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Society And its Purpose

Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies

CHAPTER 20

Continuation — Does an increase in needs greater than the means for satisfying them obtain always and necessarily the effect claimed by political theorists who support movement?

670. Although our observations clearly demonstrate the imperfection of the politics of movement, we need to continue our investigation of this system which still has a large number of supporters. Its root vice , as we noted, is to value only external good and transitory pleasure, not contentment of spirit. Clearly, however, every time an external good does not satisfy, it is not a good - even pagan antiquity saw this.(300)

671. We leave this aside, however, and take for granted not only that the object of our investigation is material good but that peoples' progress in civilisation depends on this sole good. We ask whether it is a good rule, as suggested, to act in such a way that people's needs should increase more than the means of satisfying them on the grounds that the people, stimulated by their unsatisfied needs, will better develop their activity and increase their industry? Will such a means always and necessarily obtain the desired effect? And will the civilisation of peoples increase in proportion to the total, unsatisfied needs?

The rule is presented to us in all its simplicity and generality. Any possible exceptions of course should be indicated so that injudicious use of them in certain cases may not produce the opposite of what is claimed. Let us see if the rule is constantly verified in reality, as the supporters of movement imagine in theory. The effect intended by use of the rule is to civilise people. So let us first see how this is effected when applied to peoples who are still at the lowest stage relative to civilisation.

672. English settlers in North America made use of the rule in their contacts with the Indians of the West, who as hunters had few needs and were easily contented. The colonists caused many intense needs in the indigenous population without providing an equal portion of means suitable for satisfying the needs. What were the effects produced in the tribes by this increase in needs? Not civilisation, as we all know, but irreparable extermination.

673. An author who observed and attentively reflected on these people(301) describes the event as follows:

This is the fact; let us look at the causes:

674. Thus Europeans stimulated new needs in them, as prescribed by the political theory of movement. The objects required for satisfying these new needs did not keep abreast of the needs, as the theory required. Let us see if this made the Indians more civilised:

675. Increased needs therefore do not always mean increased industry for satisfying the needs, as the system we are examining supposes. The supposition that human beings are always stimulated to industrious activity by the pressure of increased needs is false. In certain circumstances the pressure only produces impoverishment and even extreme misery of peoples, who give up even what is necessary for their existence in order to satisfy the irresistible urgency of their needs. The reduction of things necessary for existence means reduced population. Needs increased under these circumstances are more capable of destroying poor, primitive peoples than civilising and enriching them.

The American Indians are forced to offer hides to the Europeans in order to satisfy the new needs aroused in them by the proximity of Europeans. To be able to offer the skins, they must destroy beasts, but these, either having been destroyed or having fled the intensified war against them, no longer range the territories. Consequently, the lands become useless to the hunter-Indians. Finally, they sell their land at a low price because the hides are not sufficient to satisfy their new needs, and thus lose even the ground over which they wandered. Let us continue with the description of the effects of the political doctrine that forms the object of our attention. It was applied to the Indians not to civilise but despoil them of their worldly possessions, their forests and their fertile wilderness:

676. I will quote part of an official report to Congress made by Clark and Lewis Cass on the 4th February 1829. The document is furnished by the author whose words I have just quoted. This description of the way the Americans persuade the Indians to sell their lands demonstrates very clearly how increased needs blind peoples, particularly simple peoples, and ruin them through the passions aroused in them, rather than develop their intelligence and lead them along the path of commendable industry, as some people think:

677. These facts teach us something about human nature and show how vague and general is the abstract theory that peoples' needs must be increased if their industry and civilised condition is to be increased. The theory therefore can very often be extremely harmful in practice.

678. The real facts presented by human nature and ignored by the theory are the following:

1. Unsatisfied needs generate passions in those in whom the needs are stimulated. Passions, instead of enlightening the intellect, darken and confuse it. On the other hand, industrious effort makes intelligence increase rather than diminish or become false. Whenever new needs cause strong, impetuous passions, they drive us on in a false, harmful direction.

