That is to say, in the language of current economic theory, while
men are reluctant to retrench their expenditures in any
direction, they are more reluctant to retrench in some directions
than in others; so that while any accustomed consumption is
reluctantly given up, there are certain lines of consumption
which are given up with relatively extreme reluctance. The
articles or forms of consumption to which the consumer clings
with the greatest tenacity are commonly the so-called necessaries
of life, or the subsistence minimum. The subsistence minimum is
of course not a rigidly determined allowance of goods, definite
and invariable in kind and quantity; but for the purpose in hand
it may be taken to comprise a certain, more or less definite,
aggregate of consumption required for the maintenance of life.
This minimum, it may be assumed, is ordinarily given up last in
case of a progressive retrenchment of expenditure. That is to
say, in a general way, the most ancient and ingrained of the
habits which govern the individual's life -- those habits that
touch his existence as an organism -- are the most persistent and
imperative. Beyond these come the higher wants -- later-formed
habits of the individual or the race -- in a somewhat irregular
and by no means invariable gradation.
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