Essays on Political Economy Part 13

B. The question to be decided is, whether the presence of a greater number of crowns has not the effect, precisely, of augmenting the sum of useful things?

F. What connexion can there be between these two terms? Food, clothing, houses, fuel, all come from nature and from labour, from more or less skilful labour exerted upon a more or less liberal nature.

B. You are forgetting one great force, which is--exchange. If you acknowledge that this is a force, as you have admitted that crowns facilitate it, you must also allow that they have an indirect power of production.

F. But I have added, that a small quant.i.ty of rare metal facilitates transactions as much as a large quant.i.ty of abundant metal; whence it follows, that a people is not enriched by being _forced_ to give up useful things for the sake of having more money.

B. Thus, it is your opinion that the treasures discovered in California will not increase the wealth of the world?

F. I do not believe that, on the whole, they will add much to the enjoyments, to the real satisfactions of mankind. If the Californian gold merely replaces in the world that which has been lost and destroyed, it may have its use. If it increases the amount of cash, it will depreciate it. The gold diggers will be richer than they would have been without it. But those in whose possession the gold is at the moment of its depreciation, will obtain a smaller gratification for the same amount. I cannot look upon this as an increase, but as a displacement of true riches, as I have defined them.

B. All that is very plausible. But you will not easily convince me that I am not richer (all other things being equal) if I have two crowns, than if I had only one.

F. I do not deny it.

B. And what is true of me is true of my neighbour, and of the neighbour of my neighbour, and so on, from one to another, all over the country. Therefore, if every Frenchman has more crowns, France must be more rich.

F. And here you fall into the common mistake of concluding that what affects one affects all, and thus confusing the individual with the general interest.

B. Why, what can be more conclusive? What is true of one, must be so of all! What are all, but a collection of individuals? You might as well tell me that every Frenchman could suddenly grow an inch taller, without the average height of Frenchmen being increased.

F. Your reasoning is apparently sound, I grant you, and that is why the illusion it conceals is so common. However, let us examine it a little. Ten persons were at play. For greater ease, they had adopted the plan of each taking ten counters, and against these they had placed a hundred francs under a candlestick, so that each counter corresponded to ten francs. After the game the winnings were adjusted, and the players drew from the candlestick as many ten francs as would represent the number of counters. Seeing this, one of them, a great arithmetician perhaps, but an indifferent reasoner, said--"Gentlemen, experience invariably teaches me that, at the end of the game, I find myself a gainer in proportion to the number of my counters. Have you not observed the same with regard to yourselves? Thus, what is true of me must be true of each of you, and _what is true of each must be true of all_. We should, therefore, all of us gain more, at the end of the game, if we all had more counters. Now, nothing can be easier; we have only to distribute twice the number." This was done; but when the game was finished, and they came to adjust the winnings, it was found that the thousand francs under the candlestick had not been miraculously multiplied, according to the general expectation. They had to be divided accordingly, and the only result obtained (chimerical enough) was this;--every one had, it is true, his double number of counters, but every counter, instead of corresponding to _ten_ francs, only represented _five_. Thus it was clearly shown, that what is true of each, is not always true of all.

B. I see; you are supposing a general increase of counters, without a corresponding increase of the sum placed under the candlestick.

F. And you are supposing a general increase of crowns, without a corresponding increase of things, the exchange of which is facilitated by these crowns.

B. Do you compare the crowns to counters?

F. In any other point of view, certainly not; but in the case you place before me, and which I have to argue against, I do. Remark one thing. In order that there be a general increase of crowns in a country, this country must have mines, or its commerce must be such as to give useful things in exchange for cash. Apart from these two circ.u.mstances, a universal increase is impossible, the crowns only changing hands; and in this case, although it may be very true that each one, taken individually, is richer in proportion to the number of crowns that he has, we cannot draw the inference which you drew just now, because a crown more in one purse implies necessarily a crown less in some other.

It is the same as with your comparison of the middle height. If each of us grew only at the expense of others, it would be very true of each, taken individually, that he would be a taller man if he had the chance, but this would never be true of the whole taken collectively.

B. Be it so: but, in the two suppositions that you have made, the increase is real, and you must allow that I am right.

F. To a certain point, gold and silver have a value. To obtain this, men consent to give useful things which have a value also. When, therefore, there are mines in a country, if that country obtains from them sufficient gold to purchase a useful thing from abroad--a locomotive, for instance--it enriches itself with all the enjoyments which a locomotive can procure, exactly as if the machine had been made at home. The question is, whether it spends more efforts in the former proceeding than in the latter? For if it did not export this gold, it would depreciate, and something worse would happen than what you see in California, for there, at least, the precious metals are used to buy useful things made elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is still a danger that they may starve on heaps of gold. What would it be if the law prohibited exportation? As to the second supposition--that of the gold which we obtain by trade; it is an advantage, or the reverse, according as the country stands more or less in need of it, compared to its wants of the useful things which must be given up in order to obtain it. It is not for the law to judge of this, but for those who are concerned in it; for if the law should start upon this principle, that gold is preferable to useful things, whatever may be their value, and if it should act effectually in this sense, it would tend to make France another California, where there would be a great deal of cash to spend, and nothing to buy. It is the very same system which is represented by Midas.

