Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/122

102 when slaves were trained in all kinds of accomplishments, a very high value was placed upon natural abilities and education, and the mere fact of personal freedom cannot be held to destroy the meaning of an economic estimate. But this argument must, if valid at all, be carried further.

In order to make an adequate estimate of the value of living, on the same basis as in the case of dead, capital, the men, women, and children must be considered not merely as creating or giving value to so much material wealth, but as in themselves constituting, like the movables of the inanimate inventory, more or less permanent sources of enjoyment. Domesticated humanity may properly be considered to have a money-value, first, because it costs a very real expense to produce and maintain, and, secondly, because it furnishes pleasures which common experience shows rank very high in the scale of limited and desirable things. This second ground of valuation is of importance qualitatively, as showing the real basis of the comparison, but it is plainly unworkable quantitatively, and it therefore seems necessary to fall back upon cost of production for a measure as in the case of public property which also is not directly exchangeable.

Take drst of all a simple hypothetical case to illustrate the principle. Five shillings a week for fifteen years is about £200, and this does not seem an extravagant estimate for bringing up the child of a superior artisan or tradesman. The value of the house in which the child is reared would probably be something less than this sum; in other words, an 'economic man' could more easily purchase a house in fifteen years than rear a child during that period.

The example is plain enough, but to advance from the particular to the general is by no means so simple. Several distinct difficulties are involved—difficulties of age, sex, and social position, for example. Seeing that only very general results are aimed at, something like Mr. Giffen's simple method of halving a known item seems very attractive; if the dead movables are half the value of the houses, why should the living not be roughly estimated in the same manner? As the object of the present inquiry is mainly comparative, in default of any better plan the value of the house may provisionally be taken as the basis of the valuation of the people in it, just as it is taken as the basis of their expenditure for purposes of taxation.

It only remains, then, to determine this quantitative relation of the two valuations—the cost of producing the people compared with the cost of producing the house. The principle applied