第35章 Chapter 5 The Pecuniary Standard of Living(4)

The strain is not lightened as industrial efficiency increases and makes a lighter strain possible， but the increment of output is turned to use to meet this want， which is indefinitely expansible， after the manner commonly imputed in economic theory to higher or spiritual wants. It is owing chiefly to the presence of this element in the standard of living that J. S. Mill was able to say that "hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being." The accepted standard of expenditure in the community or in the class to which a person belongs largely determines what his standard of living will be. It does this directly by commending itself to his common sense as right and good， through his habitually contemplating it and assimilating the scheme of life in which it belongs； but it does so also indirectly through popular insistence on conformity to the accepted scale of expenditure as a matter of propriety， under pain of disesteem and ostracism. To accept and practice the standard of living which is in vogue is both agreeable and expedient， commonly to the point of being indispensable to personal comfort and to success in life. The standard of living of any class， so far as concerns the element of conspicuous waste， is commonly as high as the earning capacity of the class will permit -- with a constant tendency to go higher. The effect upon the serious activities of men is therefore to direct them with great singleness of purpose to the largest possible acquisition of wealth， and to discountenance work that brings no pecuniary gain. At the same time the effect on consumption is to concentrate it upon the lines which are most patent to the observers whose good opinion is sought； while the inclinations and aptitudes whose exercise does not involve a honorific expenditure of time or substance tend to fall into abeyance through disuse.

Through this discrimination in favor of visible consumption it has come about that the domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby， as compared with the 閏lat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers. As a secondary consequence of the same discrimination， people habitually screen their private life from observation. So far as concerns that portion of their consumption that may without blame be carried on in secret， they withdraw from all contact with their neighbors， Hence the exclusiveness of people， as regards their domestic life， in most of the industrially developed communities； and hence， by remoter derivation， the habit of privacy and reserve that is so large a feature in the code of proprieties of the better class in all communities. The low birthrate of the classes upon whom the requirements of reputable expenditure fall with great urgency is likewise traceable to the exigencies of a standard of living based on conspicuous waste. The conspicuous consumption， and the consequent increased expense， required in the reputable maintenance of a child is very considerable and acts as a powerful deterrent. It is probably the most effectual of the Malthusian prudential checks.

The effect of this factor of the standard of living， both in the way of retrenchment in the obscurer elements of consumption that go to physical comfort and maintenance， and also in the paucity or absence of children， is perhaps seen at its best among the classes given to scholarly pursuits. Because of a presumed superiority and scarcity of the gifts and attainments that characterize their life， these classes are by convention subsumed under a higher social grade than their pecuniary grade should warrant. The scale of decent expenditure in their case is pitched correspondingly high， and it consequently leaves an exceptionally narrow margin disposable for the other ends of life. By force of circumstances， their habitual sense of what is good and right in these matters， as well as the expectations of the community in the way of pecuniary decency among the learned， are excessively high -- as measured by the prevalent degree of opulence and earning capacity of the class， relatively to the non-scholarly classes whose social equals they nominally are. In any modern community where there is no priestly monopoly of these occupations， the people of scholarly pursuits are unavoidably thrown into contact with classes that are pecuniarily their superiors. The high standard of pecuniary decency in force among these superior classes is transfused among the scholarly classes with but little mitigation of its rigor； and as a consequence there is no class of the community that spends a larger proportion of its substance in conspicuous waste than these.