B. The gold which is imported implies that a _useful thing_ is _ex_ported, and in this respect there is a satisfaction withdrawn from the country. But is there not a corresponding benefit? And will not this gold be the source of a number of new satisfactions, by circulating from hand to hand, and inciting to labour and industry, until at length it leaves the country in its turn, and causes the importation of some useful thing?

F. Now you have come to the heart of the question. Is it true that a crown is the principle which causes the production of all the objects whose exchange it facilitates? It is very clear that a piece of five francs is only _worth_ five francs; but we are led to believe that this value has a particular character: that it is not consumed like other things, or that it is exhausted very gradually; that it renews itself, as it were, in each transaction; and that, finally this crown has been worth five francs, as many times as it has accomplished transactions--that it is of itself worth all the things for which it has been successively exchanged; and this is believed, because it is supposed that without this crown these things would never have been produced. It is said, the shoemaker would have sold fewer shoes, consequently he would have bought less of the butcher; the butcher would not have gone so often to the grocer, the grocer to the doctor, the doctor to the lawyer, and so on.

B. No one can dispute that.

F. This is the time, then, to a.n.a.lyse the true function of cash, independently of mines and importations. You have a crown. What does it imply in your hands? It is, as it were, the witness and proof that you have, at some time or other, performed some labour, which, instead of profiting by it, you have bestowed upon society in the person of your client. This crown testifies that you have performed a _service_ for society, and, moreover, it shows the value of it. It bears witness, besides, that you have not yet obtained from society a _real_ equivalent service, to which you have a right. To place you in a condition to exercise this right, at the time and in the manner you please, society, by means of your client, has given you an acknowledgment, a t.i.tle, a privilege from the republic, a counter, a crown in fact, which only differs from executive t.i.tles by bearing its value in itself; and if you are able to read with your mind's eye the inscriptions stamped upon it you will distinctly decipher these words:--"_Pay the bearer a service equivalent to what he has rendered to society, the value received being shown, proved, and measured by that which is represented by me._" Now, you give up your crown to me. Either my t.i.tle to it is gratuitous, or it is a claim. If you give it me as payment for a service, the following is the result:--your account with society for real satisfactions is regulated, balanced, and closed. You had rendered it a service for a crown, you now restore the crown for a service; as far as you are concerned, you are clear. As for me, I am just in the position in which you were just now. It is I who am now in advance to society for the service which I have just rendered it in your person. I am become its creditor for the value of the labour which I have performed for you, and which I might devote to myself. It is into my hands, then, that the t.i.tle of this credit--the proof of this social debt--ought to pa.s.s. You cannot say that I am any richer; if I am ent.i.tled to receive, it is because I have given. Still less can you say that society is a crown richer, because one of its members has a crown more, and another has one less. For if you let me have this crown gratis, it is certain that I shall be so much the richer, but you will be so much the poorer for it; and the social fortune, taken in a ma.s.s, will have undergone no change, because as I have already said, this fortune consists in real services, in effective satisfactions, in useful things. You were a creditor to society, you made me a subst.i.tute to your rights, and it signifies little to society, which owes a service, whether it pays the debt to you or to me. This is discharged as soon as the bearer of the claim is paid.

B. But if we all had a great number of crowns we should obtain from society many services. Would not that be very desirable?

F. You forget that in the process which I have described, and which is a picture of the reality, we only obtain services from society because we have bestowed some upon it. Whoever speaks of a _service_, speaks at the same time of a service _received_ and _returned_, for these two terms imply each other, so that the one must always be balanced by the other. It is impossible for society to render more services than it receives, and yet this is the chimera which is being pursued by means of the multiplication of coins, of paper money, &c.

B. All that appears very reasonable in theory, but in practice I cannot help thinking, when I see how things go, that if, by some fortunate circ.u.mstance, the number of crowns could be multiplied in such a way that each of us could see his little property doubled, we should all be more at our ease; we should all make more purchases, and trade would receive a powerful stimulus.

