labor, the energies of the industrious members of the community
are bent to the compassing of a higher result in conspicuous
expenditure, rather than slackened to a more comfortable pace.
The strain is not lightened as industrial efficiency increases
and makes a lighter strain possible, but the increment of output
is turned to use to meet this want, which is indefinitely
expansible, after the manner commonly imputed in economic theory
to higher or spiritual wants. It is owing chiefly to the presence
of this element in the standard of living that J. S. Mill was
able to say that "hitherto it is questionable if all the
mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of
any human being." The accepted standard of expenditure in the
community or in the class to which a person belongs largely
determines what his standard of living will be. It does this
directly by commending itself to his common sense as right and
good, through his habitually contemplating it and assimilating
the scheme of life in which it belongs; but it does so also
indirectly through popular insistence on conformity to the
accepted scale of expenditure as a matter of propriety, under
pain of disesteem and ostracism. To accept and practice the
standard of living which is in vogue is both agreeable and
expedient, commonly to the point of being indispensable to
personal comfort and to success in life. The standard of living
of any class, so far as concerns the element of conspicuous
waste, is commonly as high as the earning capacity of the class
will permit -- with a constant tendency to go higher. The effect
upon the serious activities of men is therefore to direct them
with great singleness of purpose to the largest possible
acquisition of wealth, and to discountenance work that brings no
pecuniary gain. At the same time the effect on consumption is to