Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 | Page 2

in a
little as a shopman, or a daughter as a day-governess; or that possibly
an old female relative lives with the family, and throws her little
income into the general stock. It is, after all, a fact capable of the
clearest demonstration, that a vast number of shopkeepers' families
maintain decent appearances upon an income below that enjoyed by
many artisans--what goes, in the one case, for the decent appearances,
being enjoyed in substantial comforts in the other, or else misapplied,
to the degradation of body and mind.

The evil primarily lies in an erroneous distribution of industry. Where
twenty men offer themselves to do a duty to society for which three are
sufficient, it cannot be good for any party; whereas, were the extra
seventeen to apply themselves to other departments of the labour
required for all, it would be better times for the whole twenty. The light,
easy, and pleasant occupations are those most apt to be beset by
superfluous hands. Shopkeeping is generally easy, and often pleasant;
hence the excessive number of individuals applying themselves to it. In
the difficulties of the case, conspicuousness of situation, extravagant
decoration, and abundant advertising, are resorted to, as means of
obtaining a preference. Many, to help out profits, resort to tricks and
cheating. The expense thus incurred, above what is necessary, in
distributing certain goods, must be enormous. To bring most articles to
the hands of the consumer should be a simple business. Every member
of the public must feel that his clothes will be as good, coming from a
wareroom on a third floor at L.30 a year, as from a flashy corner shop
which costs L.300. He will feel that to make him buy a new hat when
he needs one, it is not necessary that an advertising van should be
continually rumbling along the streets. His tea and sugar from the
nearest grocer cannot be any better because of there being fifty other
grocers within two miles of his residence, and forty of these not
required. Yet, by reason of the great competition in nearly all trades,
these vast expenses, which do nothing for the public, are continually
incurred. Means misapplied are means lost. The community is just so
much the poorer. And we must pronounce the superfluous shopkeepers,
those who live by the rents of fine shops, and those who are concerned
in the business of advertising beyond what is strictly necessary for the
information of the public, as incumbrances on the industry of the
country.
One unfortunate concomitant of competition is, that it prompts in the
individual trader an idea which places him in a false position towards
the general interest. It is the general interest that all things fit for use
should be abundant; but when a man is concerned in producing any of
those things, he sees it to be for his immediate interest that they should
be scarce, because what he has to sell will then bring a greater price. It
is the general interest that all useful things should be produced and

distributed as cheaply as possible; but each individual producer and
distributer feels that the dearer they are, it is the better for him. It is
thus that a trade comes to regard itself as something detached from the
community; that a man also views his peculiar trading interest as a first
principle, to which everything else must give way. It might, indeed, be
easily shewn, that whatever is good for the whole community, must be
in the long-run beneficial to each member. He either cannot look far
enough for that, or he feels himself unable to dispense with the
immediate benefit from that which is bad for the public. In short, each
trade considers the world as living for it, not it as living for the
world--a mistake so monstrous, that there is little reason to wonder at
the enormous misexpenditure to which it gives rise.
The idea essentially connected with these false positions, that because
there are certain persons in a trade in a particular place, they ought to
be there, and that the primary consideration regarding them is how to
enable them to continue living by that trade--as if they were fixed there
by some decree of Providence--is one of the most perverse and difficult
to deal with in political economy. The assertion of any principle ruling
to the contrary purpose, seems to the multitude of superficial thinkers
as a kind of cruelty to the persons, the severity of the natural law being,
by an easy slide of thought, laid to the charge of the mere philosopher
who detects and announces its operation. In reality, those are the cruel
people who would contentedly see a great number of their
fellow-creatures going on from year to year in a