A Treatise on Political Economy. Antoine Louis Claude Destutt De Tracy

      Thus the extent which that surplus can attain determines that of the total population of which it explains all the variations.

      It follows thence that whatever is really useful to the poor, is always really useful to society at large.

      As proprietors the poor have an interest, first that property be respected. The preservation even of that which does not belong to them, but from which they are remunerated is important to them. It is just and useful also to leave them masters of their labour, and of their abode.

      Secondly. That wages be sufficient. It is of importance also to society that the poor should not be too wretched.

      Thirdly. That these wages be steady. Variations in the different branches of industry are an evil. Those in the price of grain are a still greater one. Agricultural people are greatly exposed to the latter. Commercial people are rarely exposed to the former, except through their own fault.

      As consumers the poor have an interest that manufacturing should be economical, the means of communication easy, and commercial relations numerous. The simplification of process in the arts, the perfection of method are to them a benefit and not an evil. In this their interest is also that of society in general.

      After the opposition of our interests let us examine the inequality of our means.

      All inequality is an evil, because it is a mean of injustice.

      Let us distinguish the inequality of power from inequality of riches.

      Inequality of power is the most grievous. It is that which exists among savages.

      Society diminishes the inequality of power; but it augments that of riches, which carried to an extreme reproduces that of power.

      This inconvenience is more or less difficult to avoid, according to different circumstances. Thence the difference in the destinies of nations.

      It is this vicious circle which explains the connexion of many events which have been always spoken of in a manner very vague and very unexact.

      CHAPTER XI.

      Of the employment of our riches, or of Consumption.

      After having explained how our riches are formed, and how they are distributed, it is easy to see how we use them.

      Consumption is always the reverse of production.

      It varies however according to the species of consumers, and the nature of the things consumed. First let us consider the consumers.

      The consumption of the hired ought to be regarded as made by the capitalists who employ them.

      These capitalists are either the idle who live on their revenue, or the active who live on their profits.

      The first remunerate only sterile labour. Their entire consumption is a pure loss, accordingly they cannot expend annually more than their revenue.

      The others expend annually all their funds, and all those which they hire of the idle capitalists; and sometimes they expend them several times in the year.

      Their consumption is of two kinds.

      That which they make for the satisfaction of their personal wants is definitive and sterile, as that of idle men.

      That which they make in their quality of industrious men returns to them with profit.

      It is with these profits they pay their personal expenses, and the interest due to idle capitalists.

      Thus they find that they pay both the wage earners whom they immediately employ, and the idle proprietors and their wage earners; and all this returns to them by the purchases which all those people make of their productions.

      It is this which constitutes circulation, of which productive consumption is the only fund.

      In regard to the nature of things consumed, consumption the most gradual is the most economical; the most prompt is the most destructive.

      We see that luxury, that is to say superfluous consumption, can neither accelerate circulation nor increase its funds. It only substitutes useless for useful expenses.

      It is like inequality, an inconvenience attached to the increase of riches; but it can never be the cause of their augmentation.

      History plainly shows what happens wherever useless expenses have been suppressed.

      All theories contrary to this reduce themselves to this untenable proposition. That to destroy is to produce.

      CHAPTER XII.

      Of the revenues and expenses of government and its debts.

      The history of the consumption of government is but a part of the history of general consumption.

      Government is a very great consumer, living not on its profits but on its revenues.

      It is good that the government should possess real property. Independently of other reasons it calls for so much the less of taxes.

      A tax is always a sacrifice which the government demands of individuals.

      While it only lessens every one’s personal enjoyments, it only shifts expenses from one to another.

      But when it encroaches on productive consumption it diminishes public riches.

      The difficulty is to see clearly when taxes produce the one or the other of these two effects.

      To judge well of this we must divide them into six classes.

      We show in the first place that the taxes of each of these six classes are injurious in ways peculiar to themselves.

      We show afterwards who in particular are injured by each of them.

      Is a conclusion asked? Here it is. The best taxes are, first, the most moderate, because they compel fewer sacrifices and occasion less violence. Secondly, The most varied, because they produce an equilibrium amongst themselves. Thirdly, The most ancient, because they have already mixed with all prices, and every thing is arranged in consequence.

      As to the expenses of government they are necessary but they are sterile. It is desirable that they be the smallest possible.

      It is still more desirable that government should contract no debts.

      It is very unfortunate that it has the power of contracting them.

      This power, which is called public credit, speedily conducts all the governments which use it to their ruin; has none of the advantages which are attributed to it; and rests on a false principle.

      It is to be desired that it were universally acknowledged that the acts of any legislative power whatsoever cannot bind their successors, and that it should be solemnly declared that this principle is extended to the engagements which they make with the lenders.

      CHAPTER XIII.

      Conclusion.

      This is not properly a treatise on political economy, but the first part of a treatise on the will; which will be followed by two other parts, and which is preceded by an introduction common to all the three.

      Thus we ought not to have entered into many details, but to ascend carefully to principles founded in the observation of our faculties, and to indicate as clearly as possible the relations between our physical and moral wants.

      This is what I have endeavoured to do. Incontestible truths result from it.

      They will be contested however, less through interest than passion.

      A new bond of union between economy and morality; a new reason for analizing well our different sentiments, and for enquiring with care whether they are founded on just or on false opinions.

      Let