to work,
greater or less, of course, according to the rate of wages, but, in the
long run, proportioned to the sum we spend. Well, your shallow people,
because they see that however they spend money they are always employing
somebody, and, therefore, doing some good, think and say to themselves,
that it is all one _how_ they spend it--that all their apparently
selfish luxury is, in reality, unselfish, and is doing just as much
good as if they gave all their money away, or perhaps more good; and I
have heard foolish people even declare it as a principle of political
economy, that whoever invented a new want[9] conferred a good on the
community. I have not words strong enough--at least, I could not,
without shocking you, use the words which would be strong enough--to
express my estimate of the absurdity and the mischievousness of this
popular fallacy. So, putting a great restraint upon myself, and using no
hard words, I will simply try to state the nature of it, and the extent
of its influence.

[Note 9: See note 5th, in Addenda.]

49. Granted, that whenever we spend money for whatever purpose, we set
people to work; and passing by, for the moment, the question whether the
work we set them to is all equally healthy and good for them, we will
assume that whenever we spend a guinea we provide an equal number of
people with healthy maintenance for a given time. But, by the way in
which we spend it, we entirely direct the labour of those people during
that given time. We become their masters or mistresses, and we compel
them to produce, within a certain period, a certain article. Now, that
article may be a useful and lasting one, or it may be a useless and
perishable one--it may be one useful to the whole community, or useful
only to ourselves. And our selfishness and folly, or our virtue and
prudence, are shown, not by our spending money, but by our spending it
for the wrong or the right thing; and we are wise and kind, not in
maintaining a certain number of people for a given period, but only in
requiring them to produce during that period, the kind of things which
shall be useful to society, instead of those which are only useful to
ourselves.

50. Thus, for instance: if you are a young lady, and employ a certain
number of sempstresses for a given time, in making a given number of
simple and serviceable dresses--suppose, seven; of which you can wear
one yourself for half the winter, and give six away to poor girls w