# Ch. 2 “The Veins of Wealth”

## Chapter Summary

In this chapter Ruskin considers the concept of wealth and contrasts “mercantile economy,” the accumulation of money, with true wealth. Political economists, says Ruskin, only think about mercantile economy. Ignoring true wealth, they regard their discipline simply as the science of getting rich.

Riches gives you power over other men, but rich men, because they understand only mercantile economy, don't use this power well. Their money circulates through the nation like the flow of blood through a diseased person. Ruskin uses two examples to show that in the mercantile economy getting richer makes another person poorer. It's a zero-sum game.

True wealth is measured by the number of prosperous, noble people that a nation can show. When England finally recognizes this, she will point to her people and say “These are my jewels.”

### The title of this chapter: “The Veins of Wealth”

Because the true wealth of a nation is the well-being of its people, the true veins of wealth are the veins of men.

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# «“What the word “rich” really means (Sec 1)

## Sec 1 #1

Ruskin begins this chapter by setting up a distinction between mercantile economy (ordinary commercial wealth) and political economy, which Ruskin redefines to mean commercial activity that benefits everyone (the “state”). Mercantile economy or “merces” is about individual wealth or “accumulation.” It is, Ruskin argues, what contemporary economic theory teaches and justifies.

## Sec 1 #2

### “far away among the dark streets”

This grim contrast of the lighted rooms of the wealthy and the dark streets of the powerless re-appears in “Essay 4 (“Ad Valorem),” Section 7, #4), where the losers in the cruel economic system retire to the “back streets” to “other places of shade” and finally “out of sight in graves.” Ruskin can be a powerful writer.

### “invisibly, dependent on theirs in the lighted rooms.”

Here Ruskin is making his argument that in the normal mercantile economy one person's accumulation is another person’s want (a “zero-sum” game).

# «How rich men enjoy their riches (Sec 2)

## Sec 2 #3

Ruskin is no Socialist (as he makes very clear). He is not opposed to inequality of wealth. Indeed, the regards this inequality as natural and inevitable. The issue for Ruskin is whether those who have wealth and power use it well, use it for the benefit of all.

### Ruskin footnote 1—bad workmen left unemployed

#### Ruskin’s comment on rogues as “manufactured articles” is effective satire directed at the general failure of society encourage people to become successful and law-abiding individuals.

#### This comment on education as a means to reduce crime and imprisonment remains compelling to this day.

I have been naturally asked several times, with respect to the sentence in the first of these papers, “the bad workmen unemployed,” “But what are you to do with your bad unemployed workmen?” Well, it seems to me the question might have occurred to you before. Your housemaid's place is vacant—you give twenty pounds a year-two girls come for it, one neatly dressed, the other dirtily; one with good recommendations, the other with none. You do not, under these circumstances, usually ask the dirty one if she will come for fifteen pounds, or twelve; and, on her consenting, take her instead of the well-recommended one. Still less do you try to beat both down by making them bid against each other, till you can hire both, one at twelve pounds a year, and the other at eight. You simply take the one fittest for the place, and send away the other, not perhaps concerning yourself quite as much as you should with the question which you now impatiently put to me, “What is to become of her?” For all that I advise you to do, is to deal with workmen as with servants; and verily the question is of weight: “Your bad workman, idler, and rogue—what are you to do with him?”
We will consider of this presently: remember that the administration of a complete system of national commerce and industry cannot be explained in full detail within the space of twelve pages. Meantime, consider whether, there being confessedly some difficulty in dealing with rogues and idlers, it may not be advisable to produce as few of them as possible. If you examine into the history of rogues, you will find they are as truly manufactured articles as anything else, and it is just because our present system of political economy gives so large a stimulus to that manufacture that you may know it to be a false one. We had better seek for a system which will develop honest men, than for one which will deal cunningly with vagabonds. Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

# «The example of inequality: Two farmers (shipwrecked sailors) (Sec 3)

## Sec 3 #3

### Ruskin footnote 2—on the nature of money

The disputes which exist respecting the real nature of money arise more from the disputants examining its functions on different sides, than from any real dissent in their opinions. All money, properly so called, is an acknowledgment of debt; but as such, it may either be considered to represent the labour and property of the creditor, or the idleness and penury of the debtor. The intricacy of the question has been much increased by the (hitherto necessary) use of marketable commodities, such as gold, silver, salt, shells, &c., to give intrinsic value or security to currency; but the final and best definition of money is that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by the nation to give or find a certain quantity of labour on demand. A man's labour for a day is a better standard of value than a measure of any produce, because no produce ever maintains a consistent rate of productibility.

## Sec 3 #4

Ruskin gives us the metaphor of the beneficial circulation of wealth through a nation. This argument shifts at the end of the chapter to the idea that happy, noble individuals rather than money constitute the wealth of a nation.

# «The example of the merchant who exploits two farmers (Sec 4)

## Sec 4 #3

### “pathetic attributes of riches”

Here “pathetic” means “emotional.”

### “on Dura plains” (Daniel 3:1.)

### “wrecker's handful of coin”

Wrecking, in this context, is the practice of causing a vessel (argosy) to shipwreck by setting up a false beacon or fire and then plundering the vessel’s cargo.

### “the purchase-pieces of potter's fields” (Mathew 27:7)

### “buy your farm over your head”

This means that the rich man has managed to purchase your farm (possibly because you are only renting it), even though you want to keep it.

## Sec 4 #4

###

### “Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest,”

Ruskin attacks this fundamental principle of commerce as essentially predatory.

# «The limitations of monetary wealth. The nature of true wealth. (Sec 5)

## Sec 5 #4–#5

Here Ruskin shifts his argument in a very striking manner. If wealth is the power over men's labor and, by extension, over men, the greater the number of men and the nobler these men, the greater the wealth. In fact, we might dispense with the notion of money (gold) altogether in calculating wealth in its true form. Then we can say that a true wealth, the nation's wealth, are its people.

### “These are My Jewels.”

Ruskin's point is that productive and happy people are the true wealth of a nation.