ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the effect of Unproductive Consumption. The degree of correctness, with which the balance of loss and gain is struck, will determine whether the consumption be judicious or otherwise; which is a point that next to the actual production of wealth, has the most powerful influence upon the well or ill-being of families and of nations. The patrician spendthrifts and imperial gluttons of ancient Rome thought they never could squander enough. Besides, immoral kinds of consumption are infinitely more general, where the extremes of wealth and poverty are found blended together.’ The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption. If the government indulge a taste for splendour and ostentation, splendour and ostentation will be the order of the day, with the whole host of imitators; and even those of better judgment and discretion must, in some measure, yield to the torrent.
