The Harvest of Ruskin

When the writer, as one of a party of Friends, was kindly shown over Brantwood by its owner in 1884, the only things he had to say to us about Quakerism in the course of a forty minutes’ talk, were a little homily on sectarianism, contrasted with a church of “God-fearing people,” including Catholics and Turks – a little chaff about our failing in the matter of usury to literally obey our Bibles, as he supposed we thought we always tried to do – and an astonishing pronouncement that “Your early Friends would have carried all before them, if they had not opposed that which is obeyed by the whole of the animal creation – the love of colour.” We must take this as one of the characteristic plunges into emphasis (some well-balanced people would use a stronger term perhaps), which are a cause at once of his strength as a stimulating teacher, and of his insufficiency as an infallible oracle, to be mechanically interpreted.

These three utterances, however, slight as they are, show a misreading of Quakerism. We are, I trust, the least sectional of little sects. The religion of the Light Within is at the basis of all other religions too; it is the absolute religion, religion reduced to its simplest, and it brings us into sympathetic connection with Evangelical, Ritualist, Jew, Mohammedan and “heathen,” so far as these have the Divine Spirit shining through their particular forms of thought and practice. Also, of all people, we are the least prone to unintelligent Biblical literalism, and are quite unlikely to be stumbled by the Mosaic regulations about usury. There is a measure of truth in his third statement about “colour,” if by that he meant, in a comprehensive sense, those recreations which relieve the strain of a severely ruled life. We have become less numerous, I doubt not, through our restrictions (now abandoned) on art, music, “the theatre and the ball-room.” But there have been compensations to those who have stayed under the discipline.

Ruskin, then, never understood the Society of Friends in the outward. This was the mere result of circumstances. Brought up in the south of London, educated at Oxford, living much abroad, with local interests and acquaintances chiefly centering round Denmark Hill, Oxford and Coniston, he had no great opportunity to meet Friends.

He never had any Quaker teaching in his youth. The voice of the Society of Friends was too faint to reach him. He never found his way across the hill from Brantwood to the ancient meeting house at Hawkshead, but his word has penetrated further than ours, and all unaware he has done our work.

How marvellous is this series of harmonies, unintended, unrecognized on both sides, between him and the Society of Friends! It looks as though Quakerism is not an arbitrary group of doctrines gathered up, as he fancied them, by George Fox, but a coherent system, all whose parts hang together as they all appear together when they rise up in Ruskin. It is a strong confirmation of the coherence and validity of the religious discoveries of our Quaker forefathers in the seventeenth century, when we find that they are repeated in the research of another emancipated but devout thinker, a religious rationalist who was an expert in the things of the soul.

CHAPTER IV

RUSKIN AND MILL

A RECONCILIATION

T HE controversy between Ruskin and the orthodox Political Economists of his time was central in his career, and has occupied a prominent place in the thought of the last sixty years. Either Ruskin’s teaching or that of Mill and his colleagues, or that of both, has been clouded with uncertainty and so has lost force. If it should be found, as I shall try to show, that there was no real ground for the controversy at all – that it was all due to misapprehension, to mere ambiguity in a term, it will reinforce the conclusions of the economists in their modern revised form, add cogency to the teaching of Ruskin, and clear away storm clouds which have done great harm. The mistake arose through a wrong conception by Ruskin of the scope of Economics – of what its teachers were after.

Political Economy has always been treated by careful writers as the science of human action with regard to the acquisition and use of property. This is a pure science. It is a branch of applied psychology. It measures motives, and analyses the action of buyers and sellers with a view to finding out what men in business will normally do, and how values of land, labour, capital and commodities are determined. This does not open any question of right or wrong, any question of oppression or starvation, of luxury, vanity or pride. This is as cold-blooded, as purely intellectual and critical an inquiry as the study and measurement of electrical currents; what produces them, conducts them, wastes or scatters them. An electrician will show how a telephone may be made, he will invent it, and he will explain it; but it is no business of his to ask whether courtesy and good feeling or profanity and fraud will characterize the messages which will go over his instrument. That is not his business as a scientist, though the use of his own telephone is his business as a man.

Now this is a perfectly intelligible, it may be a perfectly blameless, and, at first sight, a probably useful branch of inquiry. It separates off from the great mass of human actions a definite field; it omits the motive of religion, the motive of love, and the motive of self-denying service, outside service for the family for whom the man under discussion is economically responsible.

Concerning it, we must ask three questions:

1. Is this separation practicable, and in consequence are the results true or approximately true?

2. Under what limitations is it useful to make such a separation, and what real guidance to conduct, if any, follows?

3. Afterwards we will inquire to what extent the political economists have rigidly confined themselves to theory, and having found that they did not, when they went over into practical advice we will ask whether they were deluded by the results they had reached within their limits, and whether they hastily assumed that they had found a more complete guide to human action than they had.

