This extreme inhibition of industry is avoided because
slave labor, working under a compulsion more vigorous than that
of reputability, is forced to turn out a product in excess of the
subsistence minimum of the working class. The subsequent relative
decline in the use of conspicuous leisure as a basis of repute is
due partly to an increasing relative effectiveness of consumption
as an evidence of wealth; but in part it is traceable to another
force, alien, and in some degree antagonistic, to the usage of
conspicuous waste.
This alien factor is the instinct of workmanship. Other
circumstances permitting, that instinct disposes men to look with
favor upon productive efficiency and on whatever is of human use.
It disposes them to deprecate waste of substance or effort. The
instinct of workmanship is present in all men, and asserts itself
even under very adverse circumstances. So that however wasteful a
given expenditure may be in reality, it must at least have some
colorable excuse in the way of an ostensible purpose. The manner
in which, under special circumstances, the instinct eventuates in
a taste for exploit and an invidious discrimination between noble
and ignoble classes has been indicated in an earlier chapter.
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