2. Stimulated needs can be satisfied in different ways, each way having either no consequences, or good consequences, or finally harmful consequences. For example, I can satisfy my needs by honest labour or stealing. In the first case, in the very act of providing for my need, I obtain the benefit of increased industry together with all the good proper to an industrious life. In the case of stealing, I still provide for my need but worsen my moral state and incur all the evils resulting from immorality. There are therefore several ways of satisfying my needs, some good in their consequences, others evil. The needs I experience cannot be a cause of good for me unless I am in a state in which I know how to satisfy and am able and want to satisfy my needs by upright, useful means.

The Indian, for example, because he lacks foresight, does not even know how to choose industrious effort as a means for supplying his needs; he thus relies on the disastrous sale of his lands. Without sufficient dominion over himself to defer the satisfaction of his desires for even a short time (which would demand industrious effort), and because any delay would be unbearable, he is unable to choose the best means; instead, he chooses the worst and sells the only wealth he possesses and his only sustenance on earth. Finally, evil people choose immoral means to satisfy their increased need because such a means is easier, more convenient and, above all, more conformable to their evil character. They do not choose good means because they do not wish to do choose them. Granted these undeniable facts and granted the increase in artificial needs of improvident peoples, the effect is ruination. - If we increase the artificial needs of peoples of childish, unpredictable instincts, as uncivilised peoples must be, the effect is the same. - If we increase the needs of corrupt peoples, the effect will be to hasten their material ruin simultaneously with the rapid increase and deepening of their immorality.

679. We must note that there is no nation, no matter how civilised and cultured, that does not contain deep within itself 1. people entirely or partly deficient in foresight, 2. people who because of age or character have very childish, unpredictable tastes, 3. immoral people.

680. Clearly, therefore, the increase of needs brought about by the government of any nation whatsoever will produce a fatal effect (in other words, an increase of misery and immorality) in these three classes of persons. Wise politics must take into account this inevitable effect, which produces an increase of desires and of needs stimulated artificially in every nation. It is also clear that the harm done to the State by increasing the needs and desires of the people is in direct proportion to the number of people in the three classes.

681. The harmful effect produced by every artificial increase of needs explains a fact constantly and manifestly visible in the most civilised nations, particularly the capitals of Europe. In our magnificent capitals, of which we are proud, extreme misery is seen alongside excessive wealth, the most monstrous immorality alongside social virtues. This fact loses its mystery if we consider that in large cities and nations artificial needs together with intense desires are increased much more than in any other place. The excessive increase of these needs and desires necessarily produces the greatest misery and immorality in proportion to the large number of inhabitants who belong to one or other of the three classes I have mentioned.

682. If we were to keep children ignorant of artificial needs so that they lacked the intense desires consequent upon these needs, they would have no cause for lack of submission and affection for their parents, as becomes their nature, or for not living peacefully in their families. On the other hand, if these needs, together with the desires for satisfying them, are stimulated in the young, they will turn to stealing at home, to gambling and other illegitimate ways of obtaining their goal because they lack the legitimate means of satisfying their desires during their period of education. Increasing the number of artificial needs in the young is the same as causing disquiet and rancour in them, turning them away from decent, helpful education, which the parents want, and setting them on the road of immorality and corruption.

If the poor who could not work were ignorant of artificial needs, they would live peacefully and harmlessly off the little alms they received from the charity of others. But once they have the will to live in better conditions, their honestly received alms will no longer be enough; they will turn to thieving and contribute to human vice by prostitution, procurement and other despicable means of making money. Increasing the number of artificial needs in the poor therefore is the same as 1. increasing the number of thieves and consequently reducing the security of the property of honest-living citizens, 2. increasing the number of victims of dissolute living, 3. increasing the number of slaves of vice and making vice easier for all, 4. initiating a division and intestine war between the different classes of citizens - the poor, sunken in immorality and despicable, become not only incapable of escaping their miserable state but repugnant in the eyes of the other classes, obnoxious and inimical to society and deserving destruction rather than aid; they are full of hatred and are hated in turn. The loss of compassion towards the poor, an inevitable result of hardening of heart on the part of both classes, is an immeasurable injury to the moral and peaceful state of society.

