Commodities which are mere luxuries, derive their value, as we have seen, (160) from the difficulty of obtaining them.The amount of labor necessary to procure them, and which thus may be said to be embodied in them, is what makes them esteemed.It is through it that they become fit objects of vanity, marks of riches, things distinguishing their possessors from other men.It is of no consequence how this labor has been expended.It may have been given to ransack the depths of the earth as for diamonds, or of the sea as for pearls.All that the possessor of the luxury desires, is, to have a means of showing that he has acquired the command of a certain amount of the exertions of other men.It is a matter of indifference to him, what the difficulty is, to surmount which these exertions are necessary.Thus, were we to suppose that diamonds could only be procured from one particular and distant country, and pearls from another, and were the produce of the mines in the former, and of the fishery in the latter, from the operation of natural causes to become doubly difficult to procure, the effect would merely be that in time half the quantity of diamonds and pearls would be sufficient to mark a certain opulence and rank, that it had before been necessary to employ for that purpose.The same quantity of gold, or some other commodity reducible at last to labor, would be required to procure the now reduced amount, as the former larger amount.Were the difficulty interposed by the regulations of the legislators of the distant countries, it could make no difference to the fitness of these articles to serve the purposes of vanity.As in the case of a natural difficulty, an additional quantity of labor would be requisite to procure the commodities in question, and they would, therefore, equally serve the purposes of vanity.Nor would it seem to alter the case, were the difficulty interposed by the legislator of the society consuming the articles.
For the sake of illustration, we may suppose that some particular society is possessed of a pearl fishery, from which its members are supplied with the pearls they use, and farther, that the case may assume the simplest form, that this society has no communication with any other.The fishery is situated in a particular bay, where alone, it is found, the animals yielding these concretions can live.The labor annually expended in procuring this luxury, amounts to a million days, or reckoning each day at two shillings, to one hundred thousand pounds.Each day's labor procures one hundred oysters;from which, on an average, one pearl is procured.In this state of things a discovery is made, similar to that which Linneus conceived probable.
It is found, that, by a particular process, the diseased action in this creature, which, like ossification in the human body, produces a deposition of calcareous matter in its fleshy substance, instead of on the sustaining earthy portion of its frame, may be induced ad libitum.The effect of this discovery is to diminish very greatly the labor necessary to procure these substances.In process of time, every hundred oysters, instead of one, yield, on an average, five hundred pearls, consequently the amount of labor expended in procuring each might be little more than the five hundredth part of what it was.
The ultimate effect of such a change would depend on whether the fishery were free or not.Were it free to all, as pearls could be got simply for the labor of fishing for them, a string of them might be had for a few pence.The very poorest class of women in the society could, therefore, afford to decorate their persons with them.They would thus soon become extremely vulgar, and unfashionable, and so at last valueless.
If, however, we suppose that instead of the fishery being free, the legislator owns and has complete command of the place, where alone pearls are to be procured, as the progress of discovery advanced, he might impose a duty on them equal to the diminution of labor necessary to procure them.
They would then be as much esteemed as they were before.What simple beauty they have would remain unchanged.The difficulty to be surmounted in order to obtain them, would be different, but equally great, and they would, therefore, equally serve to mark the opulence of those who possessed them.
If we suppose the yearly expense of obtaining the pearls, end of collecting the duty on them, to amount to twenty thousand pounds, there would then remain to the legislator, a clear annual revenue from this source of eighty thousand pounds.This revenue would not cost the society any thing.If not abused in its application, it would be a clear addition of so much to the resources of the community.
Were the precious metals in reality, as Adam Smith seems to have conceived, mere luxuries, a tax imposed on them at the mines would have a similar effect to the hypothetical tax on pearls, which we have been considering.
It would make a real addition of so much to the revenue of the community possessing the mines.In this ease the tax imposed by the king of Spain on the gold and silver obtained from America, amounting at first to half of the whole quantity annually procured, would not, unless among the first adventurers, have caused any diminution of the revenue of individuals, and its produce would have formed a large real addition to the general revenue of the society.
Neither in this ease, however, nor perhaps in any other, have commodities altogether luxuries presented themselves to the operations of the legislator.
They all, probably, derive part of their value from their utility, although in many instances the part it makes up may be very small.Hence a general tax upon almost any class of commodities, is a tax in whole, or in part, upon some utility, and abstracts something from the revenue of its consumers.
