POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



43 





Political however, was destined for consumption ; and if their 

 I annual products, when carried to the destined market, 

 found no piirdiaser, reproduction was arrested, and the 

 nation ruined a-, before. We shall attempt to ex- 

 plain this double relation, at once so essential and so 

 delicate, by showing, on the one hand, how income 

 springs from capital ; on the other, how what is income 

 l<r OIK- may he capital for a second. 



To the Solitary, every kind of wealth was a pro- 

 vision made beforehand against the moment of neces- 

 sity ; yet still in this provision he distinguished two 

 things, the part which it suited his economy to keep 

 in reserve for immediate, or nearly immediate use, and 

 the part which he would not need before the time when 

 he might obtain it by a new production. One portion 

 of his corn was to support him till the next harvest ; 

 another portion, set apart for seed, was to bring forth 

 its fruit in the following year. 



The formation of society, the introduction of ex- 

 change, allowed him almost indefinitely to multiply 

 this seed, this fruit- bearing portion of accumulated 

 wealth. It is what we name capital. 



The ground and his animals were all that the isolated 

 man could force to work in concert with him ; but, in 

 society, the rich man could force the poor to work in 

 concert with him. After having set apart what corn 

 was necessary till the next harvest, it suited him to 

 employ the remaining surplus of corn in feeding other 

 men, that they might cultivate the ground and make 

 fresh corn for him ; that they might spin and weave 

 his hemps and wools ; that, in a word, they might 

 take out of his hands the commodity ready for being 

 consumed, and at the expiration ot a certain period, 

 return him another commodity of a greater value, like- 

 wise destined for consumption. Wages were the price 

 at which the rich man obtained the poor man's labour 

 in exchange. The division of labour had produced 

 the distinction of ranks. The person who had limited 

 his efforts to perform only one very simple operation in 

 a manufacture, had made himself dependent on who- 

 ever chose to employ him. He no longer produced a 

 complete work, but merely the part of a work; in 

 which he required not only the co operation of other 

 workmen, but also raw materials, proper implements, 

 and a trader to undertake the exchange of the article 

 which he had contributed to finish. Whenever he bar- 

 gained with a master-workman for the exchange of la- 

 bour against subsistence, the condition he stood in was 

 always disadvantageous, since his need of subsistence 

 and his inability to procure it of himself, were far 

 greater than the master's need of labour; and there- 

 fore he almost constantly narrowed his demand to bare 

 necessaries, without which the stipulated labour could 

 not have proceeded ; whilst the master alone profited 

 from the increase of productive power, brought about 

 by the division of labour. 



The master, who hired workmen, was situated in 

 all points exactly as the husbandman who sows the 

 ground. The wages paid to his workmen were a kind 

 of seed which he entrusted to them, and expected in a 

 given time to bring forth fruit. Like the husbandman, 

 he did not sow all his productive wealth ; a part of it 

 had been devoted to such buildings, or machines, or 

 implements, as make labour more easy and productive ; 

 just in the way that a part of the husbandman's wealth 

 was devoted to permanent works, destined to render 



the ground more fertile. It it thus that we see the '' 

 different kind* of wealth ipringing up and separating, ^^f- 

 whilst each exeits a different influence on it* own re- 

 production. The funds of consumption, uch at do- 

 mestic neceaeariet, do not any longer produce fruit, after 

 each has secured them for his own ue ; fixed capita), 

 such as improvements of the soil, canals of irrigation, 

 and machinery, during the progress of its own tlow 

 consumption, co-operates with labour of which it aug- 

 ments the products ; and, lastly, circulating capital, 

 such as teed, wages, and raw materials, destined to be 

 wrought, is consumed annually or even more rapidly, 

 in order to be again reproduced. It is essentially im- 

 portant to remark, that those three kindt of wealth 

 are all equally advancing towards consumption. But 

 the first when consumed is absolutely destroyed ; for 

 societies, as for individuals, it is merely an expence : 

 whereas the second and third, after being consumed, 

 are reproduced under a new form ; and for societies, as 

 for individuals, the consumption of them is a putting 

 out to profit, or the circulation of capitals. 



We shall better understand this movement of wealth, 

 which perhaps it is difficult to follow, by fixing our 

 observation on a single family engaged in the simplest 

 of all speculations. A solitary farmer has reaped a 

 hundred bags of corn, and is destitute of any market 

 to which he can carry it. At all events, this corn must 

 be consumed within the year, otherwise it will be worth 

 nothing to the farmer. But he and his family may re- 

 quire only thirty bags of it; this is his expence: ano- 

 ther thirty may be employed to support workmen en- 

 gaged in felling the forests, or draining the marshes of 

 the neighbourhood to put them under culture ; this 

 will be converting thirty bags into fixed capital : and, 

 finally, the remaining forty bags may be sown, and 

 formed into a circulating capital, in place of the twen- 

 ty bags sown the preceding year. The hundred bags 

 are thus consumed ; but seventy of them are put out to 

 profit, they will reappear partly at the next harvest, 

 partly at those which follow. By this means, in con- 

 suming he will have saved. Yet the limits of such an 

 operation are easily discerned. If this year, out of the 

 hundred bags which he reaped, he could get no more 

 than sixty eaten, who will eat the two hundred bags 

 produced next year by the augmentation of his seed?* 



Resuming these three sorts of wealth, which, as we 



have seen, become distinct in a private family, let us now 

 consider each sort with regard to the whole nation, and 

 see how the national revenue may arise from this di- 

 vision. 



As the farmer required a primitive quantity of la- 

 bour to be expended in cutting down the forests, and 

 draining the marshes which he meant to cultivate ; so, 

 for every kind of enterprise, there is required a pri- 

 mitive quantity of labour to facilitate and augment the 

 circulating capital. The ore cannot be obtained till 

 the mine is opened ; canals must be dug, machinery 

 and mills must be constructed, before they can be 

 used ; manufactories must be built, and looms set up, 

 before the wool, the hemp, or the silk can be weaved. 

 This first advance is always accomplished by labour ; 

 this labour is always represented by wages ; and these 

 wages are always exchanged for necessaries of life, which 

 the workmen consume in executing their task. Hence 

 what we have called fixed capital, is a part of the 

 annual consumption, transformed into durable estab- 



* I fit family, wltich will multiply, it may be said, in answer. Doubtless : but human generations do Dot grow so fast as food. This is 

 the reverse of what Mr. Malthus has advanced. We shall afterwards examine this discrepancy. 