683. In the case of other classes, the peasant and artisan know only those needs that are satisfied by working the ground or by daily earnings. Both live content in their families and enjoy domestic happiness. If their needs increase by one degree such that (according to the best possible hypothesis) they can satisfy their needs with a little more effort and care, they will feel no hardship, because the greater effort manages to satisfy their needs. The hypothesis of course applies only to individuals who are well used to the habit of work; others do not feel the same stimulus, which perhaps only helps to increase their evil and wickedness.

Peasants, artisans and manufacturers, therefore, who have been used to labour, respond to new needs with increased effort. Is this increase in effort good or evil? - Clearly, if the families of peasants and wage-earners are obliged to make an excessive effort to supply their needs, they become subject to a heavier burden and greater poverty. Excessive work, necessary for supplying their needs, finally becomes oppressive and unbecoming to human nature. Dissatisfaction with work itself sets in, and bodily strength is no longer conserved but dissipated. If anyone falls ill in the house or is unemployed, the reduction in income causes more intense, and perhaps even fatal worry. In other words, the more tired this class of people becomes, the more tempted they are to abandon the work in order to look for some means which can offer an immediate way to satisfaction without such oppression.

684. The previous case concerned artificial needs which have increased by only one level. What will be the effect if they increase by another level? - The first effect will be division and discord in the family. Those who have observed the events of daily life will understand this immediately. A family is composed of a weak part (the women and children) and a strong part (the fathers and adult sons). If the needs to be satisfied are many, the result will inevitably be domestic tyranny or the oppression of the weak part by the strong. Heads of family who have many urgent artificial needs will leave their wives and children languishing in misery while they find contentment for their demanding appetites by squandering their earnings in taverns and places of riotous, dissolute living. The adult sons quarrel with their fathers, and war breaks out between the two strong parties.

Usually the sons win, either because paternal love mitigates the fathers' fury, or because the elder, stronger sons challenge the older father who works and earns less than they and whose disorderly conduct has never inspired respect. Amongst the adult men there are vices and discord; amongst the women, drudgery, deprivation and affliction. Education is abandoned, and joyless families left without anyone to govern them. Amongst the agricultural and manufacturing class, all this is undoubtedly the effect of artificial needs stimulated beyond a particular degree.

685. If the same political theory continues to be applied, artificial needs will grow in number and urgency, and income from work will be totally inadequate for satisfying them. Moreover, people urged on by desires and passions inadequate to their state are not disposed to renounce these desires and passions. They must choose one of two courses: either to employ illegitimate means to satisfy them, or to abandon underpaid employment to look for more lucrative work. This happens continually in the most advanced societies. I appeal to people who have observed societies: human beings, stimulated by needs which exceed the means offered by their employment, divide into two classes: those who turn to evil, and those who try to improve their state. Let us see whether it is helpful to society to direct people to one of these courses.

686. Those who turn to evil, such as assassins, fraudsters, robbers, gamblers, pettifoggers and swindlers of every kind are persons acutely stimulated by artificial needs. Because they have no other way of satisfying these needs, they turn to despoiling others of property either by force or trickery. Thus, the cause of all the principal evils of society, which drives human beings to leave the decent classes amongst whom they live in order to go and destroy themselves in the delinquent classes, must clearly be seen in an excessive quantity of artificial needs and in the drive of the desires and passions which are produced by, and in turn produce the needs. This kind of political theory can never be helpful or wise.

687. In the same way we can easily maintain with solid reasons that those who follow the second course benefit society. They abandon their present state to look for something more lucrative which everybody thinks better and in which they can more easily satisfy their heartfelt needs.

They resemble the first group by abandoning their employment, but unlike the others do not choose an evil course. If peasants and artisans abandon their employment because their numbers exceed society's needs, no evil is done. But this is not the reason why they leave their profession; the reason is entirely selfish, not social. The needs which they now feel and of which they were previously ignorant are initiated by the government. Consequently, they no longer find pleasure in work which does not provide the means for satisfying the new needs. No government, we must note, responsible for arousing artificial needs in the members of the society can in any way limit the number of those who have these desires. In fact, such a move would be outside its theory which generally speaking prescribes that the growth of the needs must always exceed that of the means for satisfying the needs.

