Unto This Last was one book that MK Gandhi felt influenced by more than most others.  So much so that he translated it into Gujarati (and a Gandhi scholar has re-translated that book from Gujarati back into English).  After reading about Gandhian economics and thinking about it for years, I finally sat down to read Ruskin's work.  I can see why Gandhi thought so highly of it.


Unto This Last, The Political Economy of Art, Essays on Political Economy by John Ruskin

Everyman’s Library

London:  Dent, 1968

NY:  Dutton, 1968

Political Economy of Art

(4-5)  In the simplest and clearest definition of it, economy, whether public or private, means the wise management of labour;  and it means this mainly in three senses;  namely, first, applying your labour rationally;  secondly, preserving its produce carefully;  lastly, distributing its produce seasonably.

(12-13)  The value of the horse consists simply in the fact of your being able to put a bridle on him.  The value of the man consists precisely in the same thing.  If you can bridle him, or which is better, if he can bridle himself, he will be a valuable creature directly.  Otherwise, in a commercial point of view, his value is either nothing, or accidental only.

(17)  For it is only the young who can receive much reward from men’s praise;  the old, when they are great, get too far beyond and above you to care what you think of them.  ...But now, their pleasure is in memory, and their ambition is in heaven.

(63)  For remember always that the price of a picture by a living artist, never represents, never can represent, the quantity of labour or value in it.  Its price represents, for the most part, the degree of desire which the rich people of the country have to possess it.

(73)  There is not a chapter in all the book we profess to believe, specially and directly written for England than the second of Habakkuk, and I never in all my life heard one of its practical texts preached from.

(86 -87)  So that the real fact of the matter is, that people will take alms delightedly, consisting of a carriage and footmen, because those do not look like alms to the people in the street;  but they will not take alms consisting only of bread and water and coals, because everybody would understand what those meant.

(89)  For the arrangement of the laws of a nation so as to procure the greatest advantages to itself, and leave the smallest advantages to other nations, is not a part of the science of political economy, but merely a broad application of the science of fraud.

(106)   There are three weighty matters of the law - justice, mercy, and truth;  and of these the Teacher puts truth last, because that cannot be known but by a course of acts of justice and love.  But men put, in all their efforts, truth first, because they mean by it their own opinions;  and thus, while the world has many people who would suffer martyrdom in the cause of what they call truth, it has few who will suffer even a little inconvenience, in that of justice and mercy.

Unto This Last

(134-135)  What is really desired, under the name of riches, is essentially, power over men;  in its simplest sense, the power of obtaining for our own advantage the labour of servant, tradesman, and artist;  in wider sense, authority of directing large masses of the nation to various ends (good, trivial or hurtful, according to the mind of the rich person).  And this power of wealth of course is greater or less in direct proportion to the poverty of the men over whom it is exercised, and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are as rich as ourselves, and who are ready to give the same price for an article of which the supply is limited.  If the musician is poor, he will sing for small party, as long as there is only one person who can pay him;  but if there be two or three, he will sing for the one who offers him most.  And thus the power of the riches of the patron (always imperfect and doubtful, as we shall see presently, even when most authoritative) depends first on the poverty of the artist, and then on the limitation of the number of equally wealthy persons, who also want seats at the concert.  So that, as above stated, the art of becoming “rich,” in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighours shall have less.  In accurate terms, it is “the art of establishing the maximum inequality in our own favor.”

(142)  So far as I know, there is not in history record of anything so disgraceful to the human intellect as the modern idea that the commercial text, “Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest,” represents, or under any circumstances could represent, an available principle of national economy.  Buy in the cheapest market?  - yes;  but what made your market cheap?  Charcoal may be cheap among your roof timbers after a fire, and bricks may be cheap in your streets after an earthquake;  but fire and earthquake may not therefore be national benefits.  Sell in the dearest?  - yes, truly;  but what made your market dear?  You sold your bread well to-day;  was it to a dying man who gave his last coin for it, and will never need bread more, or to a rich man who to-morrow will buy your farm over your head;  or to a soldier on his way to pillage the bank in which you have put your fortune?

None of these things you can know.  One thing only you can know, namely, whether this dealing of ours is a just and faithful one, which is all you need concern yourself about respecting it;  sure thus to have done your own part in bringing about ultimately int he world a state of things which will not issue in pillage or in death

(168)  Valor, from valere, to be well, or strong;  - strong, in life (if a man), or valiant;  strong, for life (if a thing), or valuable.  To be “valuable,” therefore, 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.

(169)  “To be wealthy,” says Mr [John Stuart] Mill, is “to have a large stock of useful articles.”

