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grains de minérai placées dans l'interieur de la terre d'ou on les a tirés, et ou ils n'ont aucune valeur. De même si je decompose le pain que je mange, et que j'en retranche successivement tous les travaux successifs qu'il a reçus, il ne restera que quelques tiges d'herbes graminées, eparses dans des deserts incultes, et sans aucune valeur."*

It is to labour, therefore, and to labour only, that man owes every thing possessed of exchangeable value. Labour is the talisman that has raised him from the condition of the savage-that has changed the desert and the forest into cultivated fields-that has covered the earth with cities and the ocean with ships-that has given us plenty, comfort, and elegance, instead of want, misery, and barbarism.

This fundamental principle once established, it necessarily follows, that the great practical problem involved in that part of the science of Political Economy which treats of the production of wealth, must resolve itself into a discussion of the means whereby labour may be rendered most efficient, or whereby the greatest amount of necessary, useful, and desirable products may be obtained with the least possible quantity of labour. Every measure that has any tendency to add to the power of labour, or to reduce the cost of the commodities produced by its agency, must add proportionally to our power of obtaining wealth and riches; while every measure or regulation that has any tendency to waste labour, or to raise the cost of producing commodities, must

* Principes d'Economic Politique, p. 6.

equally lessen this power. This, then, is the simple and decisive test by which we are to judge of the expediency of every measure affecting the wealth of the country, and of the value of every invention. If they render labour more productive-if they have a tendency to reduce the exchangeable value of commodities, to render them more easily obtainable, and to bring them within the command of a greater portion of society, they must be advantageous; but if their tendency be different, they must as certainly be disadvantageous. Considered in this point of view, that great branch of the science of Political Economy which treats of the production of wealth, will be found to be abundantly simple, and easily understood.

Labour, according as it is applied to the raising of raw produce to the fashioning of that raw produce, when raised, into articles of utility, convenience or ornament-or to the conveyance of raw and wrought produce from one country and place to another-is said to be agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial. An acquaintance with the particular processes, and most advantageous methods, of applying labour in each of these grand departments of industry, forms the peculiar and appropriate study of the agricultu. rist, manufacturer, and merchant. It is not consistent with the objects of the political economist to enter into the details of particular businesses and professions. He confines himself to an investigation of the means by which labour in general may be rendered most productive, and how its powers may be increased in all the departments of industry.

SECTION II.

Means by which the Productive Powers of Labour are increased.-1. Security of Property.-2. Division of Employments among Individuals.-3. Accumulation and Employment of Capital.-4. Division of Employments among Different Countries, or Commerce-Money.

THE most careless and inattentive observer of the progress of mankind from poverty to affluence must have early perceived that there are three circumstances, without whose conjoint existence and co-operation they could never have emerged from barbarism. The first, and most indispensable, is the security of property, or a lively and well-founded conviction in the mind of every individual that he will be allowed to dispose at pleasure of the fruits of his labour. The second is the introduction of exchange or barter, and the consequent appropriation of particular individuals to particular employments. And the third is the accumulation and employment of the produce of previous labour, or, as it is more commonly termed, of capital, or stock. All the improvements that have ever been made, or that ever can be made, in the great art of producing the necessaries, comforts, and conveniencies of human life, must be classed under some one or other of these three heads. It is, therefore, indispensable that principles, so important, and which lie at the very bottom of the science, should be well understood.

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I. SECURITY OF PROPERTY.-Security of property is the first and most indispensable requisite to the production of wealth. Its utility in this respect is, indeed, so obvious and striking, that it has been more or less respected in every country, and in the earliest and rudest periods of society. All have been impressed with the reasonableness of the maxim which teaches that those who sow ought to be permitted to reapthat the labour of a man's body and the work of his hands are to be considered as exclusivley his own. No savage horde has ever been discovered in which the principle of meum and tuum was not recognized. Nothing, it is plain, could ever tempt any one to engage in any laborious employment-he would neither domesticate wild animals, nor clear and cultivate the. ground, if, after months and years of toil, when his flocks had become numerous, and his harvests were ripening for the sickle, a stranger were to be allowed to rob him of the produce of his industry. No wonder, therefore, that the utility of some general regulations, which should secure to every individual the peaceable enjoyment of the produce he had raised, and of the ground he had cultivated and improved, suggested itself to the first legislators. The author of the book of Job places those who removed their neighbour's land-marks at the head of his list of wicked men ; and some of the earliest profane legislators subjected those who were guilty of this offence to a capital punishment. *

* Goguet, De l'Origine des Loix, &c. Tom. I. p. 30. 4to ed.

Dr Paley has said that the law of the land is the real foundation of the right of property. But the obvious utility of securing to each individual the produce which has been raised by his industry, has undoubtedly formed the irresistible reason which has induced every people emerging from barbarism to establish this right. It is, in truth, the foundation on which almost all the other institutions of society rest; and Cicero has not scrupled to affirm, that it was chiefly for the protection of property that civil government was instituted.-Hanc enim ob causam maxime, ut sua tuerentur, respublicæ civitatesque constitutæ sunt. Nam etsi duce naturæ, congregabantur homines, tamen spe custodia rerum suarum, urbium præsidia quærebant.* Until property had been publicly guaranteed, men must have looked on each other as enemies, rather than as friends. The idle and improvident are always desirous of seizing on the earnings of the laborious and frugal; and, if they were not restrained by the strong arm of the law-if they were permitted to prosecute their attacks they would, by generating a feeling of insecurity, effectually check both industry and accumulation, and sink all classes to the same level of hopeless misery as themselves. The security of property is even more necessary to accumulation than to production. No man ever did or ever will deny himself an immediate gratification when it is within his power, unless he thinks, that, by doing so, he has a fair prospect of obtaining

*De Officiis, Lib. ii. cap. 21.

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