Ruskin is grievously unfair in saying that that is the object of mercantile (political) economy; that it is “the science of getting rich.” Such a statement libels both the science and its expounders; and it contains, for Ruskin, an extraordinary looseness in the use of words. There cannot be a science of getting rich, that is an art or a craft. Science is organized knowledge, not practical faculty to do anything or get anything.[66]
How wide is the range of Ruskin’s Economy, how practical its objects, how little of a science it is, how entirely an art, the art of practical government and production, will be further clear from this statement:
“Political economy (the economy of a State or of citizens), consists simply in the production, preservation and distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful or pleasurable things. The farmer who cuts his hay at the right time, the shipwright who drives his bolts well home in sound wood, the builder who lays good bricks in well tempered mortar, the housewife who takes care of her furniture in the parlour and guards against all waste in her kitchen, and the singer who rightly disciplines and never overstrains his voice, are all political economists in the true and final sense; adding continually to the riches and well-being of the nation to which they belong.”[67]
All this is quite true; but not in any sense a rival study to scholastic Economics. The great misfortune is that the atmosphere of controversy and revolt runs through all this glorious gospel, so strong and true in its teachings, so perverse in its criticisms. The sum of the whole doctrine is put in memorable words near the close of _Unto This Last_:
“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.”[68]
All railing accusation is out of place. The business of the man whom Ruskin calls the “vulgar economist” is to theorize, his is to edify. The one is the theoretical engineer and surveyor for the house of the state; his part in the ὁικονομἱα is that of a professional consultant. Ruskin is the actual builder; round his guidance sound the clang of hammer and anvil, the actual stonemasons’ and plumbers’ tools; under his eye grow in time the ivy and the flowers; but it is not the business of the architect or surveyor or sanitary engineer to know all about these, still less to keep a supply of them in his office.