Is then the separation of dealings which can be expressed in terms of money from the other dealings of life sufficiently possible to make a science of those dealings? Are they predictable, given the circumstances? Will like causes produce like results? Is the motive measured by money sufficiently separable from other motives, to be treated by itself?

We must at once admit that such separation cannot be absolute; that affection, pity, charity, habit, ignorance, legislative restriction, public spirit, prevent the individual from always acting according to his economic interests. He does not always buy in the cheapest shop; he grumbles but helps a struggling neighbour by his custom, and puts up for some time with an inferior article. He goes on using old machinery for want of knowledge or of a progressive mind. He keeps on an old hand for the sake of the past. Still, in the long run, these qualifications to the general law do not survive. In general, men in the large may be trusted to do that which it is their economic interest to do, within such lines of honesty as are ratified by law, or of honour as are regarded by public opinion. Competition, that is, is the general rule in business; and we shall not go far wrong in assuming it as the method in vogue in Europe and America, unless some special feature of monopoly or legislative Protection or trade combination supersedes it.

This is not the same as saying that it is always right to follow the lines of pure competition. We must at all points check the tendency to pass from the indicative to the imperative mood, from a science to an art; from what will raise our profits to what is our duty in our business.

So we assert that there is a Theory of Value, and that it is an approximately verified theory under the present system of business. Further, that in 1860, when business was less regulated than it is now, the results were so much nearer verification by experience.

That business is carried on for self-interest on the whole, seems to me a safe approximation to reality – and that the exceptions to it are not chemically explosive of its system as Ruskin says, but can be added to the enquiry afterwards, like friction or the resistance of the air in mechanics.

Whether this is desirable, or the last word of human organization, is quite another question; and the questions are better kept separate. Moral considerations are too important to come in as an incidental qualification to business motives. They should be the dominating influence, and it is better that economic results should not obtain a sort of sanction as being tinctured with righteousness, when only a few drops of the tincture have been administered. It is better that Economics should keep their place as a science of observed facts.

At the present moment when war is being diagnosed as the worst disease of society, there are many voices to point out its origin in economic greed, and through rivalry in the exploitation of backward peoples. Military pomp and pride, the mere ambition of Emperors and Generals, must bear their share of the blame, but greed and oppression are the tap-root of war, and Ruskin, it happens, was foremost in saying so, as is pointed out in a later chapter.

The economic motive is behind many actions where it is not avowed. Since the elementary need of man is, and always has been, to make a living, and he tries to make it as pleasantly as possible, this must be so, and the laws which govern production, distribution and exchange are of prime importance for men in communities.

When Ruskin touched on an economic law, on a doctrine of the science which he thus erroneously blasphemed, he was remarkably correct; he was an orthodox follower after all of much of the doctrine of Mill. He was “an utterly fearless and unscrupulous free trader.”48 His instinct, the moral sanction to which he always looked – as Mill also did – as a guide to practice, told him that protection was a wicked action, forbidding to workers in other countries their right to earn their living in the way by which they could produce the most. “I mean by co-operation, not only fellowship between trading firms, but between trading nations; so that it shall no more be thought (as it is now, with ludicrous and vain selfishness) an advantage for one nation to undersell another, and take its occupation away from it; but that the primal and eternal law of commerce shall be of all men understood – viz., that every nation is fitted by its character and the nature of its territories for some particular employments and manufactures, and that it is the true interest of every other nation to encourage it in such speciality.”49 “I do not admit even the idea of reciprocity. Let other nations, if they like, keep their ports shut; every wise nation will throw its own open.”50 He knew every point of the correct economic theory of free trade. He realized foreign commerce as exchange or barter, with the dependence of exports upon imports. This dependence, showing the true nature of International Trade, follows from the correct doctrine of currency. Ruskin emphasized this doctrine repeatedly. He knew that every fall in the supply of commodities made the gold currency of less value. He knew that inflation by paper money similarly sent prices up. He was enthusiastic for a gold standard, not as being perfect, but being the best available.51 Mill’s still valuable chapter on International Trade and all current economic doctrine on currency are Ruskinian economy too. Also, when a disciple of the much depreciated Manchester School talked of laisser faire he generally meant: “Let Protection alone.” His phrase was general, but in the days of Gladstone’s chancellorships of the exchequer, the “Manchester” man was thinking mainly of the removal of tariffs. It would not be in accord with human psychology if the principle had not been pushed too far, and by friends and opponents alike the principle of governmental abstention from interference enlarged, and made universal. In calling for government action to determine wages and organize employment, Ruskin was simply uttering a need not yet felt. He was a twentieth century voice, heard too soon.

