For Each and For All: Martineau’s Moral and Economic Defense of Free Markets

Was Henry Hazlitt right in his defense of capitalism as "the system of freedom, of justice, of productivity," a system in which people are "free to choose. . . free to get and to keep the fruits of their labor" because they "recognize that their reward depends on their own efforts and output?"[1] Or is wealth inequality fundamentally unjust?

One answer is offered by Harriet Martineau's For Each and For All (1832), a novel in her popular series Illustrations of Political Economy.  Martineau engages readers using social satire while embedding economic theories within the fabric of life. [2]  While some of those theories, such as Thomas Malthus's warning about overpopulation, have since been disproved, Martineau's novel illuminates the problems caused by excessive government regulations, resentment of inequality, and reckless speculation.

The result is a charming exploration of how the principles of morality and free markets align to promote prosperity for individuals and society as a whole—"for each and for all."  

Martineau prioritized her moral agenda, reminding the politician Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux that, "though 'Political Economy' stands at the head of my title page . . . it is not the principal subject."  As scholar Valerie Sanders argues, "her chief aim was to teach morals in a new and superior manner." Moreover, "if her subject was 'Morals,' rather than political economy, her field of action becomes much wider.  It takes in all aspects of human conduct, private and public behaviour, volition and action, and environmental influences on character." [3]

Martineau's expansive view of society was especially evident in How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838), where she observes, "Upon the extent of the Commerce of a country depends much of the character of its morals.  Old virtues and vices dwindle away, and new ones appear."  She notes,  

An observer who can also speculate,—one who looks before and after,—will conclude that, amidst some evil, the change is advantageous; and that good must, on the whole, arise from enlarged intercourses between men and societies.  Seeing in commerce the instrument by which all the inhabitants of the earth are in time to be brought into common possession of all true ideas, and sympathy in all good feelings, he will mark the progress made by the society he visits towards this end.  He will mark whether its merchants as a body have a spirit of generous enterprise or of sordid self-interest. [4] 

The wise observer will "see" not only the disadvantages but the benefits of a commercial society. In For Each and For All, Martineau depicts different kinds of speculation—malicious gossip, reckless business ventures, attempts to understand human possibilities—to underscore the moral significance of our choices.  

Martineau sets the first three chapters of this novel in London, where the protagonist, Letitia, makes her social debut at a ball as the wife of Henry, Lord F—, the son of an earl.  The first scene satirizes the speculations of the elite, fascinated that a peer has married an actress.  In fact, variations on the word "speculation" appear four times in the first three pages, establishing a theme in the novel as a whole (with nineteen occurrences total).  The members of the ton expect "awkwardness."  Instead they find "the star of the night" (10).  From this point, Martineau foregrounds the importance of individual worth regardless of birth.  

And Letitia knows her own value.  In her lucrative former career as an actress, she would have had to exercise discipline and business savvy.  Equally important would have been her ability to sympathize with the characters she portrayed and to adjust her performances to what audiences could go along with—skills emphasized by Adam Smith, among others.[5]  

Letitia excelled in her career and enjoyed how theatres unite people of different ranks:  "All went to share a common entertainment."  Yet society otherwise separates them, with the elite dancing at balls as the poor shiver outside. Instead of assuming "there is no such thing as a common welfare," she wants to understand "how all might dance amidst fragrance and music, and none lean starving on the frosty area-rails" (15-16).  She and Lord F— agree to address the problem, Letitia through personal interactions and Lord F— by accepting a position at the Board of Trade.  

Letitia attends closely to what she sees, from the business speculations of her brother-in-law, to prejudices against Jews, to inequality throughout society.  The last point was of some urgency, with figures such as Robert Owen, often called "the Father of English Socialism," experimenting with ways to equalize standards of living, such as in the village of New Harmony, Indiana.[6]  Yet as Lord F— observes, "the inequality of condition we are complaining of is rather checked than promoted by competition.  Competition equalizes the profits of industry, and increases instead of lessening its productiveness" (28).

Lord F—, echoing Malthus,  concludes that the government must change the system: "not, however, by discouraging competition, or abolishing private property, but by removing all artificial restrictions upon food, and by regulating our numbers according to our resources" (42; the latter point being the Malthusian argument then popular).  Most critically, "while the natural laws of production and distribution work out evenly their balance of results, the tendency of legislation thus far seems to be to clog and thwart them" (44).  

In September, the hardworking couple head to their country estate, which lies near a village and a cooperative of "equality folks."[7]  Two issues immediately arise: the value of talent, or "nobility of the better kind" independent of rank; and "the push for equality of condition" regardless of physical or mental powers.  

The couple agree that rank does not always correspond to talent.  For Lord F—, some possess "nobility of the better kind" independent of rank.  Letitia agrees: "Those who, by virtue of a patent of mental nobility, have held sway over the national mind, have been of all ranks."  Lord F— believes that "rank and wealth will, I trust, be in time distributed according to natural laws."  

Yet the "equality" agenda, particularly with its "principle of co-operation," rejects this truth. Those in the cooperative "hold that competition is both the cause and effect of inequality of condition," but Lord F— insists on the folly of attempting to impose equal outcomes.  In a passage that even Ayn Rand would applaud, he presents a parable about giants and dwarfs.

Lord F— asks, "If a giant produces ten times as much as a dwarf, and each is allowed the same middle portion of the fruits, for his maintenance and enjoyment, is it to be supposed that the giant will trouble himself henceforth to produce more than the dwarf?"  The answer, Lady F—points out, is no: he will seize some of the dwarf's portion.  Martineau stresses that society's security depends on enforcing everyone's duties and awarding to all their rights, including their own produce (57-58)

The giants would have no incentive to produce more than the dwarfs, so "instead of working harder for no recompense, they would withdraw,—the mightiest first, and then the next strongest, and so on, til the weakest of the dwarfs would be left to shift for themselves as they best might" (58). Only force could retain the giants.  Equality, concludes Lord F—, is "an arbitrary state, good neither for each nor for all." What matters is "an equality of rights" (59). 

