Unto This Last and Criticism of Economics
The essence of Ruskin's view on art is to relate Beauty to Life. I have argued that his conception of Life consists of the three key concepts of ‘capability', ‘composition', and ‘labour'.
Their combination entails the two fundamental theses of art: ‘There is no Beauty but Life' and ‘Art is based on Mind and Nature'. The reputation of Ruskin as the art critic by around 1860 was established through the invocation of these theses. However, he soon realized that the pursuit of art alone neither prevents the destruction of Life and the corruption of Beauty nor encourages the enhancement of Life and Beauty, because he found by the investigation of the history of the rise and fall of Venice that one could not solve the enigma that the development of art only causes the decline of morality. He proceeded from the recognition that art cannot be independent of economic society to the resolution that the economic system which has bought about the destruction of natural beauty and the decline of the artistic mind should be changed. He applies the structure of aesthetics to economy by developing the ethics of labour as demonstrated by using Gothic architecture as a metaphor. By the reform of the economic system, he intends to achieve the enhancement of Life at which his art theory aimed.His economic idea is a kind of transformation of his aesthetics. Corresponding to the two fundamental theses of art, we find two fundamental theses of economics: ‘There is no Wealth but Life’ and ‘Economy is based on Mind and Nature’. These ideas were first presented in a queer form of aphorism in Unto This Last, but it was in Munera Pulveris, a sequel to the former book, that he tried to systematize these ideas by reformulating the specific concepts of economics rather than twiddling aphorisms.
Unto This Last was published as four serial articles in Cornhill Magazine in 1860 and as a book with the subtitle FourEssays on the First Principles of Political Economy in 1862.
In the preface he writes about the two objects of the book: first, to give an accurate and stable definition of Wealth, and second, to show that the acquisition of Wealth is possible only under certain moral conditions of society (vol. 17,19). He not only challenges the fundamental assumptions of classical economics, but also severely criticizes the inhumane social institutions of capitalism justified by it.The first essay (‘The Roots of Honour’) discusses the assumption of selfinterest in economics. According to Ruskin, the failure of economics is its argument that the principles of social action may be determined by greedy self-interest independently of the influence of social affection. He does not deny abstract theory itself but its applicability as a solution to problems in the real world. However, classical economics pretends its theory is natural law and justifies the ideology of laissez-faire. He calls it the ‘bastard science’ different from ‘real science’. With regard to social issues such as poverty, inequality, depression, unemployment, labour dispute, and environmental destruction, it is impossible to deduce rules of conduct from the balance of profit and loss based on self-interest. The solutions should be found in the judgments of justice based on social affection and self-sacrifice of people. In the real world everyone has a moral sense of justice and injustice. The engine of economic action should not be a mechanical motive of selfinterest but a whole range of the human mind.
For this purpose, it is necessary to recognize the social and public importance of economic activities. Producers and merchants have the vocation of employing workers and providing goods and services to society. Their work is no less important than that of lawyers, physicians, soldiers, and clergymen who are socially respected for their unselfish contributions to society.
The second essay (‘The Veins of Wealth’) compares ‘mercantile economy’ with ‘political economy’.
While the first essay deals with the preferences and motives of economic actors, the second essay discusses the nature of economic systems. ‘Mercantile economy’ is the institution of the free market, in which entrepreneurs pursue profits primarily with the motive of self-interest, and which is the research subject of traditional economics. Instead, ‘political economy, the economy of a State, or of citizens’ is a desirable institution which aims at increasing the happiness of all members under the Greek tradition of government control, and which is the object of normative economics proposed by Ruskin.To develop the idea of ‘political economy’, first, Ruskin denies the assumption of self-interest and starts with the assumption of the whole man consisting of ‘reason’, ‘feeling’, and ‘will’; second, he refuses to be absorbed in the themes of mercantile wealth and takes life-promoting activities seriously; and third, he discards the monetary criterion and proposes the conception of Life as the standard of value. Paternalistic guidance is required for this system.
The third essay (‘Qui Judicatis Terram’) is concerned with the idea of justice. Whereas market competition in pursuit of wealth and richness causes inequality of distribution, Ruskin insists that distribution should be determined not by demand and supply of labour but by the idea of justice. Because the basic needs of labour are the same, the wage of labour should be a fixed amount. ‘The market price of labour is the momentary price of the kind of labour required, but the just price is its equivalent of the productive labour of mankind’ (vol. 17, 64). This is what the parable of the title Unto This Last means.
The fourth essay (‘Ad Valorem’) examines the basic concepts of economics, such as value, wealth, price, capital, and product, from the consistent viewpoint of the contribution to Life, and integrates all of his relevant discussions. Ruskin takes issue with the definition of Wealth (the central theme of classical economics) as useful and agreeable objects which possess exchange value, and proposes what he calls true definitions of Wealth and value.
Challenging the traditional definition of Wealth, he urges the conversion from the mere possession of useful material to the possession of useful goods which can be used. For him, a focus on the accumulation of capacity is required for an alternative definition of Wealth. The reason for the change is explained by the basic idea he posits between value and Life:To be ‘valuable’ is to ‘avail towards life’. A truly valuable or availing thing is that which leads to life with its whole strength. In proportion as it does not lead to life, or as its strength is broken, it is less valuable; in proportion as it leads away from life, it is unvaluable or malignant. (vol. 17, 84)
Thus, on the one hand, Wealth is a stock of something valuable, but not a stock of useful materials with exchange value. On the other hand, value is a power to contribute to Life. Therefore, as a result of syllogism, one is led to the idea that Wealth consists of a stock of all powers and capacities to contribute to Life and his famous thesis of economics that ‘There is no Wealth but Life'. The synthesis of the economic thesis with the art thesis that ‘There is no Beauty but Life’ leads to the synthetic thesis ‘There is neither Wealth nor Beauty but Life’.
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