An Inquiry Into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abstraction accumulated acquired acquisition actions adults amongst arising arrangements articles of wealth association benefits benevolence bounties capital capitalists cease circumstances classes co-operating communities comforts consequences diffusion distribution of wealth duction effect enjoy enjoyment equal security equality of distribution established evils exer existence expedients of insecurity force greatest habits hitherto human happiness ignorance improvement increase individual competition individual exertion industry inequality intellectual interest knowledge laws of distribution mankind marriage mass means means of happiness ment mind mode moral munity mutual co-operation natural laws necessarily necessary objects of desire objects of wealth operation pernicious physical pleasures plunder political power portion possession possible preponderant principle of security productive labourers productive powers products of labour profit proposed public opinion pursuit quantity rational reason render restraints rich social society species superior supply supposed surplus labour sympathy things tion truth utility vices vidual voluntary equality voluntary exchanges whole community
Popular passages
Page xiii - Theirs is not that twilight of political knowledge which gives us just light enough to place one foot before the other; as they advance the scene still opens upon them, and they press right onward with a vast and various landscape of existence around them.
Page 144 - The keenest pangs the wretched find Are rapture to the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemploy'd.
Page 18 - To us, therefore, such inequalities of capabilities of enjoyment do not exist, because they are by us inappreciable: they cannot enter into our moral and political calculations ; for they can no more than the galvanic fluid be seized and measured.
Page 449 - As long as the accumulated capital of society remains in one set of hands, and the productive power of creating wealth remains in another, the accumulated capital will, while the nature of man continues as at present, be made use of to counteract the natural laws of distribution, and to deprive the producers of the use of what their labour has produced. Were it possible to conceive that, under...
Page vii - But it is not with happiness, but with wealth, that I am concerned as a political economist ; and I am not only justified in omitting, but, perhaps, am bound to omit, all considerations which have no influence on wealth.
Page 262 - Everyone, doing well in his calling, is interested in concealing his success, lest competition should reduce his gains. What individual can judge whether the market, frequently at a great distance, sometimes in another hemisphere of the globe, is overstocked, or likely to be so, with the article which inclination may lead him to fabricate ? He is evidently reduced to act on the most general and vague probability. • And should any error of judgment...
Page 133 - The productive laborers stript of all capital, of tools, houses, and materials to make their labor productive, toil from want, from the necessity of existence, their remuneration being kept at the lowest compatible with the existence of industrious habits.
Page 128 - The measure of the capitalist, on the contrary, would be the additional value produced by the same quantity of labour in consequence of the use of machinery...
Page 28 - The constant effort of what has been called society, has been to deceive and induce, to terrify and compel, the productive labourer to work for the smallest possible portion of the produce of his own labour.
Page ix - ... be placed in no worse position than he is at home — in merry England (?), Christian England (?), England, the nurse of industry, the very hot-bed of philanthropy (?). Late, very late personal...