Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy
John Stuart Mill · en
What follows? That the laborers become consumers of luxuries; and the
capital previously employed in the production of luxuries is still able to
employ itself in the same manner; the difference being, that the luxuries
are shared among the community generally, instead of being confined to a
few, supposing that the power of their labor were physically sufficient to
produce all this amount of indulgences for their whole number. Thus the
limit of wealth is never deficiency of consumers, but of producers and
productive power. Every addition to capital gives to labor either
additional employment or additional remuneration.
That laborers should get more (_a_) by capitalists abstaining from
unproductive expenditure than (_b_) by expenditure in articles
unproductively consumed is a question difficult for many to
comprehend, and needs all the elucidation possible. To start with,
no one ever knew of a community all of whose wants were satisfied:
in fact, civilization is constantly leading us into new fields of
enjoyment, and results in a constant differentiation of new
desires. To satisfy these wants is the spring to nearly all
production and industry. There can, therefore, be no stop to
production arising from lack of desire for commodities. “The limit
of wealth is never deficiency of consumers,” but of productive
power.
Now, in supposition (2) of the text, remember that the laborers
are supposed not to be employed up to their full productive power.
If all capitalists abstain from unproductive consumption, and
devote that amount of wealth to production, then, since there can
be no production without labor, the same number of laborers have
offered to them in the aggregate a larger sum of articles for
their exertions, which is equivalent to saying they receive
additional wages.