Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy
John Stuart Mill · en
It is asserted that the prevalence of homicide in certain parts of
the United States has had a vital influence in retarding the
material growth of those sections. The Southern States have
received but a very small fraction (from ten to thirteen per cent)
of foreign immigration. “A country where law and order prevail to
perfection may find its material prosperity checked by a deadly
and fatal climate; or, on the other hand, a people may destroy all
the advantages accruing from matchless natural resources and
climate by persistent disregard of life and property. A rather
startling confirmation of this economic truth is afforded by the
fact that homicide has been as destructive of life in the South as
yellow fever. Although there have been forty thousand deaths from
yellow fever since the war, the deaths from homicide, for the same
period, have been even greater.”(129) The influence of the old
slave _régime_, and its still existing influences, in checking
foreign immigration into the South can be seen by the colored
chart, No. VIII, showing the relative density of foreign-born
inhabitants in the several parts of the United States. The deeper
color shows the greater foreign-born population.
The more perfect the security, the greater will be the effective strength
of the desire of accumulation. Where property is less safe, or the
vicissitudes ruinous to fortunes are more frequent and severe, fewer
persons will save at all, and, of those who do, many will require the
inducement of a higher rate of profit on capital to make them prefer a
doubtful future to the temptation of present enjoyment.
In the circumstances, for example, of a hunting tribe, “man may be said to
be necessarily improvident, and regardless of futurity, because, in this
state, the future presents nothing which can be with certainty either
foreseen or governed.... Besides a want of the motives exciting to provide
for the needs of futurity through means of the abilities of the present,
there is a want of the habits of perception and action, leading to a
constant connection in the mind of those distant points, and of the series
of events serving to unite them. Even, therefore, if motives be awakened
capable of producing the exertion necessary to effect this connection,
there remains the task of training the mind to think and act so as to
establish it.”
§ 3. Examples of Deficiency in the Strength of this Desire.