portion which is destined to their maintenance may (supposing no alteration in anything else) be indefinitely increased, without creating an impossibility of finding the employment: in other words, that if there are human beings capable of work, and food to feed them, they may always be employed in producing something. It is very much opposed to common doctrines.106 There is not an opinion more general among mankind than this, that the unproductive expenditure of the rich is necessary to the employment of the poor.
Suppose that every capitalist came to be of opinion that, not being more meritorious than a well-conducted laborer, he ought not to fare better; and accordingly laid by, from conscientious motives, the surplus of his profits; unproductive expenditure is now reduced to its lowest limit: and it is asked, How is the increased capital to find employment? [pg 077] Who is to buy the goods which it will produce? There are no longer customers even for those which were produced before. The goods, therefore (it is said), will remain unsold; they will perish in the warehouses, until capital is brought down to what it was originally, or rather to as much less as the demand of the customers has lessened. But this is seeing only one half of the matter. In the case supposed, there would no longer be any demand for luxuries on the part of capitalists and land-owners. But, when these classes turn their income into capital, they do not thereby annihilate their power of consumption; they do but transfer it from themselves to the laborers to whom they give employment. Now, there are two possible suppositions in regard to the laborers: either there is, or there is not, an increase of their numbers proportional to the increase of capital. (1.) If there is, the case offers