If the advocate of wealth-destruction would be consistent, he should break, not merely the pop-bottle, but the water pitcher and the table as well; he should make a bonfire at least once daily of his clothing, his house, and its furnishings; he should advise blowing up the steamboat and ripping up the railroad when they have carried a single load of passen gers. Thus, when all men were naked and starving, and civ ilization had sunk to savagery, trade would have been made as "good" as, by the policy of destruction, he could ever hope to make it.
Servants sometimes excuse the breaking of dishes and furni ture on the ground that it makes work, and that the employer can afford it. But income is thus diverted from other expendi ture, either for productive use or for direct use. In the light of the theory of wages, it would appear that carelessness re duces the servant's own efficiency, and in the long run the loss, in part at least, comes from the wages of that particular servant. Bastiat's discussion of the broken window-pane is often and deservedly quoted. He contrasted what was seen with what was unseen. What is seen is a certain immediate benefit that the glass-maker and glazier get; what is not seen is that the power to expend an equal amount for other things is thereby lost by the owner of the house.
§ 4. Careless waste. The destruction of goods of unneces sarily large value to secure a given result is likewise justified as "making trade good." The blunder that compels the re building of a wall in a rich man's garden is an occasion for congratulation to those who see in it a happy provision of work for the unemployed. It is easy to forget that the proper use
of goods is the final step in production. According as goods are well or poorly used, the production—that is, the real in come or gratification they afford—is large or small. Differ ences in skill in the use of wealth are great. A French cook, we are often told, can make a palatable soup from what goes from the average American kitchen into the swill-pail. Waste in the use of goods is more likely to be found in new countries where wealth comes more easily and necessity does not en force frugality upon the masses of the people.
The praise of careless waste implies the error noted in the preceding propositions. Waste makes work for a certain class, but not more work (employment and wages) for labor as a whole. It appears to be good only when the interests of a small class of workers or of tradesmen are looked at for the moment; it is bad in the long run alike for workingmen and for all other classes of society. Far more of wisdom lies in the proverb, "A penny saved is worth two earned." The economic use of wealth as surely adds to wealth (and, ulti mately, to the income of society) as any other mode of pro duction.
§ 5. Waste in public outlay. Some government expendi tures, as for local post-office buildings, and river and harbor improvements, are sometimes favored, not because their im mediate purposes are good, but because they "make work" and "distribute money" throughout the country. This apology for public extravagance in all its forms has an incredible hold on the public mind. It seems even easier to rejoice that the big impersonal thing, the government, fails to get its money's worth than that one's neighbor fails to do so. The money for public expenditure comes from taxation, and no matter what the system of taxation, the burden falls upon some one, reduc ing the incomes at the disposal of the people to expend for ob jects of their own choice. If the work is not worth doing for itself, the collection of money in small amounts from many tax-payers and its expenditure as a large sum in one locality results in a net loss to society as a whole. Where the result is worth something, but not enough by itself to justify the ex penditure, the fallacy of the destruction of wealth is present in a smaller degree. Examples are seen in useless offices, over paid officials, the extreme use of pensions, and in some public subsidies.