The small business owners outside of the cooperative likewise reject its emphasis on equality of outcomes, promoting their own goods as high quality and fairly priced.  Yet envy and ignorance blind many to the differences that result in varied profits. In chapter V, "Observing at Hand," the grocer/draper Nanny White and her husband resent the local apothecary for charging two shillings for a concoction that Mr. White views as worth twopence.  As Letitia explains, the price includes the learning required to assess the right concoction.  

Likewise, in one of the funniest scenes in the novel, Mrs. White complains about the profits of "public players and singers," clearly oblivious to Letitia's former profession.  Letitia, channeling her usual wit alongside Adam Smith, explains that the profit is due not only to the uncertainty of the profession but the "discredit" belonging to it (65).

In the following chapter, "Observing Afar," Martineau returns to the theme of speculation. Letitia visits the sexton, Joel, and they climb the church tower to gaze at the distant sea.  Here the focus shifts to speculating about the long view.  Letitia observes, "What a pity it is that there is nobody to look out and tell us what truths there are holding their course within the mists in which our systems of religion, and politics, and science, and—above all—of society, are shrouded" (74).  

Of course, Martineau's book partly serves this purpose.  Letitia smartly observes that sharing divisions of opinion is itself valuable: "The more quickly opponents demolish the hinderances set up by one another, the sooner will the natural laws of distribution be left free to work" (76). What are those laws?  Free and voluntary labour (77), securing the fruits of labour to the producer (78), and ensuring that exchanges of the fruits of labour "be free and voluntary" and without excessive taxation (78).  

If Letitia tries to see the long-term possibilities of "for each and all," the final trio of chapters show the consequences of irresponsible speculation by a man for himself: Letitia's brother-in-law, Mr. Waldie, who married her sister after Letitia rejected him.  His reckless financial speculations threaten to ruin him and his family.  

Speculation was of particular interest to Martineau and her family, as she explains in her Autobiography. She observes that, during the "speculations, collapse, and crash of 1825 and 1826," many innocent people suffered.  The speculator was not alone in his losses.  Although Martineau's father never speculated, "he was well nigh ruined during that calamitous season by the deterioration in the value of his stock," and the family fortunes were devastated.[9]  The issue was therefore not simply economic but moral and wide-ranging. 

In fiction, Martineau could imagine a different scenario and outcome.  A distraught Mr. Waldie appears at Lord and Lady F's country estate and confesses he is on the verge of ruin.  He has engaged in several risky speculations, and all have so far failed: only one, the largest, remains in the balance, and "its only chance of success rested upon several thousand pounds being raised within two days" (90).  Letitia leaps into action, rushing to London with her sister to find securities for the amount required the next day.  

In the end, Mr. Waldie's gamble paysid off financially, if not ideally. Mr. Waldie goes insane, while his wife and children are left fabulously wealthy.  

While Martineau ends by listing key lessons, the most compelling point is signaled by the title and reiterated by the protagonist's husband, Lord F—, who describes "what the spirit of society ought to be" in following 

the rule 'for each and for all': showing that there is actual co-operation wherever individual interests are righteously pursued, since the general interest is made up of individual interests.  I showed that justice requires the individual appropriation of the fruits of individual effort; that is, the maintenance of the institution of property; and that producers do as much for all, as well as for each, by carrying their produce to market themselves, as by casting it into a common stock. (126)

Martineau's novel traces how the principles of free exchange align with morality to deliver prosperity and justice.  The result is not "equality" but overall prosperity. As Josiah Warren observes in his account of Owen's failed experiment in New Harmony, "That word, Equality, is a very useful word, in some places; but in a constitution, binding on all, anti-subject to as many different meanings as there are people to use, it can produce only the severest and bitterest of fruits." [10] 

[1]  Henry Hazlitt, The Foundations of Morality, 1963, FEE Legacy ed., 2010, p. 324.

[2]  For more on Harriet Martineau and her writing, see also "Harriet Martineau" in the Online Library of Liberty; David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart, "An Inquiry into the Causes which Affect the Happiness of Nations: The comfort of the lower orders"; and Peter Carl Mentzel's "OLL's June birthday: Harriet Martineau."

[3] Valerie Sanders, Reason over Passion: Harriet Martineau and the Victorian Novel, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986, p. 2.

[4]  Harriet Martineau, How to Observe Morals and Manners, London: Charles K. Knight and Co., 1838, Project Gutenberg, p. 105.

[5]  Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, Glasgow Edition, Oxford University Press, 1976; rpt. Liberty Fund, 1982, p. I.i.1.4, p. 10.

[6]  D. Eric Schansberg, "Utopian Experiments and Three Morality Tales: Socialism in New Harmony, Indiana," Econlib, 3 March 2025. 

 [7] The "equality" system was pursued in communes, including those inspired by Robert Owen, who established  a "Village of Unity and Mutual Cooperation" in New Harmony, Indiana.  Josiah Warren gives a compelling account of that failure in The Motives for Communism and How it Worked.  

[8]  Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Tthe Wealth of Nations, ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, W. B. Todd, Oxford University Press, 1976; rpt. Liberty Fund, 1981, I.xib..25, p. 124.

[9] Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, ed. Maria Weston Chapman, Boston: James R.

Osgood & Co., 1877, 2 vols.,  vol. 1, p. 66

[10]  Warren, Article VIII.