But we must always avoid the snare into which the earlier economists fell, of assuming that their conclusions were rigid and absolutely correct. There can be no mechanical infallibility about Economics; it is not accurate enough to be mathematically true. It expresses tendencies. In a word, it is a psychological, not a physical science. Its subject is not wealth, simply, but human motive in regard to wealth.

Students of the Political Economy of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Bentham and James Mill, find that these great founders of economic science, in whose debt we shall ever remain, assumed too much mechanical uniformity in men’s actions, and did not give enough weight to the reaction of man upon his circumstances. They counted a man too much as a passively responsive machine. This is what led them to the doctrines since so seriously modified – the existence of a fixed Wages Fund, the “Iron Law of Wages,” the thesis that “A demand for Commodities is not a demand for Labour.”

John Stuart Mill began life under these influences, and his Principles of Political Economy contain them; but in later life he abandoned his Wages Fund theory, gave greater weight to the human side, the variable and uncertain factor in economic problems, and under the influence of Comte and of the Socialists doubted the accuracy of much of his economic argument. This change was published in his review of the work of his friend Thornton, who had attacked the Wages Fund theory in 1869. It is in Mill’s collected Essays.

The Political Economy which Ruskin attacked was that of Mill’s Principles; and to judge fairly of the controversy we must treat the science, not as it was left, in high universal abstraction, by Ricardo; nor as worked up with rich historical material, cautious and well informed, as in Professor Marshall’s writings, but (between these) as Mill left it in his first edition of 1848.

In estimating the extent to which Ruskin’s attack was excusable, we need to know whether Mill overstepped the bounds of theory, of pure science – and became a political adviser and exhorter. This he certainly did, quite often in his book, and he says in his preface that it was part of his purpose to do so.

Ruskin says that it is when he is thus inconsistent with his own theory, and strays into practical teaching, that he begins to take any interest in him; and certainly Mill gave, precisely because he was a philanthropist and a social reformer, room for a critic to come in and say: “Lo, you pretend to be a practical guide to conduct, and you are only taking account of low and selfish motives; you are an unworthy exponent of human nature, if we are to regard you as taking it all for your province.” The chapters chiefly referred to here are those on “The Advantages of a Stationary State,” and on “The Futurity of the Labouring Classes.”

Ruskin recognizes and admits this in a clever but naughty way:

“I should have regretted the need of pointing out inconsistency in any portion of Mr. Mill’s work, had not the value of his work proceeded from its inconsistencies. He deserves honour among economists by inadvertently disclaiming the principles which he states, and tacitly introducing the moral considerations with which he claims his science has no connection. Many of his chapters are therefore true and valuable; and the only conclusions of his which I have to dispute are those which follow from his premises.”52 Mill made the distinction between science and social reform quite plain in his chapters, and left no room for confusion. Ruskin must have thoroughly understood this.

Full in the face of this theoretical investigation comes Ruskin’s definition of Political Economy, with which he begins Munera Pulveris:

“Political Economy is neither an art nor science, but a system of conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture.”

Here we have an entirely different object. This Economy aims at telling us what we ought to do for the enriching and purifying of life upon the earth, and what the state ought to do for the same end. This is universal politics and social amelioration: frankly and definitely, not a science at all.

There need be no conflict between this comprehensive study of political ethics, including religion, art, and education among its principal departments – and that science which might usefully come in as one of those on which it is based. To be sure, both claim to be called Political Economy; but that is only a verbal rivalry. As to that, Ruskin’s Political Economy has by derivation the proper right to the term – the State’s Housekeeping. But it is not always wise to follow derivations; the scholastic Economy was in possession of the word, though properly speaking it was not ὁικονομἱα nor was it πολῑτῐκή. Ruskin’s weakness for playing with etymologies, often curious ones, helped to maintain this rivalry in words.

There is room for both studies, the scholastic economies and the Ruskinian economy. That is my thesis.

How differently the criticism of Carlyle and Ruskin might have been launched. Ruskin might have said that he admitted that in business people must be assumed to follow their own interests, that is, that the “economic man” would stand as a general average in business relations. But he might have said, after that, every word that he wanted to say, about the insufficiency of this principle as a guide to conduct. He might have dwelt on the strength of loyalties and affections, and on the powerful economic value of good relations between masters and servants. He might have shown how misleading were economic results if acted on as a complete handbook of conduct even in business. He might have written Unto This Last with an introduction by John Stuart Mill, and everything positive or constructive left in it. The satire and sword-play might have been used for something else.

