CHAPTER XLI THE CONTROL OF CONSUMPTION Sumptuary laws. Luxurious consumption can undoubtedly be condemned on economic grounds as being less desirable than frugality, forethought, and the investment of funds in productive industries and objects of durable satisfaction. Nevertheless it does not follow of necessity that the government should, through sumptuary laws, attempt to repress luxury. To prohibit the consumption of articles of luxury might very easily take away the motive to industry. If the people cannot have expensive commodities, they may take their luxury in the form of leisure, idleness, and self-amusement. This, as we saw in the last chapter, is even less desirable than luxurious consumption. If we grant the argument used by Mill and others, to the effect that an increase of wants sometimes has the effect of overcoming the tendency to sloth and idleness, it would follow that if the government should make it impossible for men to gratify these increased wants, it would merely drive the people back into sloth and idleness. This could only be counteracted by other laws compelling them to work, which would be a kind of slavery. Legislative control not always effective. One of the last things that we learn regarding legislation is that it usually takes a large number of new legislative acts to correct or counteract the unlooked-for results of any legislative act. Another objection to legislative attempts to suppress luxurious consumption is the one pointed out by Adam Smith and others, to the effect that when their habits of life are fixed, men and women will frequently give up the necessaries of life before they will give up luxuries. This applies especially to the attempts to make luxuries expensive by taxing them. When they become very expensive, some people will insist on having them, even if it takes their whole income to buy them and leaves them nothing for the necessaries of life. These arguments, it will be noticed, are based upon the inefficiency of sumptuary laws rather than upon any more fundamental objection to them. In general they seem to produce results which are worse than the thing they try to cure. Nothing whatever can be said, however, against a voluntary foregoing of luxuries and a rationalizing of standards of living on the part of the people themselves. It is one thing for the people to want the right things; it is quite a different thing to try to force them to consume the right things whether they want them or not. It is one thing for the people voluntarily to give up luxuries; it is quite a different thing to compel them by law to do so, whether they are willing or not. - In some Control of vice is "sumptuary legislation. extreme cases, however, a luxury becomes so extremely demoralizing and dangerous to society as to justify government regulation or suppression. There may be undesirable results of such legislation, there are pretty sure to be; but if these undesirable results are less undesirable than the thing which is suppressed, there is a net gain. Regulation or suppression of vice of all kinds is a kind of sumptuary legislation. If the vicious habit or the vicious form of consumption is sufficiently injurious, its suppression is justifiable, even though some undesirable results may follow its suppression. There are, however, a good many sentimental objections to sumptuary laws which have no connection with the real objections. We are all consumers, and if the government begins regulating consumption, we are each of us likely to come in for a certain amount of regulation. We are rather impatient of all kinds of regulation when it is applied to ourselves, though we may be very patient of the regulation of other people, as we are patient in the contemplation of other people's troubles. We are not all of us in the banking or the railroad business, and do not feel in danger when the government undertakes to regulate those and other special lines of business. No essential difference between controlling business and controlling consumption. This consideration has led to quasiserious attempts to draw a sharp distinction between the regulation or control of business and the regulation or control of consumption. But all such distinctions are trivial. Habits of consumption, as stated above, are quite as important to the welfare of the nation as methods of doing business. To attempt to regulate or control either is certain to produce undesirable results. Nevertheless, where the evils, either of unregulated consumption or of unregulated business, are great enough, we must have regulation and take our chances with the evils and difficulties of regulation. When we forget our own personal interests and begin to think in terms of the prosperity, power, and greatness of the nation, all our sentimental objection to either form of regulation will disappear, and we shall begin to weigh the evils of lack of regulation against the evils of regulation. Whenever the balance turns in favor of regulation, we shall be ready for it. The national rather than the personal point of view. If one will look around and see what is going on, one will discover that the people who think in terms of nationality rather than in terms of self-gratification are just as prone to legislate on matters of consumption as on matters of business. It is only those who think in terms of their own interest who are likely to make any distinction. Again, regulation, control, or suppression of the consumption of alcohol is one of the most widespread and democratic movements of the world to-day. Very few of those who favor this kind of legislation - generally none of those who lead in the movement — have anything personal to gain by it. Most of them do not use alcohol and it does them very little direct harm. The suppression of liquor is favored in this country mainly by those who have been here long enough to develop a sense of nationality. It is opposed mainly by those who have not been here long enough to develop an interest in the future prosperity, power, and greatness of the nation. Whenever a nation is facing a great crisis in its history, when its strength and endurance are being put to a severe test, when, in short, it is fighting for its life as a nation, the people are forced to think in terms of national life rather than in terms of individual life. At such times the people find it just as necessary that the government shall regulate consumption as that it shall regulate production. They also find that freedom of speech is not more sacred or inviolable than freedom of running a business. Military necessity always inaugurates a régime of regulation and compulsion. War is compulsory business from beginning to end. When a nation enters upon a great war, it passes instantly from the realm of gold to the realm of iron, -from a realm in which a price list is followed and voluntary agreement is the general rule to a realm in which authority is obeyed and compulsion is the general rule. Compulsion is likely to apply in all fields of activity, not simply in the field of production and business management, of transportation and food distribution, but also in the field of consumption and even in the field of selling talk for a profit. Selling talk for a price. Those who make their living by talking and writing are frequently unable to see any reason why their business should be regulated by the government. These are the people who are likely to be the strongest advocates of "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" and, in general, of a laissez-faire policy with respect to their own business. As consumers are likely to object to the regulation of consumption, and business men to the regulation of business, so the talkers and writers are likely to object to the regulation of talking and writing. Nevertheless, those who think in terms of the national interest are not likely to be influenced by these distinctions. The censorship of the press, the control of consumption, and the regulation of business may all be equally justifiable at such a time. Instead of trying to find reasons why their own business should receive such consideration from the government, it would be a profitable exercise for all of us to ponder a little more upon a certain text regarding those who are more anxious to extract motes from their brothers' eyes than beams from their own. Vice as a selective agent. One of the strongest arguments against the public regulation of vice or injurious forms of consumption is that vice acts as a fool-killer and helps to rid the world of those undesirable persons who are unable to withstand temptation. There is some merit in this argument, and if the fool-killer worked with more accuracy than it seems to do, so that no one but the guilty individual ever suffered from his guilt, the argument in its favor would be very strong. Unfortunately there are not many cases in which the vicious individual injures no one but himself. He is quite as likely to injure others as to injure himself. If it were true that the individual who succumbs to vice never injured anybody else but himself, it might be argued with a good deal of reason that the best way to get rid of him would be to allow him to destroy himself as rapidly as possible, that by so doing we should in the course of time build up a strong race of people, who could live in the presence of temptation without injury. In a certain primitive state of society, where there was little interdependence of parts, all this might be true. In a highly complex society, such as that with which we are acquainted, it is not true. The individual who succumbs to vice is a menace to the whole community. The danger is not confined to the innocent members of his own family, who of course are frequently reduced to want and humiliation through no fault of their own. We must keep certain large and tangible facts always before us when we are considering questions of this kind. The chauffeur who destroys his dependableness through his own vice may occasionally injure himself, but he is rather more likely to injure other people. The locomotive engineer who becomes |