The obstacle mistaken for the cause — scarcity mistaken for abundance —
this is the same fallacy under another aspect; and it is well to study it in
all its phases.
Man is originally destitute of everything.
Between this destitution and the satisfaction of his wants there exist a
multitude of obstacles that labor enables us to surmount. It is of interest
to inquire how and why these very obstacles to his material prosperity have
come to be mistaken for the cause of that prosperity.
I want to travel a hundred miles. But between the starting-point and the
place of my destination, mountains, rivers, marshes, impenetrable forests,
brigands — in a word, obstacles — interpose themselves; and to overcome these
obstacles it is necessary for me to employ many efforts, or, what comes to
the same thing, that others should employ many efforts for me, the price of
which I must pay them. It is clear that I should have been in a better
situation if these obstacles had not existed.
On his long journey through life, from the cradle to the grave, man has
need to assimilate to himself a prodigious quantity of alimentary substances,
to protect himself against the inclemency of the weather, to preserve himself
from a number of ailments, or cure himself of them. Hunger, thirst, disease,
heat, cold, are so many obstacles strewn along his path. In a state of
isolation he must overcome them all by hunting, fishing, tillage, spinning,
weaving, building; and it is clear that it would be better for him that these
obstacles were less numerous and formidable, or, better still, that they did
not exist at all. In society he does not combat these obstacles personally,
but others do it for him; and in return he employs himself in removing one of
those obstacles that are encountered by his fellow men.
It is clear also, considering things in the gross, that it would be better
for men in the aggregate, or for society, that these obstacles should be as
few and feeble as possible.
But when we come to scrutinize the social phenomena in detail, and men's
sentiments as modified by the introduction of exchange, we soon perceive how
men have come to confound wants with wealth, the obstacle with the cause.
The separation of employments, the division of labor, which results from
the faculty of exchanging, causes each man, instead of struggling on his own
account to overcome all the obstacles that surround him, to combat only one
of them; he overcomes that one not for himself but for his fellow men, who in
turn render him the same service.
The consequence is that this man, in combating this obstacle that it is
his special business to overcome for the sake of others, sees in it the
immediate source of his own wealth. The greater, the more formidable, the
more keenly felt this obstacle is, the greater will be the remuneration that
his fellow men will be disposed to accord him; that is to say, the more ready
will they be to remove the obstacles that stand in his way.
The physician, for example, does not bake his own bread, or manufacture
his own instruments, or weave or make his own coat. Others do these things
for him, and in return he treats the diseases with which his patients are
afflicted. The more numerous, severe, and frequent these diseases are, the
more others consent, and are obliged, to do for his personal comfort.
Regarding it from this point of view, disease, that general obstacle to human
happiness, becomes a cause of material prosperity to the individual
physician. The same argument applies to all producers in their several
departments. The ship owner derives his profits from the obstacle called
distance; the agriculturist from that called hunger; the manufacturer of
cloth from that called cold; the schoolmaster lives upon ignorance; the
lapidary upon vanity; the attorney on cupidity; the notary upon possible bad
faith — just as the physician lives upon the diseases of men. It is quite
true, therefore, that each profession has an immediate interest in the
continuation, nay, in the extension, of the special obstacle which it is its
business to combat.
Observing this, theorists make their appearance, and, founding a system on
their individual sentiments, tell us: Want is wealth, labor is wealth,
obstacles to material prosperity are prosperity. To multiply obstacles is to
support industry.
Then statesmen intervene. They have the disposal of the public force; and
what more natural than to make it available for developing and multiplying
obstacles, since this is developing and multiplying wealth? They say, for
example: If we prevent the importation of iron from places where it is
abundant, we place an obstacle in the way of its being procured. This
obstacle, keenly felt at home, will induce men to pay in order to be set free
from it. A certain number of our fellow citizens will devote themselves to
combating it, and this obstacle will make their fortune. The greater the
obstacle is — that is, the scarcer, the more inaccessible, the more difficult
to transport, the more distant from the place where it is to be used, the
mineral sought for becomes — the more hands will be engaged in the various
ramifications of this branch of industry. Exclude, then, foreign iron, create
an obstacle, for you thereby create the work that is to overcome it.
The same reasoning leads to the proscription of machinery.
Here, for instance, are men who are in want of casks for the storage of
their wine. This is an obstacle; and here are other men whose business it is
to remove that obstacle by making the casks that are wanted. It is fortunate,
then, that this obstacle should exist, since it gives employment to a branch
of national industry, and enriches a certain number of our fellow citizens.
But then we have ingenious machinery invented for felling the oak, cutting it
up into staves, and forming them into the wine-casks that are wanted. By this
means the obstacle is lessened, and so are the gains of the cooper. Let us
maintain both at their former elevation by a law, and ban the machinery.
To get at the root of this sophism it is necessary only to reflect that
human labor is not the end, but the means. It never remains unemployed. If
one obstacle is removed, it does battle with another; and society is freed
from two obstacles by the same amount of labor that was formerly required for
the removal of one. If the labor of the cooper is rendered unnecessary in one
department, it will soon take another direction. But how and from what source
will it be remunerated? From the same source exactly from which it is
remunerated at present; for when a certain amount of labor becomes disposable
by the removal of an obstacle, a corresponding amount of remuneration becomes
disposable also. To maintain that human labor will ever come to want
employment, would be to maintain that the human race will cease to encounter
obstacles. In that case labor would not only be impossible; it would be
superfluous. We should no longer have anything to do, because we should be
omnipotent; and we should only have to pronounce our fiat in order to ensure
the satisfaction of all our desires and the supply of all our wants.