Much of his attack might have taken the form of entirely sound but friendly criticism. Great play is made with a sentence of Ricardo’s:53 “Utility is not the measure of exchangeable value, though it is absolutely essential to it.” This non-committal sentence does not carry us very far, and does not claim to be a definition, but is true as far as it goes. Ruskin makes hay of Ricardo’s statement next following, that Labour was, in primitive abstraction at any rate, the sole regulator of price. Neither he nor Ruskin had reached the modern theory of “marginal values” which solves so many ancient puzzles and misunderstandings. Price is fixed where Demand and Supply meet: and it measures two things. It represents on one side the value in use of the last article produced; and on the other the cost in labour of the production thereof. Then both sides are satisfied – the buyer and the seller. But the price does not represent the utility of the earliest articles produced – the first loaves of bread would be quite priceless, – nor the cost of the production of the first few easily grown crops. Both values are “final” or “marginal.” This simple and permanent plan of determining price, which nobody can or should alter, is, put shortly, the terrible law of supply and demand, the very heart of economic theory, about which so much indignation is wastefully expended. If Ruskin’s penetrating mind had been devoted to helpful criticism of the gaps left by the economists, they might have reached this theory much earlier. But Ruskin wrote in a state of noble rage – a bad state for the scientific temper. “Nothing in history,” he wrote, “has ever been so disgraceful to human intellect as the acceptance among us of the common doctrines of political economy as a science.”54 This was chiefly because it was said to be a systematic disobedience to the first principles of its professed religion, because it taught “the love of money” and “mammon service”; it was “a science of becoming rich.” Once accept so terrible a misconception, and all the vials of the prophets’ wrath are not too profuse. “To this science and to this alone (the professed and organized pursuit of money) is owing all the evil of modern days. I say all.”55 Ruskin wrote in 1865 a letter to the Daily Telegraph in which he says people cannot get servants by political economy and the law of supply and demand – as though he had said they cannot be got by physics and the law of gravitation. To see his real attitude we must add a phrase of 1883: “While I admit there is such a thing as mercantile economy, distinguished from social, I have always said that neither Mill, Fawcett nor Bastiat knew the contemptible science they professed to teach.”56

This attitude is pure disaster, comparable to the great odia theologica which have cursed the world. It is not necessary nor wise to take sides in an utterly baseless controversy. Let us rather examine the programme of the science.

Prof. Marshall gives the following list of the inquiries chiefly pursued by economic science57: —

“How does economic freedom tend, so far as its influence reaches, to arrange the demand for wealth and its production, distribution and exchange? What organization of industry and trade does economic freedom tend to bring about; what forms of division of labour; what arrangements of the money market, of wholesale and retail dealing, and what relations between employer and employed? How does it tend to adjust values, that is, the prices of material things, whether produced on the spot or brought from a distance, rents of all kinds, interest on capital and the earnings of all forms of work, including that of undertaking and managing business enterprises? How does it affect the course of foreign trade? Subject to what limitations is the price of anything a measure of its real utility? What increase of happiness is prima facie likely to result from a given increase in the wealth of any class of society? How far is the industrial efficiency of any class impaired by the insufficiency of its income? How far would an increase of the income of any class, if once effected, be likely to sustain itself through its effects in increasing their efficiency and earning power?

“How far does, as a matter of fact, the influence of economic freedom reach, or how far has it reached at any particular time, in any place, in any rank of society, or in any particular branch of industry? What other influences are most powerful there? and how is the action of all these influences combined? In particular, how far does not economic freedom tend of its own action to build up combinations and monopolies, and what are their effects? How are the various classes of society likely to be affected by its action in the long run? What will be the intermediate effects while its ultimate results are being worked out; and, account being taken of the time over which they will spread, what is the relative importance of these two classes of ultimate and intermediate effects? What will be the incidence of any system of taxes? What burdens will it impose on the community, and what revenue will it afford to the State?”

Such then, is the subject matter of economic science spread out in some detail. But behind all these there are practical questions which give the chief motive to our interest in the subject; and though not within the actual range of the science, it will be of interest to us to hear the same authority state them. They vary very much from time to time. The earlier economists were occupied with the need of removing restrictions on free commerce, and government regulation generally, and they glorified economic freedom. We ask with Marshall:

“How should we act so as to increase the good and diminish the evil influences of economic freedom, both in its ultimate results, and in the course of its progress? If the first are good and the latter evil, but those who suffer the evil do not reap the good, how far is it right that they should suffer for the benefit of others?”

“Taking it for granted that a more equal distribution of wealth is to be desired, how far would this justify changes in the institution of property, or limitations of free enterprise, even when they would be likely to diminish the aggregate of wealth? In other words, how far should an increase in the income of the poorer classes and a diminution of their work be aimed at, even if it involved some lessening of national material wealth? How far could this be done without injustice, and without slackening the energies of the leaders of progress? How ought the burdens of taxation to be distributed among the different classes of society?”