The attempt to draw a hard and fast line of distinction where there is no real discontinuity in nature has often done more mischief, but has perhaps never led to more quaint results, than in the rigid definitions which have been sometimes given of this term Productive.Some of them for instance lead to the conclusion that a singer in an opera is unproductive, that the printer of the tickets of admission to the opera is productive; while the usher who shows people to their places is unproductive, unless he happens to sell programmes, and then he is productive.Senior points out that "a cook is not said to make roast meat but to dress it; but he is said to make a pudding....A tailor is said to make cloth into a coat, a dyer is not said to make undyed cloth into dyed cloth.The change produced by the dyer is perhaps greater than that produced by the tailor, but the cloth in passing through the tailor's hands changes its name; in passing through the dyer's it does not: the dyer has not produced a new name, nor consequently a new thing." Pol.Econ.pp.51-2.
9.Compare Carver, Principles of Political Economy, p.474; which called my attention to Adam Smith's observation that customary decencies are in effect necessaries.
10.Thus in the South of England population has increased during the last hundred years at a fair rate, allowance being made for migration.But the efficiency of labour, which in earlier times was as high as that in the North of England, has sunk relatively to the North; so that the low-waged labour of the South is often dearer than the more highly-paid labour of the North.We cannot thus say whether the labourers in the South have been supplied with necessaries, unless we know in which of these two senses the word is used.They have had the bare necessaries for existence and the increase of numbers, but apparently they have not had the necessaries for efficiency.It must however be remembered that the strongest labourers in the South have constantly migrated to the North; and that the energies of those in the North have been raised by their larger share of economic freedom and of the hope of rising to a higher position.See Mackay in Charity Organization Journal, Feb.1891.
11.If we considered an individual of exceptional abilities we should have to take account of the fact that there is not likely to be the same close correspondence between the real value of his work for the community and the income which he earns by it, that there is in the case of an ordinary member of any industrial class.And we should have to say that all his consumption is strictly productive and necessary, so long as by cutting off any part of it he would diminish his efficiency by an amount that is of more real value to him or the rest of the world than he saved from his consumption.If a Newton or a Watt could have added a hundredth part to his efficiency by doubling his personal expenditure, the increase in his consumption would have been truly productive.As we shall see later on, such a case is analogous to additional cultivation of rich land that bears a high rent: it may be profitable though the return to it is less than in proportion to the previous outlay.
12.Compare the distinction between "Physical and Political Necessaries" in James Steuart's Inquiry, A.D.1767, II, xxi.
13.Thus a dish of green peas in March, costing perhaps ten shillings, is a superfluous luxury: but yet it is wholesome food, and does the work perhaps of three pennyworth of cabbage; or even, since variety undoubtedly conduces to health, a little more than that.So it may be entered perhaps at the value of fourpence under the head of necessaries, and at that of nine shillings and eightpence under that of superfluities; and its consumption may be regarded as strictly productive to the extent of one fortieth.
In exceptional cases, as for instance when the peas are given to an invalid, the whole ten shillings may be well spent, and reproduce their own value.
For the sake of giving definiteness to the ideas it may be well to venture on estimates of necessaries, rough and random as they must be.Perhaps at present prices the strict necessaries for an average agricultural family are covered by fifteen or eighteen shillings a week, the conventional necessaries by about five shillings more.For the unskilled labourer in the town a few shillings must be added to the strict necessaries.For the family of the skilled workman living in a town we may take twenty-five or thirty shillings for strict necessaries, and ten shillings for conventional necessaries.For a man whose brain has to undergo great continuous strain the strict necessaries are perhaps two hundred or two hundred and fifty pounds a year if he is a bachelor: but more than twice as much if he has an expensive family to educate.His conventional necessaries depend on the nature of his calling.