I accept this definition.  Only let us perfectly understand it.  My opponents often lament my not giving them enough logic:  I fear I must at present use a little more than they will like;  but this business of Political Economy is no light one, and we must allow no loose terms in it.

(171)  Hence, it follows, that is a thing is to be useful, it must be not only of an availing nature, but in availing hands.  Or, in accurate terms, usefulness is value in the hands of the valiant;  so that this science of wealth being, as we have just seen, when regarded as the science of Accumulation, accumulative of capacity as well as of material, - when regarded as the Science of Distribution, is distribution not absolute, but discriminate;  not of every thing to every man, but of the right thing to the right man.  A difficult science, dependent on more than arithmetic.

NB:  Marx - needs/abilities

(175)  The general law, then, respecting just or economical exchange, is simply this:  -There must be advantage on both sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no disadvantage on the other) to the persons exchanging;  and just payment for his time, intelligence, and labour, to any intermediate person, effecting the transaction (commonly called a merchant):  and whatever advantage there is on either side, and whatever pay is given to the intermediate person, should be thoroughly known to all concerned. 

NB:  perfect knowledge and Economic Man

(176)  Three-fourths of the demands existing in the world are romantic;  founded on visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections;  and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart.  Hence, the right discussion of the nature of price is a very high metaphysical and psychical problem;  sometimes to be solved only in a passionate manner, as by David in his counting the price of the water of the well by the gate of Bethlehem;  but its first conditions are the following:  - The price of anything is the quantity of labour given by the person desiring it, in order to obtain possession of it.  This price depends on four variable quantities.  A.  The quantity of wish the purchaser has for the thing;  opposed to ∂, the quantity of wish the seller has to keep it.  B.  The quantity of labour the purchaser can afford, to obtain the thing;  opposed to ß, the qunatity of labour the seller can afford, to keep it.  These quantities are operative only in excess, i.e. the quantity of wish (A) means the quantity of wish for the thing, above wish for other things;  and the quantity of work (B) means the quantity which can be spared to get the thing from the quantity needed to get other things.

(179)  So far from this being so [economists speaking of no good in consumption], consumption absolute is the end, crown, and perfection of production;  and wise consumption is a far more difficult art than wise production.  Twenty people can gain money for one who can use it;  and the vital question, for individual and for nation, is, never “how much do they make?” but “to what purpose do they spend?”

(184)  It is the very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it is entirely capitalists’ wealth whch supports unjust wars.

(185)  THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE.  Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration.  That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings;  that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.

(190)  As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are also necessary…

(191)  Note, finally, that all effectual advancement towards this true felicity of the human race must be by individual, not public effort.

… We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek - not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure;  not higher fortune, but deeper felicity;  making the first of possessions, self-possession;  and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.

… Of which lowly peace it is written that “justice and peace have kissed each other;”  and that the fruit of justice is “sown in peace of them that make peace;”  not “peace-makers” in the common understanding - reconcilers of quarrels;  (though that function also follows on the greater one;)  but peace-Creators;  Givers of Calm.  Which you cannot give, unless you first gain;  nor is this gain one which will assuredly on any course of business, commonly so called.

Essays on Political Economy

(198)  For no economist would admit national economy to be legitimate which proposed to itself only the building of a pyramid of gold.  He would declare the gold to be wasted, were it to remain in the monumental form, and would say it ought to be employed….  The golden pyramid may perhaps be providently built, perhaps improvidently;  but, at all events, the wisdom or folly of the accumulation can only be determined by our having first clearly stated the aim of all economy, namely, the extension of life….

It has just been stated that the object of political economy is the continuance not only of life, but of healthy and happy life.

(199)  We must therefore yet farther define the aim of political economy to be “The multiplication of human life at the highest standard."

NB:  not quantity but quality as the "standard of living"

(203)  Wealth consists of things in themselves valuable;  Money, of documentary claims to the possession of such things, and Riches is a relative term, expressing the magnitude of the possessions of one person or society as compared with those of other persons or societies.

The study of Wealth is a province of natural science:  - it deals with the essential properties of things.

NB:  ecological economics

The study of Money is as province of commercial science:  - it deals with conditions of engagement and exchange.

The study of Riches is a province of moral science:  - it deals with the due relations of men to each other in regard of material possessions;  and with the just laws of their association for purposes of labor.

(278)  A republic means, properly, a polity in which the state, with its all, is at every man’s service, and every man, with his all, at the state’s service - (people are apt to lose sight of the last condition), but its government may nevertheless be oligarchic (consular, or decemviral, for instance), or monarchic (dictatorial).  But a democracy means a state in which the government rests directly with the majority of the citizens.