688. Needs, therefore, which are aroused in peasants and artisans and cannot be satisfied with available income cause these disaffected workers to abandon their profession. Such action can only be harmful every time they withdraw their labour from agriculture and crafts. The work deteriorates because of the reduction of workers, with consequent economic harm to industry and to the nation in general. A nation in which the employee's will to work is lacking and the price of labour is excessive faces a huge obstacle, which makes its progress in industry and trade, that is, in its enrichment, difficult or even impossible. Such a people trails behind in the competition it faces from other nations.

689. We must further bear in mind that those who abandon their own profession to learn a more lucrative trade expose themselves and the nation to inevitable loss. They have to overcome difficulties which often result in failure to obtain what they had hoped for.

In regard to what is lost:

1. A period of time elapses between the feeling for a change of profession aroused by extraordinary needs, and the effective decision to change. During this period, the worker is plagued by uncertainty and increasing discontent. Each day, his love for his present occupation decreases; he becomes more negligent in his application precisely because he knows he must soon abandon the work. This uncertain, restless state is ruinous both for family economy and for morality. He gives himself up to amusement or passes the time in idleness whenever occasion offers; his habitual exertion is already far too irksome for him. Young men who abandon their initial profession nearly always suffer some unfortunate consequence .

2. The worker who abandons the profession in which, as it were, he was born, and takes on another, abandons a known skill to learn an unknown skill. The change thus entails a loss of both time and ability. Generally speaking, it is difficult for a person to become more skilled in a new trade than in that learnt from his parents and, as it were, assimilated with his mother's milk.

In addition to this difficulty he has many others to overcome. He has to pay for his course of studies and compete with other keen students while contending with adverse circumstances and the unfamiliarity of a state whose customs and practices he does not know. He lacks experience in dealing with concomitant dangers, and finds himself amongst colleagues who are already experts.

690. But even if we suppose all difficulties are solved, our political theorists still face a huge problem. The fact that they have aroused great desires and unrestrained needs in the agricultural and industrial classes forces these classes into the posts occupied by the upper classes. Similarly, the political system of movement puts pressure on and dislodges the upper classes themselves from their posts by the same means, that is, by arousing new needs in all the citizens.

The great problem therefore is: `Is it helpful to human society when everyone wants to abandon his own position for the sake of a higher position?' We may well wonder where all these people will move to. As far as I can see, the social pyramid, however flattened and truncated it may be at the apex, has a large base. I mean that the lowest functions necessarily occupy a large number of persons, the highest only a few. What happens if an immense multitude scrambles like looters for the highest positions and functions? Movement of this kind ends in restricted space for everyone. Ensuing pressure will inevitably lead to ferocious rivalry amongst all the contenders, and disappointment for the majority because the desired posts can only be held by a few. The political theory we are discussing makes a universal need of insatiable ambition and of harmful thirst for honour, power and money. But it cannot increase at will the number of persons constituting the highest classes.

Consequently, the highest positions in society are always held uneasily, and are under constant attack by the violent or the more cunning - in other words, by those who have a more exaggerated need of high position, not by the best people. Those who achieve these posts are weary when they get them, wounded by their defeated rivals and uncertain of holding on for more than a short time. Modern governments have indeed increased immensely the number of bureaucrats, but have still failed to find enough posts for the great crowd of applicants; the universities continue to pour out into society hundreds of young people who feel an immense need to influence public affairs, but remain for years without positions or sustenance in families impoverished by the expenses incurred for their maintenance during the years of study.

691. If the defenders of a political theory which prescribes the increase of peoples' artificial needs were consistent, they would favour a hierarchy of many social levels, not cheaply acquired governments. This would allow for a greater distance between bottom and top. The different classes could move up without coming to a sudden stop and without contestation; each could receive something to keep them busy at every rung of the ladder. But it is obviously incoherent for authors to claim that their policy makes them popular and supporters of material equality among citizens when the theory would only avoid harm in a monarchical society where it could indeed be practised for some time without destroying the whole society.

