adulteration, and which furnishes such temptations to highpressure advertising and salesmanship. The old adage that honesty is the best policy is doubtless appreciated by merchants of the better class, but unfortunately there are always a good many men who are doing some kind of merchandising, to whom this adage seems more theoretical than practical. The arts of persuasion are developed to a high degree of proficiency, and pass easily over into the arts of deception. The justification given is generally summed up in the words, "business is business." It is not necessary to present any arguments to show that deception contributes nothing to national prosperity. What one gains by deception, someone else necessarily loses. It is probably this phase of the question that has led to the hasty conclusion, which is far too widely accepted, that somebody always loses in a trade. That general conclusion was combated at the beginning of this chapter. In so far as trading takes the form of deception, however, the conclusion is entirely justified.

Advertising. Advertising occupies a prominent place among the forms in which the art of persuasion is carried to a high state of development in modern times. To what extent advertising is economically justified has been a difficult question and must remain so. Advertising is sometimes educational. The individual sometimes learns from advertisements where he can get something which he really wants and has wanted for a long time. Without the advertisement he might have found difficulty in getting it. This applies, however, mainly to new products that have recently been put upon the market. One scarcely needs an advertisement to tell one of the existence of soap or codfish, or to acquaint one with the fact that such things are to be purchased at stores. In many cases of this kind the only effect of advertising is to persuade the consumer to use one man's product rather than another's. One producer realizes that if he does not advertise, consumers may buy the other man's product. The other man is then compelled to advertise in order to defend himself against the first

advertiser, and thus it becomes a race, or contest, to get the customer's trade, and no addition whatever is made to the national wealth or to the well-being of society. It is not improbable that eventually the public will exercise its authority and use its power of compulsion to limit or redirect the advertising business. This, however, would be a somewhat dangerous experiment, because such public authority would have to be exercised by public officers. The worst forms of advertising are not found among merchants but among candidates for public office. The man who has succeeded in getting elected to office by campaigning, which is a kind of advertising, is not necessarily the best man to decide upon what is good and what is bad advertising either in political campaigning or in merchandising.

CHAPTER XXI

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

Causing productivity in others. Falstaff said, "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men." There are many men and women in every community who are not directly producing wealth, but who are the cause of productivity in others. The teacher who trains students in the productive arts is, to say the least, a cause of productivity, and becomes a contributor to national prosperity. The singer, the poet, and the artist who inspire to strenuous action and noble deeds likewise contribute their share to the greatness of the nation. The military band is a part of the fighting strength of the army, even though its members never handle a destructive weapon of any kind.

The teacher, the preacher, the musician, the poet, and the artist, however, sometimes forget their function in a great nation and at times seem almost to imagine that they are the objects for which the nation exists. At any rate they have been known to go so far as to resent the idea that they have a purpose beyond that of contributing to knowledge for its own sake or art for its own sake.

The social function of art, religion, etc. Quite different was the attitude of a great French artist when he found his country in the throes of the life-and-death struggle which began with the invasion of 1914. Speaking before a gathering of French artists, he said that in that crisis no art would be tolerated "which was not noble, robust, proud, and an inciter of high thoughts and delicate sentiments- an art of heroic joy." Facing the future, he continued: "You would not tolerate anything less to-day. Then why should you tolerate anything less

hereafter, in that to-morrow when our duties shall be changed?" Here was a full acceptance of the view that art has an end beyond itself and is not its own excuse for being.

Government. The officers of the government who preserve order and protect lives and property contribute a large share to national prosperity. An army, whose business may seem to be destruction rather than production, by protecting against invasion from without and insurrection and disorder from within may be an indispensable factor in prosperity.

It is of course possible to have too many so-called nonproducers, not only in the army but in public offices of different kinds, as well as in the various talking and ornamental professions. The work of the soldier, for example, is one of the most honorable of all professions so long as national defense is necessary; but even the professional soldier himself will generally agree that it would be an excellent thing if war could be eliminated and the work of the soldier made unnecessary. The same reasoning may be applied to many other occupations. No work is more beneficent and honorable than that of the physician; but every physician, if he is worthy of the name, is working for the elimination or prevention of disease. If it were possible to carry this work to completion, it would greatly reduce the need for physicians. Litigation among the citizens of the nation is, so far as it goes, almost as wasteful as war between nations. If it could be eliminated, it would greatly reduce the demand for lawyers. An army of very able and talented men would thus be released for other kinds of work for which the need persists. The best lawyers, like the soldiers and physicians, frankly recognize this and are willing to work to reduce the amount of litigation.

Productive and unproductive labor. Economists have generally recognized a distinction between productive and unproductive labor, but they have not always agreed as to the line of division. Adam Smith 1 wrote:

1 The Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, pp. 332-334. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1880.

There is one sort of labor which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed: there is another which has no such effect. The former, as it produces a value, may be called productive; the latter, unproductive labor. Thus the labor of a manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his master's profit. The labor of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing. Though the manufacturer has his wages advanced to him by his master, he, in reality, costs him no expense, the whole value of those wages being generally restored, together with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon which his labor is bestowed. But the maintenance of a menial servant never is restored. A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufactures: he grows poor by maintaining a multitude of menial servants. The labor of the latter, however, has its value, and deserves its reward as well as that of the former. But the labor of the manufacturer fixes and realises itself in some particular subject or vendible commodity, which lasts for some time at least after that labor is past. It is, as it were, a certain quantity of labor stocked and stored up to be employed, if necessary, upon some other occasion. That subject, or, what is the same thing, the price of that subject, can afterwards, if necessary, put into motion a quantity of labor equal to that which had originally produced it. The labor of the menial servant, on the contrary, does not fix or realise itself in any particular subject or vendible commodity. His services generally perish in the very instant of their performance, and seldom leave any trace or value behind them, for which an equal quantity of service could afterwards be procured.

The labor of some of the most respectable orders in society is, like that of menial servants, unproductive of any value, and does not fix or realise itself in any permanent subject, or vendible commodity, which endures after that labor is past, and for which an equal quantity of labor could afterwards be procured. The sovereign, for example, with all the officers both of justice and war who serve under him, the whole army and navy, are unproductive laborers. They are the servants of the public, and are maintained by a part of the annual produce of the industry of other people. Their service, how honorable, how useful, or how necessary soever, produces nothing for which an equal quantity of service can afterwards be procured. The protection, security, and defence of the commonwealth, the effect of their labor this year, will not purchase its protection, security and defence for the year to come. In the same class must be ranked some both of the gravest and most important, and some of the most frivolous professions: churchmen, lawyers, physicians, men of letters of all kinds; players, buffoons, musicians, opera-singers, opera-dancers, etc. The labor of the meanest