This section is from the "The Wheel Of Wealth: Being A Reconstruction Of The Science And Art Of Political Economy On The Lines Of Modern Evolution" book, by John Beattie Crozier. Also see Amazon: The Wheel Of Wealth: Being A Reconstruction Of The Science And Art Of Political Economy On The Lines Of Modern Evolution.
Now all this, not only Mr. Hobson, but the Fabian Socialists with Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Sidney Webb, and Mr. Macrosty at their head, also see quite clearly; but where Mr. Gunton goes off the track, in my judgment, is in laying down the principle that it is the 'standard of living' of the best paid workmen which is the cause of the higher wages which both they and the inferior ranks of workmen receive; and then proceeding to introduce this 'standard of living ' (which is only a concrete particular, and one withal as variable as the wind), among the operative factors of the abstract science of Political Economy. It would have been better, I think, had he retained it only for its practical usefulness in explaining particular economic situations - such for example as the difference of wages in one country and another, or in one trade and another, - and kept the general term, Consumption, as Mr. Hobson has done, for use in the abstract Science. Otherwise it is apt in time to become invested with something like the rigidity of a fixed idea, as when Mr. Gunton declares that the reason the wages of labour rose from threepence to fivepence a day after the 'Black Death' in England, was a rise in the 'standard of living,' - instead of being due to the simple fact of the scarcity of labour.
Does anyone imagine that the capitalists of the East End of London, for example, care a fig for the 'standard of living' to which the hordes of 'sweated' tailors and seamstresses may have been accustomed? On the contrary, were they all born and brought up in the purple, to this complexion of the 'sweated' must they come, if they have not the economic power to protect themselves, - by whatever means attained. And it is the same with every other class of worker in the community, and with every grade. It would be better to let the general conception of 'Power' stand for the ability of workmen to give effect to their economic desires, than a mere 'Standard of Living' which if left to itself would melt like wax in their hands the moment the demand for their services fell off. Besides the 'standard of living' is the result of any one of a number of different causes, each of which is quite capable of fixing it, for the time being, in the individual instances. It may result from a Trades-Union combination, or from simple scarcity of the workers or their skill, or from long established custom which has the conventional force of law, or from access to alternative sources of employment, - as was the case in the placer-mining of California in the early days of the gold discoveries, and which so impressed Henry George, - or what not; but in itself it is too vague, shadowy, and unstable, to be admitted as a definite factor into the Science, inasmuch as it cannot be definitely related to any corresponding factor on the side of Production, so as to get a definite law or equation out of it.
Of Mr. Hobson's contributions to the Science, I cannot speak too highly. He has carried it stages farther than all his predecessors, and has received for his work but the merest modicum of the credit which so justly belongs to him. His excellences are everywhere so marked, the closeness and carefulness of his analysis of all its problems so central and free from bias, that it is difficult to indicate the exact deductions which, in my opinion, have to be made from the truth of his doctrines in any direction, inasmuch as they consist rather of shades of emphasis laid on this or that aspect of his subject, than of any actual fallacies, oversights, or omissions. He always keeps his eye on central realities, and if he allows any mere abstractions to colour his work, they are always imported into it from without but are never allowed to enter into, or pervert the proper subject-matter of, the Science itself. But as the slightest difference of emphasis at the start is apt to become cumulative when projected through a long series of logical deductions; and as the very slight difference in the setting of the problems of Political Economy with which he starts out from that with which I began this volume, end when logically evolved, in differences so wide as his thorough-going support of the principle of Free Trade and my equally thorough-going support of the principle of Protection; it is necessary before closing to touch on the main principle of his system with some particularity.
In his first volume, 'The Physiology of Industry,' he figured the process of Industry after the analogy of the animal body, where the raw material of the food is elaborated by the different organs of digestion, and is carried by the blood-current to be distributed among the ultimate body-cells for its final assimilation and consumption; and this type of the structure and functions of Industry, he has had in his mind and consistently applied in all his succeeding works. Now the advantage of this symbol as a foundation for a constructive Science, over that of the revolving mechanical wheel which I have adopted, is that at first sight it gives a greater appearance of life perhaps to a science which is essentially a human one. But although I am quite prepared to admit that when carefully handled, most of the great laws of the Science can be seen reflected in it, I have nevertheless personally discarded it in favour of the symbol of the wheel, - and this for a variety of reasons. In the first place, the symbol of a biological organism is much more complex, and so more difficult to manage when the complications of the subject-matter begin to thicken around it, - and in consequence more liable to the entrance of undetected fallacies - than is the case with a simple uncomplicated mechanical wheel.
 
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