If this material equality could be established, every social movement would end. Clearly, in a State where all the people and every good were equally balanced and thus formed a single class, the only effect of any movement on the part of the people impelled by needs would be to deviate them from the common direction and destroy the established equality. Teaching which prescribes the stimulation of a people's artificial needs is therefore the mortal enemy of equality, and could never be reconciled with equality amongst citizens. Moreover it is impossible for needs aroused by government to increase in everybody in the same way and to the same degree. Consequently, the effort made by citizens to satisfy themselves must remain unequal, together with the procurement of the good towards which they strive with varying enthusiasm.

692. The possibility of greater movement is present, of course, where there is a great distance between the lowest and highest classes, as in monarchies. This movement can take the citizens closer to equality of opportunity and power, granted that the needs increase in the lower but not the upper classes. Careful consideration will show that what I have said is the key explaining the real origin of the political system of movement, a movement that has been dominant in peoples' minds and feeling during the previous three centuries.

What I have said also explains the movement's spirit and partly justifies its instincts while condemning its formulas. We oppose the formulas because they do not measure up to the spirit of the system; they are shown to be vague, undetermined, and therefore fatal to human society. In fact nothing could be more disastrous or indeed more evil than this system of politics: it requires that the artificial needs of the members of a society be increased, but does not indicate the quality or limit of these needs, or the classes in which the artificial needs can usefully increase, or the social circumstances which make the increase desirable. If artificial needs must increase in all classes, they must also increase in the upper classes, even at the highest level. This must surely cause great ambition, insatiable voracity, cruelty and luxury in influential people and princes. It must surely arouse every kind of passion to the point of fury, and cause great temptation to the abuse of power in all those who wield it, whatever the form of government.

This, I repeat, is exactly what is prescribed by the formulas when taken literally. All who apply formulas alone, without letting their conduct be guided by an intimate sense of the times, act in this way. Nor would it be difficult to indicate the evil effects which these rigorous sensists have left and continually leave in modern societies.

693. If we observe the achievements of the political instincts of modern nations during the last three centuries, we will easily see that these instincts contradict, rather than express the abstract formulas which we have refuted. These formulas are not faithful expressions of the instincts (although their authors think they are). The very principle guiding the whole conduct of public affairs for the last three hundred years has not been to increase needs in general, but to raise the standard of the lower classes and awaken in them desires and hopes which would activate them.

It is also inappropriate to say that the conduct of public affairs aims at the increase of the people's needs. These needs are unfortunately a useless result, but not the end of the practical politics of the modern centuries, when these politics are correctly understood, that is, understood in their true spirit, in the better part of their spirit. This kind of politics really wants to increase in the lower class knowledge of their own interests and the resolve to apply themselves to these interests with foresight and activity (a praiseworthy policy); the needs are merely the evil inevitabilities of good business, as it were - in human affairs, every kind of improvement involves some new evil because of a deep, ontological, inevitable law which escapes the gaze of superficial perfectionists. But our badly equipped philosophers uphold needs as the principal, practical reality, and formulate their absurd theory on them. Furthermore, the noble desire of developed nations to see the masses less ignorant and inactive originated principally in the monarchical States where the lower class was beginning to produce developed, rich, cultured people, that is, people influential in the social body through their hard work, ability and merit.

These individuals formed a middle-class between the lower class from which they had come and the aristocracy towards which they moved. They were in a position to reflect on the heavy burden of ignorance and inability that weighed on the great majority of nations, and see how, because of this ignorance and virtual stupidity, their own rights were undefended. They saw how the road to oppression was open to those whose education made them more powerful, more astute and more united. Their intention therefore was to raise the people higher socially; they hoped to accomplish this by making themselves the guides, teachers and inspirers of the people.(305) But although they had originally been moved by a feeling of humanity, equity and justice, some amongst them were impatient, violent and evil. Some wanted immediate results from their plan whatever the circumstances; they chose the means they believed most adapted to accomplish the task, but without considering whether these means were prudent, just, equitable and upright. Others were disaffected by resistance; anger gave them weapons. Consequently, a task which was essentially peaceful turned into bloodshed and murder.

