It should however be noticed that many things which are rightly described as superfluous luxuries, do yet, to some extent, take the place of necessaries; and to that extent their consumption is productive when they are consumed by producers.(13*)NOTES:
1.Bacon, Novum Organon IV, says "Ad opera nil aliud potest homo quam ut corpora naturalia admoveat et amoveat, reliqua natura intus agit" (quoted by Bonar, Philosophy and Political Economy, p.249).
2.Production, in the narrow sense, changes the form and nature of products.Trade and transport change their external relations.
3.Political Economy, p.54.Senior would like to substitute the verb "to use" for the verb "to consume."4.Thus flour to be made into a cake when already in the house of the consumer, is treated by some as a consumers' good; while not only the flour, but the cake itself is treated as a producers'
good when in the hand of the confectioner.Carl Menger (Volkswirtschaftslehre, ch.I, 2) says bread belongs to the first order, flour to the second, a flour mill to the third order and so on.It appears that if a railway train carries people on a pleasure excursion, also some tins of biscuits, and milling machinery and some machinery that is used for making milling machinery; then the train is at one and the same time a good of the first, second, third and fourth orders.
5.This is Jevons' definition (Theory of Political Economy, ch.
v), except that he includes only painful exertions.But he himself points out how painful idleness often is.Most people work more than they would if they considered only the direct pleasure resulting from the work; but in a healthy state, pleasure predominates over pain in a great part even of the work that is done for hire.Of course the definition is elastic; an agricultural labourer working in his garden in the evening thinks chiefly of the fruit of his labours; a mechanic returning home after a day of sedentary toil finds positive pleasure in his garden work, but he too cares a good deal about the fruit of his labour; while a rich man working in like manner, though he may take a pride in doing it well, will probably care little for any pecuniary saving that he effects by it.
6.Thus the Mercantilists who regarded the precious metals;partly because they were imperishable, as wealth in a fuller sense than anything else, regarded as unproductive or "sterile"all labour that was not directed to producing goods for exportation in exchange for gold and silver.The Physiocrats thought all labour sterile which consumed an equal value to that which it produced; and regarded the agriculturist as the only productive worker, because his labour alone (as they thought)left behind it a net surplus of stored-up wealth.Adam Smith softened down the Physiocratic definition; but still he considered that agricultural labour was more productive than any other.His followers discarded this distinction; but they have generally adhered, though with many differences in points of detail, to the notion that productive labour is that which tends to increase accumulated wealth; a notion which is implied rather than stated in the celebrated chapter of The Wealth of Nations which bears the title, "On the Accumulation of Capital, or on Productive and Unproductive Labour." (Comp.Travers Twiss, Progress of Political Economy, Sect.vi, and the discussions on the word Productive in J.S.Mill's Essays, and in his Principles of Political Economy.)7.Among the means of production are included the necessaries of labour but not ephemeral luxuries; and the maker of ices is thus classed as unproductive whether he is working for a pastry cook, or as a private servant in a country house.But a bricklayer engaged in building a theatre is classed as productive.No doubt the division between permanent and ephemeral sources of enjoyment is vague and unsubstantial.But this difficulty exists in the nature of things and cannot be completely evaded by any device of words.We can speak of an increase of tall men relatively to short, without deciding whether all those above five feet nine inches are to be classed as tall, or only those above five feet ten.And we can speak of the increase of productive labour at the expense of unproductive without fixing on any rigid, and therefore arbitrary line of division between them.If such an artificial line is required for any particular purpose, it must be drawn explicitly for the occasion.But in fact such occasions seldom or never occur.
8.All the distinctions in which the word Productive is used are very thin and have a certain air of unreality.It would hardly be worth while to introduce them now: but they have a long history;and it is probably better that they should dwindle gradually out of use, rather than be suddenly discarded.
