A Treatise on Political Economy. Antoine Louis Claude Destutt De Tracy
alone animates industry.
It unites in the first place inhabitants of the same canton. Then the different cantons of the same country, and finally different nations.
The greatest advantage of external commerce, the only one meriting attention, is its giving a greater development to that which is internal.
Merchants, properly so called, facilitate commerce, but it exists before them and without them.
They give a new value to things by effecting a change of place, as manufacturers do by a change of form.
It is from this increase of value that they derive their profits.
Commercial industry presents the same phenomena as manufacturing industry; in it are likewise theory, application and execution. Men of science, entrepreneurs and workmen; these are compensated in like manner; they have analogous functions and interests, &c. &c.
CHAPTER VI.
Of Money.
Commerce can and does exist to a certain degree without money.
The values of all those things, which have any, serve as a reciprocal measure.
The precious metals, which are one of those things, become soon their common measure, because they have many advantages for this purpose.
However they are not yet money. It is the impression of the sovereign which gives this quality to a piece of metal, in establishing its weight and its fineness.
Silver money is the only true common measure.
The proportion of gold and silver vary according to times and places.
Copper money is a false money, useful only for small change.
It is to be desired that coins had never borne other names than those of their weight; and that the arbitrary denominations, called monies of account, such as livres, sous, deniers, &c. &c. had never been used.
But when these denominations are admitted and employed in transactions, to diminish the quantity of metal to which they answer, by an alteration of the real coins, is to steal.
And it is a theft which injures even him who commits it.
A theft of greater magnitude, and still more ruinous, is the making of paper money.
It is greater, because in this money there is absolutely no real value.
It is more ruinous, because by its gradual depreciation, during all the time of its existence, it produces the effect which would be produced by an infinity of successive deteriorations of the coins.
All these iniquities are founded on the false idea that money is but a sign, while it is value and a true equivalent of that for which it is given.
Silver being a value, as every other useful thing, we should be allowed to hire it as freely as any other thing.
Exchange, properly so called, is a simple barter of one money for another.
Banking, or the proper office of a banker, consists in enabling you to receive in another city the money which you deliver him in that in which he is.
Bankers render also other services, such as discounting, lending, &c. &c.
All these bankers, exchangers, lenders, discounters, &c. &c. have a great tendency to form themselves into large companies under the pretext of rendering their services on more reasonable terms, but in fact to be paid more dearly for them.
All these privileged companies, after the emission of a great number of notes, end in obtaining authority to refuse payment at sight; and thus forcibly introduce a paper money.
CHAPTER VII.
Reflections on what precedes.
Thus far I believe myself to have followed the best course for the attainment of the object which I propose.
This not being a treatise expressly of political economy, but a treatise on the will, the sequel of one on the understanding, we are not here to expect numerous details, but a rigorous chain of principal propositions.
What we have seen already overturns many important errors.
We have a clear idea of the formation of our riches.
It remains for us to speak of their distribution amongst the members of society, and of their consumption.
CHAPTER VIII.
Of the distribution of our Riches amongst Individuals.
We must now consider man under the relation of the interests of individuals.
The species is strong and powerful, the individual is essentially miserable.
Property and inequality are insuperable conditions of our nature.
Labour, even the least skilful, is a considerable property as long as there are lands not occupied.
It is an error in some writers to have pretended there were non-proprietors.
Divided by many particular interests, we are all re-united by those of proprietors and of consumers.
After agriculture the other arts develop themselves.
Misery commences when they can no longer satisfy the calls for labour, which augment.
The state of great ease is necessarily transitory; the fecundity of the human species is the cause.
CHAPTER IX.
Of the multiplication of Individuals, or of Population.
Man multiplies rapidly wherever he has in abundance the means of existence.
Population never becomes retrograde, nor even stationary, but because these means fail.
Amongst savages it is soon checked, because their means are scanty.
Civilized people have more, they become more numerous in proportion as they have more or less of these means, and make better use of them. But the increase of their population is arrested also.
Then there exists always as many men as can exist.
Then it is also absurd to suppose they can be multiplied otherwise than by multiplying their means of existence.
Then finally it is barbarous to wish it, since they always attain the limits of possibility, beyond which they only extinguish one another.
CHAPTER X.
Consequences and development of the two preceding Chapters.
Let us recollect first, that we all have separate interests, and unequal means.
Secondly. That nevertheless we are all united by the common interests of proprietors and consumers.
Thirdly. That, consequently, there are not in society classes which are constantly enemies to one another.
Society divides itself into two great classes, wage earners and employers.
This second class contains two species of men, namely the idle who live on their revenue.
Their means do not augment.
And the active who join their industry to the capitals they may possess. Having reached a certain term their means augment but little.
The funds on which the stipendiaries live become therefore with time nearly a constant quantity.
Moreover the class of wage earners receives the surplus of all the others.