Finally, some, who lacked both morality and religion, united with the others for secondary ends and their own interest. They brought confusion into all the ideas determining the nature of the enterprise. In order to complete the task speedily (a task which their corrupt minds had deformed and disconnected from the original design), they spared nothing of what was most sacred and holy on the earth. They turned into an abomination the humanitarian movement that had started from a principle of justice and from a feeling of universal brotherhood, a feeling which Christianity had inserted and hidden deep in the human heart, so that it might germinate in society at the proper season. These impatient, violent and evil people have channelled their passions into the most bizarre of political theories. One such theory, it seems to me, is that which prescribes governments in general `always to increase needs in society more than the means to satisfy them.'

694. It is true of course that not all supporters of the politics of movement are so extreme. Some explain their thought more moderately. According to them, not all the citizens should move to a higher class in reality, although competition for better conditions and positions should be open to all.

695. I fully support free competition for every kind of good, provided we do not misunderstand `competition', an undetermined and equivocal word. I do not espouse competition as the sole source and principle of justice, but as the effect, not the cause of justice, that is, as the effect of justice which is anterior to and therefore determines the right of competition. If this important distinction is ignored, the meaning of the word remains uncertain, and opens the field to many unfortunate sophisms.

696. Secondly, does the increase of everybody's needs really make free competition open to all? Too many people crowding into restricted space obstruct each another, and the few for whom room is available can only enter more slowly and with more difficulty. Moreover, saying that the way is equally open to all is not the same as claiming that all need take it, even when they lack the energy. It is always a good thing to find a mountain path open, provided I am free to climb to the peak or not. But it is an intolerable burden if I am forced to ascend in unsuitable conditions, or need to ascend without being able to reach the top. In this case, I am simply risking my life uselessly.

697. In fact, it is the most needy who get hurt when many people compete in the way we have described. As we saw, the American Indians perished in their poverty because they could not compete with the rich when their desires had increased their needs. Rich people can satisfy their needs with what is superfluous, but the poor only with what is necessary. The Europeans exchanged their abundance for things indispensable to the subsistence of the Indians who, when they had satisfied their artificial needs, had nothing even to live on.

698. We must not think that this happens only when peoples who are still at the lowest level of civilisation come face to face with civilised nations. It is a universal fact put briefly to say that in a competition `the prize goes to the strongest.' Some Indian nations of the southern part of America, like the Cherokee and the Creeks,(306) have taken steps in the right direction and made some progress, but

699. The effect of competition, always fatal to the poorest, is the same even when people have taken a third step towards becoming civilised, that is, a step beyond the Cherokee and Krexee. Again, our example is in America. Before the coming of the American settlers, the city of Vincennes on the Wabash, founded in the wilderness by the French in the middle of last century, lacked nothing. The Americans, who were richer than the French (who had already taken what they wanted from the Indians) ruined the French through competition; they purchased their land at a very low price, and the French population, already reduced in numbers, had to move elsewhere to find sustenance.

Similar effects are produced by competition in nations at three different grades of progress towards civilisation; 1. when primitive; 2. when making progress towards civilisation; 3. when almost civilised, but still somewhat uncouth. When competing with fully civilised nations, primitive nations are destroyed; those at the second level lose the means and will to progress along the road of civilisation; decadent nations are impoverished and break up.

700. In all these facts we should note that competition between civilised peoples at different stages of development would not entail such sad consequences if artificial needs had not been aroused in the less civilised. Why do tribes who hunt sell their wilderness? Why do people who have already applied themselves to agriculture sell their agricultural tools? And finally, why do those on the verge of civilised life sell their cultivated lands? The answer is always: the need for drink, fine clothing, useless ornaments, and other necessities and longings aroused in them. Having no other way of satisfying these needs, they sacrifice the most essential things. If these entirely artificial needs had not been aroused, they would never have consumed their sole and entire source of subsistence in order to second their needs. The greatest consumers are those with many needs; and more consumption means more poverty. The successful person is the one who produces and sells his produce to those who need it. Needs therefore are useless for enriching needy people; they enrich only those without needs, and at the expense of those who have needs and want to satisfy them.(307) If superfluous needs are removed, devastating competition is no longer possible between unequal peoples.

