases persons may be misled chiefly in regard to
matters of fact. A clergyman may at first sight be classed as an
unproductive laborer; but, until we know the facts, we can not
apply the principle of our definition. Unless we know that no
clergyman, by inculcating rules of morality and self-control, ever
caused an idler or wrong-doer to become a steady laborer, we can
not say that a clergyman is a laborer unproductive of material
wealth. Likewise the army, or the officers of our government at
Washington, may or may not have aided in producing material wealth
according as they do or do not, in fact, accomplish the protective
purposes for which they exist. So with teachers. There is,
however, no disparagement implied in the word unproductive; it is
merely an economic question, and has to do only with forces
affecting the production of wealth.
Unproductive may be as useful as productive labor; it may be more useful,
even in point of permanent advantage; or its use may consist only in
pleasurable sensation, which when gone leaves no trace; or it may not
afford even this, but may be absolute waste. In any case, society or
mankind grow no richer by it, but poorer. All material products consumed
by any one while he produces nothing are so much subtracted, for the time,
from the material products which society would otherwise have possessed.
To be wasted, however, is a liability not confined to unproductive labor.
Productive labor may equally be waste, if more of it is expended than
really conduces to production. If defect of skill in laborers, or of
judgment in those who direct them, causes a misapplication of productive
industry, labor is wasted. Productive labor may render a nation poorer, if
the wealth it produces, that is, the increase it makes in the stock of
useful or agreeable things, be of a kind not immediately wanted: as when a
commodity is unsalable, because produced in a quantity beyond the present
demand; or when speculators build docks and warehouses before there is any
trade.
§ 2. Productive and Unproductive Consumption.