F. More purchases! and what should we buy? Doubtless, useful articles--things likely to procure for us substantial gratification--such as provisions, stuffs, houses, books, pictures. You should begin, then, by proving that all these things create themselves; you must suppose the Mint melting ingots of gold which have fallen from the moon; or that the Board of a.s.signats be put in action at the national printing office; for you cannot reasonably think that if the quant.i.ty of corn, cloth, ships, hats and shoes remains the same, the share of each of us can be greater, because we each go to market with a greater number of real or fict.i.tious money. Remember the players. In the social order, the useful things are what the workers place under the candlestick, and the crowns which circulate from hand to hand are the counters. If you multiply the francs without multiplying the useful things, the only result will be, that more francs will be required for each exchange, just as the players required more counters for each deposit. You have the proof of this in what pa.s.ses for gold silver, and copper. Why does the same exchange require more copper than silver, more silver than gold? Is it not because these metals are distributed in the world in different proportions? What reason have you to suppose that if gold were suddenly to become as abundant as silver, it would not require as much of one as of the other to buy a house?

B. You may be right, but I should prefer your being wrong. In the midst of the sufferings which surround us, so distressing in themselves, and so dangerous in their consequences, I have found some consolation in thinking that there was an easy method of making all the members of the community happy.

F. Even if gold and silver were true riches, it would be no easy matter to increase the amount of them in a country where there are no mines.

B. No, but it is easy to subst.i.tute something else. I agree with you that gold and silver can do but little service, except as a mere means of exchange. It is the same with paper money, bank-notes, &c. Then, if we had all of us plenty of the latter, which it is so easy to create, we might all buy a great deal, and should want for nothing. Your cruel theory dissipates hopes, illusions, if you will, whose principle is a.s.suredly very philanthropic.

F. Yes, like all other barren dreams formed to promote universal felicity. The extreme facility of the means which you recommend is quite sufficient to expose its hollowness. Do you believe that if it were merely needful to print bank-notes in order to satisfy all our wants, our tastes and desires, that mankind would have been contented to go on till now, without having recourse to this plan? I agree with you that the discovery is tempting. It would immediately banish from the world, not only plunder, in its diversified and deplorable forms, but even labour itself, except the Board of a.s.signats. But we have yet to learn how a.s.signats are to purchase houses, which no one would have built; corn, which no one would have raised; stuffs, which no one would have taken the trouble to weave.

B. One thing strikes me in your argument. You say yourself, that if there is no gain, at any rate there is no loss in multiplying the instrument of exchange, as is seen by the instance of the players, who were quits by a very mild deception. Why, then, refuse the philosopher's stone, which would teach us the secret of changing flints into gold, and, in the meantime, into paper money? Are you so blindly wedded to your logic, that you would refuse to try an experiment where there can be no risk? If you are mistaken, you are depriving the nation, as your numerous adversaries believe, of an immense advantage. If the error is on their side, no harm can result, as you yourself say, beyond the failure of a hope. The measure, excellent in their opinion, in yours is negative. Let it be tried, then, since the worst which can happen is not the realization of an evil, but the non-realization of a benefit.

F. In the first place, the failure of a hope is a very great misfortune to any people. It is also very undesirable that the Government should announce the re-imposition of several taxes on the faith of a resource which must infallibly fail. Nevertheless, your remark would deserve some consideration, if, after the issue of paper money and its depreciation, the equilibrium of values should instantly and simultaneously take place, in all things and in every part of the country. The measure would tend, as in my example of the players, to a universal mystification, upon which the best thing we could do would be to look at one another and laugh. But this is not in the course of events. The experiment has been made, and every time a despot has altered the money ...

B. Who says anything about altering the money?

F. Why, to force people to take in payment sc.r.a.ps of paper which have been officially baptized _francs_, or to force them to receive, as weighing five grains, a piece of silver which weighs only two and a half, but which has been officially named a _franc_, is the same thing, if not worse; and all the reasoning which can be made in favour of a.s.signats has been made in favour of legal false money. Certainly, looking at it, as you did just now, and as you appear to be doing still, if it is believed that to multiply the instruments of exchange is to multiply the exchanges themselves as well as the things exchanged, it might very reasonably be thought that the most simple means was to double the crowns, and to cause the law to give to the half the name and value of the whole. Well, in both cases, depreciation is inevitable. I think I have told you the cause. I must also inform you, that this depreciation, which, with paper, might go on till it came to nothing, is effected by continually making dupes; and of these, poor people, simple persons, workmen and countrymen are the chief.