701. What has been said about competition between nations at different stages of progress towards civilisation must also be said about the different classes of people who make up a nation. If we supposed the needs aroused in different classes of people to be equal, they would require equal expenditure to satisfy them. But equal pressure to spend is certainly not an equal burden for people with different means; it is a greater, more harmful burden for those with lesser means. For the hard-pressed families of artisans and peasants, ten pounds wasted on carousing can be much more disastrous than a thousand pounds wasted by a rich family on a banquet. Competition is not always the best thing for a nation, as some think; very often it profits only the rich, especially the industrially rich.

702. Finally, from all these reflections we can form a most important principle for determining 1. the level of needs which does not prejudice the well-being of families and the State, and 2. the point where the harmful excess of needs begins. The principle is: `Artificial needs(308) must never exceed the quantity of means proffered by net income from possessions or work. If they exceed this level, they raise consumption beyond the possibilities of the family, which they destroy.'(309)

The level of harmless needs is not equal for every class and family of citizens; it varies according to the net income supplying the means to satisfy the needs. Above this level, needs are passions enticing people to spend what is necessary on superfluities. People of balanced mind and incorrupt heart will never think they need what will lower their state. Arousing excessive needs is always united in human beings with moral corruption and darkening of the understanding.

703. We have determined the level at which the needs of the different classes and conditions of persons are harmless to the material well-being of families. We can now answer the question: `How can these needs increase without becoming harmful?' Our reply is a consequence of the answer we gave to the preceding problem. If needs must not exceed income, clearly they will not be positively harmful as long as `they grow at the same speed as, or slower than, the income intended to satisfy them. They must never grow more quickly.'

Income increases and diminishes in different nations according to certain laws. These laws must be defined by economists using data obtained from accurate statistics. It is clear that in a nation where the citizens' income, because of special circumstances, is diminishing, government wisdom should be seriously applied to reducing artificial consumer needs. The measures taken to achieve this end would undoubtedly be more praiseworthy than prohibiting foreign goods so that domestic industry may have time to develop.

704.However, the income available for artificial needs results partly from the fruits of one's possessions and partly from industrial products. In this last case, industry, crafts and ways of increasing wealth in general are not learnt instantly by the uneducated for whose education time must be set aside. During the period which must be dedicated to learning, any contact with cultured people is usually fatal. The products of cultured peoples are inevitably better and less expensive than those produced by less educated peoples whose industry is still young and equipment primitive.

This kind of unequal competition endangers their nascent industry to some extent, because people will not work hard unless there is some hope of gain for themselves. In these difficult circumstances, what hope is there for people who cannot be denied the goods of their richer, more powerful and better educated neighbours? It may be possible to restrain people, but who will persuade them to restrict their desires to goods produced by their own country? Such a sacrifice would suppose great understanding and self-discipline. Only morality supported by religion could in part achieve this. To increase needs beyond the means of satisfying them is not the way for peoples to become civilised; rather, their knowledge and practice of moral and religious virtue must be increased.

705. Our argument should also be applied to citizens of the same nation but of different classes. Constant facts prove the truth of these teachings, which can be summarised as follows:

1. In classes or, more accurately, in families where effort and activity are in increasing movement, artificial needs can increase without causing any notable and obvious economic harm.

2. In classes and families where effort and activity are stationary, needs must also be stationary; any increase would be harmful.

3. In classes and families where effort and activity diminish, economic deterioration follows inevitably unless needs are simultaneously reduced.

4. Finally, if effort and products increase in different ratios in different classes and families, that is, progression is faster in some than others, but needs develop equally in all with maximum progression, the class where effort has maximum movement will rise above all others, who will rapidly deteriorate.

These are the guidelines which wise government should use to calculate the remotest effects of its enactments.

