no difficulty. The production of necessaries for the new population takes the place of the production of luxuries for a portion of the old, and supplies exactly the amount of employment which has been lost. (2.) But suppose that there is no increase of population. The whole of what was previously expended in luxuries, by capitalists and landlords, is distributed among the existing laborers, in the form of additional wages. We will assume them to be already sufficiently supplied with necessaries.
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 [pg 078] 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