75 ONE MAN'S GAIN ANOTHER MAN'S LOSS 141 



which would have bought the dog, she went up in value the 

 moment she became mine ; so did the dog the moment he became 

 my neighbour's. So that if the live stock of the country were 

 valued before and after the transaction, it would be clear that 

 the aggregate wealth of Great Britain had been increased by 

 the transaction. To believe this you must of course admit that 

 there is nothing valuable but thinking makes it so. Some people 

 try to draw distinctions between a necessary and a luxury 

 sheer nonsense. Necessaries are only necessary when we want 

 them and luxuries have no value when we don't. Circumstances 

 however may force a sale upon you which shall leave you poorer : 

 for instance you may be ten miles from a house and very 

 hungry you may meet a man carrying a good luncheon he 

 may decline to give you a share unless you give him your signet 

 ring, and being very hungry you may do it. This is a forced 

 sale. You know very well that in three hours' time when you 

 have reached town, you will consider the ring of much more 

 value than the food. Your preference of the food was temporary 

 and you knew it. This transaction enriched one man to the 

 detriment of the other, being destitute of that element of per- 

 manent preference which confers additional value on goods 

 freely bartered. Esau's was a case in point, and men who say 

 that the wages of labour are not determined by a free sale of that 

 commodity, deserve an answer. But one proposition is enough at 

 a time, so let wages wait awhile and let us hold to the question 

 whether a free exchange of goods can ever make anyone poorer. 

 If at every sale every one grows richer, where does poverty 

 hail from ? Poverty is no child of Commerce. She is the un- 

 welcome offspring of that Physical Necessity which Sir William 

 Thomson calls the Dissipation of Energy. We may paraphrase 

 this law by saying that everything wears out. Everything we 

 want requires continual renewal, continual production as we 

 term it. Everything we have is for ever losing value by decay. 

 We call the use we get of things Consumption, and this con- 

 sumption ends them so far as their use is concerned. Consump- 

 tion makes us poor Production makes us rich ; that is clear 

 enough, but barter adds to the wealth which production creates 

 and it does this without taking anything from any one ; simply 

 by letting each man get that which he wants most by giving 