706. However, it will still be objected that by removing many artificial needs the stimulus of human activity has been removed. People who talk like this either do not understand or do not want to understand what I am saying. I said that artificial needs are harmful when they exceed a certain level, which I established. This does not remove the stimulus to human activity, but simply prevents excessive stimulus from killing all effort. I also said that artificial needs give tremendous scope for hard work and business, to the advantage of those without such needs, and to the harm of those with them.

707. If we understand `need' in a very general sense, we can distinguish all artificial needs into two classes. The first class would contain needs for enjoyment, the second needs for enrichment. Based on this distinction, my argument should be applied only to the first class which includes the needs generated by consumption. Needs for enrichment move human beings to thrift and production; properly speaking, therefore, it is these that stimulate effort, not the others. But neither the political theorists who uphold movement nor popular language accept this distinction. Popular language usually calls artificial only those needs that we call luxury goods. The term is never applied to the needs of a father who desires and strives to have what is necessary to feed his wife and children or to leave them sufficient inheritance, or to the needs of a miser who is insensitive to every need except that of amassing riches.

Hence, Melchiorre Gioia justifies the maxim which I have refuted: `The hope of being one day in the position to obtain luxury pleasures is a very powerful stimulus for the lower classes; as the stimulus is blunted, the masses draw closer to a state of inertia, laziness and torpor. The result is the emergence of those well-known vices that accompany this state.' These words unjustly ignore the stimulus against inertia given by love of wealth and social influence, and by affection for one's family. Above all, they do not recognise the most sacred, moral stimulus of one's own duty, which foresees and provides for the future necessities of domestic and civil society in a way more helpful than any other duty.

Notes

(300) Cicero recognises that material benefits which do not content the human spirit are not good: `Whom do we take to be rich? To which human being do we attribute the quality of wealth? In my opinion, to the person whose possessions are such that he is easily CONTENT with a free life in which he neither looks nor longs for nor desires anything further. OUR OWN SOUL must judge us rich, not others' opinion. It is our soul that must calculate that nothing is wanting, nothing further need be sought. If we are content and consider the money we have sufficient, we are, without doubt, rich. But if on the other hand our greed for money makes every gain good, if we cheat every day, deceive, beg, negotiate, purloin, steal - are these signs of a person who abounds or of someone in need? It is the human spirit that must be called rich, not the strong-box; as long as I see you empty, I will not consider you rich, no matter how full the safe is' (Parad. 6). Fine passages like this are frequent in the noblest authors of antiquity. The Stoa has the merit of having best formulated and clarified the truth of such noble teaching.

(301) Tocqueville.

(302) Today there are no more than 6273 Indians in the original 13 States of the Union.

(303) `On the 30th May 1830, Mr. Ed. Everett stated in the Chamber of Representatives that `the Americans had already acquired, by treaty, 230,000,000 acres to the east and west of the Mississippi.' `In 1808, the Osage ceded 48,000,000 acres for $1000.' `In 1818, the Quapaws ceded 29,000,000 acres for $4000.' `On the 24th February 1830, Mr. Bell, reporting to Congress for the committee for Indian affairs, said, "In order to appropriate the wilderness, we have developed the practice of paying the Indian tribes the value of their hunting ground after the animals have already fled or been destroyed."' The price the Americans intend to pay the primitive occupants is not the value of the land but the right of occupancy, as it is possessed by those whose only profit from the land is to walk on it and sleep there.

(304) Documents legislatifs du Congrès, doc. 117.

(305) That this was the purpose of the politics we are discussing is confirmed by the observation that politicians who sincerely supported the system of resistance belong almost without exception to the upper classes of society and to their officials.

(306) They live in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

(307) Cf. my other observations which demonstrate the same thing in Saggio sulla Definizione della Ricchezza in Opuscoli Filosofici, vol. 2, pp. 307 ss.

(308) I take for granted that the discussion concerns artificial needs that are in themselves upright.

(309) It is clear however that, if the whole of the disposable income is consumed, the wealth of a family remains stationary. Wealth grows in direct proportion to the size of the income and in indirect proportion to the needs.

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