But it is not just that the population has increased, not just that the majority of the people has ascended to a level of greater freedom and therefore greater needs; the needs of all have increased, and what is now a need for the poorest was once not even so for the richest. Compare the household of a day laborer in our time with that of a prince from the Middle Ages, and we find that the former has many advantages that contribute fundamentally toward increasing life's comforts, while the latter has only an abundance of objects whose abundance is of no value. The tables and chairs of the most wretched hut are more comfortable than the thrones of our ancestors; a hundred years ago, windows and mirrors were just rare showpieces for the rich; shirts were a luxury; 250 years ago, the rooms of Queen Elizabeth of England were strewn with rushes; even the useful tools, the knives and axes of prehistoric times, how rough and clumsy, how unsuitable they were. Only in weapons was there art, and yet, what are the weapons of the Middle Ages compared to ours as soon as we start paying attention to their use? An abundance of objects from raw production, of food and drink and artless clothing materials was luxury in the Middle Ages. There is no need to prove that today there is a larger sum total of goods for consumption, a greater number of advantages, amenities, and benefits distributed throughout Europe, and distributed far better, than in any other period in history. Here, it should not be forgotten that greater thrift in the consumption of raw products, of the most necessary things, has not emerged as result of want, but as a natural companion to culture and an expanded sphere of consumption.
“But these artificial, newly arisen needs, how is a poor man supposed to satisfy them; how can they be met in sufficient quantity for an ever growing number of people?” So you believe that you are facilitating the satisfaction that has become a popular need – and not to the detriment of humanity – when you diminish the effort required to meet it? When population increases, will production not also expand (and, with all these artificial products, at a rate that infinitely exceeds the progression of the census figures)? Are not new and more perfect products that facilitate life being discovered daily and disseminated at rapid speed? Has not natural energy, because of how it was harnessed by artificial machines, concluded a new alliance with man and commended its services to him in a manner in which it had previously not paid him such tribute? Thought has become productive; it takes effect in the wheels of the steam machine, and immeasurable masses of goods owe their origins to theoretical speculation. And while one certainly complains about shortages and inflation, is one not complaining about the abundance and worthlessness of commodities? The population does not seem to have followed production, the latter seems to have stepped ahead more rapidly than the former. Here too, in any event, an analogous law is at work: more has been produced because more was used, and because more was produced, more was used.
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