54 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



Political The solitary man was used to labour for his own 

 Economy. wan t Sj an( J his consumption was the measure of his 

 "~ Y ~'" < " protraction ; he fitted out a place to produce him pro- 

 visions for a year, for two years perhaps ; but after- 

 wards he did not indefinitely augment it. It was 

 enough to renew the process so as to maintain himself 

 in the same condition ; and, if he had time to spare, he 

 laboured at acquiring some new enjoyment, at satisfy- 

 ing some other fancy. Society has never done any 

 thing by commerce, except sharing among all its mem- 

 bers what the isolated man would have prepared solely 

 for himself. Each labours, in like manner, to provide 

 for all during a year, two years, or more"; each labours 

 afterwards to keep up this provision, according as con- 

 sumption destroys a part of it; and since the division 

 of labour and the improvement of arts allow more 

 and more work to be done, each, perceiving that he has 

 already provided for the re-production of what has been 

 consumed, studies to awaken new tastes and new fancies 

 whirh he may satisfy. 



But when a man laboured for himself alone, he never 

 dreamt of those fancies, till he had provided for his 

 wants ; his time was his revenue ; his time formed 

 also his whole means of production. There was no 

 room to fear, that the one would not be exactly pro- 

 portioned to the other; that he would ever work to 

 satisfy an inclination which he did not feel, or which 

 he valued less than a want. But when trade was in- 

 troduced, and each no longer laboured for himself, 

 but for an unknown person, the different proportions 

 subsisting between the desire and what could satisfy 

 it, between the labour and the revenue, between 

 production and consumption, were no longer equally 

 certain ; they were independent of each other, and 

 every workman was obliged to regulate his conduct by 

 guessing on a subject, concerning which the most 

 skilful had nothing but conjectural information. 



The isolated man's knowledge of his own means and 

 his own wants required to be replaced by a knowledge 

 of the market* for which the social man was labouring ; 

 of its demands and its extent. 



The number of consumers, their tastes, the extent 

 of their consumption and their income, regulate the 

 market for which every producer labours. Each of 

 these four elements is variable, independently of the 

 rest, and each of their variations accelerates or retards 

 the sale. The number of consumers may decrease, not 

 only by sickness or war, but also by obstacles which 

 policy may place in the way of their communication, 

 or by the avarice of new sellers. Their tastes may be 

 changed by fashion : an extraordinary consumption of 

 one kind of merchandise, brought about by some pub- 

 lic calamity, may have reduced them to be frugal in all 

 the rest ; and finally, their income may diminish with- 

 out a diminution of their number, and with the same 

 wants the same means of satisfying them may no long- 

 er exist. Such revolutions in the market are difficult 

 to know with precision, difficult to calculate ; and their 

 obscurity is greater for each individual producer, be- 

 cause he but imperfectly knows the number and means 

 of his rivals, the merchants, who are to sell in competi- 

 tion with him. But one single observation serves him 

 instead of all others : he compares his price with that of 

 the buyer, and this comparison, according to the profit 

 or the loss which it offers him, is a warning to in- 

 crease or to diminish his production for the following 

 year. 



The producer establishes his price according to what 



the merchandise has cost, including his profit, which Political 

 ought to be proportional to what might be obtained in Kconomy. 

 any other kind of industry. The price must be suffi. " ">-"-' 

 cient to repay the workmen's wages> the rent of the 

 land, or the interest on the fixed capitals employed in 

 production, the raw materials wrought by him, with 

 all the expences of transport, and all the advances of 

 money. When all these reimbursements, calculated 

 at the mean rate of the country, are themselves repaid 

 by the last purchaser, the production may continue on 

 the same footing. If the profits rise above the mean 

 rate, the producer will extend his enterprises; he will 

 employ new hands and fresh capital, and, striving to 

 benefit by this extraordinary profit, he will soon reduce it 

 to tht common level. If the buyer, on the other hand, 

 pays a price too low for compensating all the pro- 

 ducer's reimbursements, the latter will of course seek 

 to reduce his production, but this change will not be 

 so easy as the other. The workmen employed by him, 

 rather than abandon what gains their bread, consent 

 to work at a lower price, for less even than the neces- 

 saries of life. Fixed capitals, moreover, cannot be put 

 to ;mother use ; he will content himself with a smaller 

 profit, and continue to work with them till they pro- 

 duce next to nothing. Lastly, the manufacturer him- 

 self must live by his industry, and never willingly 

 abandons it: he is ever disposed to attribute the decline 

 of his last year's trade to accidental causes ; and the less 

 he has gained, the less is he willing to retire from 

 business. Thus production continues almost always 

 longer than demand, unless the manufacturer has of his 

 own accord renounced his business to attempt a new 

 one. 



The buyer's price, on the other hand, is fixed by 

 competition. He does not inquire what the article 

 costs, but what are the terms on which he may ob- 

 tain another to serve in its stead ; he addresses him- 

 self to various merchants, who offer him the same com- 

 modity, and bargains with him who will sell cheapest ; 

 or else he considers which will suit him best among se- 

 veral articles of a different nature, but capable of being 

 substituted for each other. As each is occupied solely 

 with his own private interest, each tends to the same 

 object ; all the buyers, on one hand, all the sellers, on 

 the other, act as if in concert: the sums asked, and the 

 sums offered, are brought to an equilibrium, and the 

 mean price is established. 



The seller's price should enable him to reproduce 

 the article sold, with a profit, under the same condi- 

 tion, in the same place. His market, therefore, extends 

 to every country where the mean price established by 

 commerce is not smaller than his. His production is 

 not limited by the consumption of neighbours or coun- 

 trymen ; it is regulated by the whole number of those 

 who, whatever country they inhabit, find an advantage 

 in purchasing his goods, or for whom his producing 

 price is not superior to the buying price. It is this 

 which properly constitutes the extent of market. 



As the division of labour incessantly augments its 

 productive powers, and the increase of capitals daily 

 obliges the merchant to seek new employment for 

 industry, and try new manufactures, the producer feels 

 no interest more pressing than that of extending his 

 market. If he cannot find new places of sale, it will 

 neither suit him to enlarge his manufactory, when his 

 capital has been increased by saving, nor to improve his 

 fabrication by performing more work with the same 

 machinery, or the same number of hands. The whole 



