Book I. Chap. vii. Interests of other Classes. amount, capital would flow abroad, employment beSect. 7. come more scarce, and the rise of wages be stayed. But if the increase of the rate of wages be accomLandlords panied by a corresponding or a greater increase to those of of productive power, it may go on indefinitely without any deterioration, possibly with an increase, of the rate of profits, and of the revenues of the capitalists; and need only cease when the productive powers of mankind have reached their ultimate limit. It is then, unquestionably, a momentary advantage to the laborer, that his wages should increase at the expence of the profits of the capitalist. But his interests, and those of the capitalists, are not, therefore, in perpetual opposition; because his prosperity, if it is to be permanent and progressive, can only exist under circumstances in which it is perfectly compatible with the undiminished means and revenues of his employers. In like manner, the productive power of labor being stationary, the rate of profits may rise from a diminution of wages; and the capitalists have, therefore, a momentary advantage in the depression of the laboring classes. But the arrangements of Providence are such, that their great and permanent interests can safely rest on no such gloomy foundation. As the poverty and degradation of the population proceeds, the productive powers of the laboring classes, and after a certain point, the security of property, diminish. We have an example of the first of these effects in the serfs of Eastern Europe, and of the last in Ireland. The serf does but onethird of the labor of the well paid freeman; and Book I Sect. 7. Chap. vii. Landlords to those of Classes. the Irish peasant, on his low wages, works little better, if compared either with the English peasant or with himself when less depressed. But a difference of two-thirds in productive power, will alone Interests of more than balance any difference in the respective not opposed rates of wages, of the best, and of the worst paid other workmen in Europe. The English capitalists then would lose by the establishment of a German or Irish rate of wages, if their workmen were to be replaced by a race as listless and inefficient as German boors or as Irish cottiers in their actual state of degradation. The inefficiency of the exertions of the laboring classes is not, however, the only circumstance which makes a low and decreasing rate of wages unfavorable to the permanent prosperity of the capitalists. The accumulation of large masses of auxiliary capital cannot go on undisturbed in the midst of a degraded and turbulent population; and it is on the great accumulation of such capital, relatively to the numbers of the population, that the comparative revenues of the capitalists themselves, and their station and influence on the community, depend. In England, profits are low and wages are high, but in no part of the world do the capitalists form so prosperous and important a body. Their revenue exceeds that of the proprietors of the soil, and equals at least half the wages of labor. If English wages were run down, till the state of the laborers approached that of the Irish, their discontent and turbulence, added to habits of reluctant and inefficient labor, would make it neither profitable or safe to employ here the mass of capital at BOOK I. Chap. vii. present used in production; and then, in spite of a rise in the rate of profits, the mass of profits Sect. 7. realized, and the revenues, influence, and comparaInterests of tive importance of the owners of capital, must shrink not opposed to dimensions more nearly resembling those of other Landlords to those of other Classes. countries. Although the capitalists, therefore, may reap a momentary advantage from the depression of the laborers, yet their permanent prosperity cannot rest on such a basis. To proceed securely in a career of increasing wealth, they must be surrounded by workmen whom penury and degradation have not made either useless instruments of production, or dangerous neighbours. The interests of the capitalists and the laborers, although they may be occasionally in apparent opposition, are substantially and permanently in perfect harmony. It is the interest of each class that the other should thrive; and that additions to its own revenue should be derived solely from an increase in the productive powers of the industry of the country. The position of the landlords, in this respect, is similar to that of the laborers and capitalists. There is a momentary gain, which they may snatch from the depression of the rest of the community; but they are not excluded from the operation of that just and benevolent law of Providence, which knits together the interests of society by making fleeting and limited all advances in the revenues of any class, which rest on the deprivation of others; and which permits a career of stable and indefinite increase, only when the prosperity attained by one part goes hand in hand with that of all parts of the Book I. Chap. vii. Interests of to those of Classes. nation. An advance of rents, founded solely on a transfer to the landlords of a portion of the produce Sect. 7. before enjoyed by the productive classes, must diminish, what without such a transfer would have been, Landlords ́the joint amount of wages and profits. Mr. Ricardo not opposed and his school contend that in such a case, the re- other venue of the productive classes would become positively less than it was before; that the decrease in the amount of raw produce returned to given quantities of capital and labor, could be balanced by no increase in the effects of non-agricultural industry; and they contend further, that this decrease must fall exclusively on the employers of labor, and diminish the rate of profit, which according to them, must vary with each change in the returns to the capital last employed upon the land; on which returns they state the rate of profits to be exclusively dependant'. Were we to concede the soundness of this view of the case, it would at once become evident, how very limited the advantages must be which the landlords could derive from such a cause. When, in different countries, which have an easy intercourse with each other, an ordinary rate of profit has been established, any peculiar cause which diminishes that rate in any one country, has a tendency to drive capital to others. The rate of profit in England rests at al point somewhat below that of neighbouring countries, but if the rate be depressed below this in 1 Ricardo, pp. 118, 128. See the passages before quoted in the note at page 261. Chap. vii. Interests of to those of other BOOK I. ferior point, we know from experience that capital Sect. 7. begins to escape very rapidly. A very short period, therefore, during which only very limited effects Landlords could be produced, must put an entire stop to a not opposed rise of rents founded only on a continuous fall of profits. And the landlords of an increasing country would soon be reduced to insignificance, were this the only source on which they could rely for the advance of their incomes, as the numbers and wealth of all the other classes were swelling round them. Classes. To see, however, more distinctly, that the actual sources of the increase of the revenue of the landlords are perfectly compatible with the prosperity and undiminished wealth of the people, we must not confine ourselves to so imperfect a view of the causes of the increase of rents. A diminution in the share of producing classes in the produce is, as we must again repeat, certainly a possible, but as certainly only a limited and very rare source of an advance of the revenues of the landlords; that gradual increase of their means, which keeps pace with the riches of other branches of the community, flows from healthier and more copious fountains. We have seen that the accumulation and concentration of capital, and its gradually increasing efficiency as the power and skill of man advance, are causes of increase in the mass of rents of which the constant operation is established by the same laws which regulate the productive powers of the earth, and the progress of civilized nations in the |
