JB_172_005.xml

Title: [1820 July 29 Emancipation Spanish]

Description: 1820 July 29

Emancipation Spanish

Summary

But the inequality, and the loss that results from it to the

universal interest - to that all comprehensive interest which is composed of the

interests of both parties - is in all such cases enormous.

Not to speak of the misery - the positive misery produced by actual

war, behold three causes by the conjunct operation of which the inegality with the

loss attendant on it is produced.

1. Of the whole quantity of the money expended by the ruling few as

such, it is but a comparatively small part that upon the most predatory plan of

management, can be applied to their own use, in augmentation of their own felicity:

namely that part alone which is composed of official emolument and extra mercantile profit (a) upon stores

furnished.

2. So unlimited is the capacity for felicity in the human frame, it

may be a question whether into any human breast by a mass of the instruments of

felicity in all possible shapes and to the utmost possible amount it be possible that

a quantity of actual felicity can be condensed equal to so much as the double of the

average quantity enjoyed by an individual of the labouring class /class/ whose

earnings afford an adequate supply to his animal wants. In this consideration may be

seen the argument for equality, in so far as consistent

with security: the only argument, nor is it an insufficient

one.

3. Other circumstances equal, the felicity produced by the

acquisition of any given sum is never so great as the suffering produced by the

involuntary loss of it /that same sum./ Were it not for

this, no reason would be to be found for employing the force of government in the

endeavour to present depredation - in the endeavour to give security to property in

any of its shapes.

Lay these three circumstances together and then calculate who can at

what expence every addition to the enjoyment of the ruling few, as such, at the

expence of the subject many can not but be purchased.

Note (a)

(a) On whatever subject capital were thus employed, ordinary

mercantile profit would equally be made, were the capital employed - not upon these

but other articles.

JB_162_146.xml

Title: [1820 June 10 Emancipation Spanish]

Description: 1820 June 10

Emancipation Spanish

Ult r

'.7. Rulers gainers

From the consideration of the first circumstance results the following rule

1. Pecuniary circumstances equal, suffering, from the loss of a given sum is greater than enjoyment from the corresponding loss.

Thus, suppose two men whose wants are the same possessed of ,100 each: ,50 suppose is taken from the one and given to the other. I say the suffering to /experienced by/ the loser is more than equivalent to the enjoyment received /experienced/ by the gainer. For, while the property of the loser is diminished by and reduced to one half, the property of the gainer is augmented by no more than one third.

This is one reason why /cause to which/ upon the balance, the practice of gaining is so pernicious /indebted for the preponderant mischievousness of its effects/

2. The lower /the level in which/ a mans circumstances /Other circumstances equal/ stand in the scale of wealth, the greater the enjoyment /suffering/ is, which is produced by teh gain /requisition/ of a given sum, and the greater the suffering produced by the loss of it: and conversely the higher the less the enjoyment and the suffering.

,50 acquired by the man who has but ,100 may make him intensely unhappy: ,50 taken from him /left by him/, still more intensely miserable. ,50 gained or lost by a man who has ,1,000,000 will scarce produce a sensation in either cases.

152a_194.xml

Title: [[152a-194] Fundamental Positions]

Description: [152a-194]

Fundamental Positions

Conclusion continued

The mode of calculation by averages, would, on such an occasion, be equally discouraging and delusive. In a certain Poor house, the daily expence of diet has amounted (say) to 9 d a day: be it so: be it the same in a hundred Poorhouses. But under Count Romford's plan of management the diet of an equal number of persons having equal wants, and maintained in an equal degree of health and strength, amounted but to 2 d a day. Would 9 d be the fair sample of the expence? would even 5 d2 (the average) be a fair sample? - by no means: 2 d, and no more than 2 d is the true mark.

In a certain Poor house the earnings of the inhabitants (such of them included as were employd in spinning) never amounted to so much (say) as 1 d a day upon an average: be it so: and be it the same in a hundred Poorhouses. But in the year 1790, in the District of Lindsey in Lincolnshire, 112 children, chiefly females being all that were tried, their ages not exceeding upon an average 11 years and 11 months, earned for two months together, at spinning the sort of worsted called Jersey, each of them upon an average 52 a day: and as the rate Paid[?], for five years that the experiment