B. I see; but stop a little. This dose of Economy is rather too strong for once.

F. Be it so. We are agreed, then, upon this point,--that wealth is the ma.s.s of useful things Which we produce by labour; or, still better, the result of all the efforts which we make for the satisfaction of our wants and tastes. These useful things are exchanged for each other, according to the convenience of those to whom they belong. There are two forms in these transactions; one is called barter: in this case, a service is rendered for the sake of receiving an equivalent service immediately. In this form, transactions would be exceedingly limited. In order that they may be multiplied, and accomplished independently of time and s.p.a.ce amongst persons unknown to each other, and by infinite fractions, an intermediate agent has been necessary,--this is cash. It gives occasion for exchange, which is nothing else but a complicated bargain. This is what has to be remarked and understood. Exchange decomposes itself into two bargains, into two actors, sale and purchase,--the reunion of which is needed to complete it. You _sell_ a service, and receive a crown--then, with this crown, you _buy_ a service. Then only is the bargain complete; it is not till then that your effort has been followed by a real satisfaction. Evidently you only work to satisfy the wants of others, that others may work to satisfy yours. So long as you have only the crown which has been given you for your work, you are only ent.i.tled to claim the work of another person.

When you have done so, the economical evolution will be accomplished as far as you are concerned, since you will then only have obtained, by a real satisfaction, the true reward for your trouble. The idea of a bargain implies a service rendered, and a service received. Why should it not be the same with exchange, which is merely a bargain in two parts? And here there are two observations to be made. First,--It is a very unimportant circ.u.mstance whether there be much or little cash in the world. If there is much, much is required; if there is little, little is wanted, for each transaction: that is all. The second observation is this:--Because it is seen that cash always reappears in every exchange, it has come to be regarded as the _sign_ and the _measure_ of the things exchanged.

B. Will you still deny that cash is the _sign_ of the useful things of which you speak?

F. A louis[6] is no more the sign of a sack of corn, than a sack of corn is the sign of a louis.

B. What harm is there in looking at cash as the sign of wealth?

F. The inconvenience is this,--it leads to the idea that we have only to increase the sign, in order to increase the things signified; and we are in danger of adopting all the false measures which you took when I made you an absolute king. We should go still further. Just as in money we see the sign of wealth, we see also in paper money the sign of money; and thence conclude that there is a very easy and simple method of procuring for everybody the pleasures of fortune.

B. But you will not go so far as to dispute that cash is the _measure_ of values?

F. Yes, certainly, I do go as far as that, for that is precisely where the illusion lies. It has become customary to refer the value of everything to that of cash. It is said, this is _worth_ five, ten, or twenty francs, as we say this _weighs_ five, ten, or twenty grains; this _measures_ five, ten, or twenty yards; this ground _contains_ five, ten, or twenty acres; and hence it has been concluded, that cash is the _measure_ of _values_.

B. Well, it appears as if it was so.

F. Yes, it appears so, and it is this I complain of, and not of the reality. A measure of length, size, surface, is a quant.i.ty agreed upon, and unchangeable. It is not so with the value of gold and silver. This varies as much as that of corn, wine, cloth, or labour, and from the same causes, for it has the same source and obeys the same laws. Gold is brought within our reach, just like iron, by the labour of miners, the advances of capitalists, and the combination of merchants and seamen. It costs more or less, according to the expense of its production, according to whether there is much or little in the market, and whether it is much or little in request; in a word, it undergoes the fluctuations of all other human productions. But one circ.u.mstance is singular, and gives rise to many mistakes. When the value of cash varies, the variation is attributed by language to the other productions for which it is exchanged. Thus, let us suppose that all the circ.u.mstances relative to gold remain the same, and that the corn harvest has failed. The price of corn will rise. It will be said, "The quarter of corn, which was worth twenty francs, is now worth thirty;"

and this will be correct, for it is the value of the corn which has varied, and language agrees with the fact. But let us reverse the supposition: let us suppose that all the circ.u.mstances relative to corn remain the same, and that half of all the gold in existence is swallowed up; this time it is the price of gold which will rise. It would seem that we ought to say,--"This Napoleon, which _was worth_ twenty francs, _is now worth_ forty." Now, do you know how this is expressed? Just as if it was the other objects of comparison which had fallen in price, it is said,--"Corn, which _was worth_ twenty francs, _is now only worth_ ten."

B. It all comes to the same thing in the end.

F. No doubt; but only think what disturbances, what cheatings are produced in exchanges, when the value of the medium varies, without our becoming aware of it by a change in the name. Old pieces are issued, or notes bearing the name of twenty _francs_, and which will bear that name through every subsequent depreciation. The value will be reduced a quarter, a half, but they will still be called _pieces_ or _notes of twenty francs_. Clever persons will take care not to part with their goods unless for a larger number of notes--in other words, they will ask forty francs for what they would formerly have sold for twenty; but simple persons will be taken in. Many years must pa.s.s before all the values will find their proper level. Under the influence of ignorance and _custom_, the day's pay of a country labourer will remain for a long time at a franc, while the saleable price of all the articles of consumption around him will be rising. He will sink into dest.i.tution without being able to discover the cause. In short, since you wish me to finish, I must beg you, before we separate, to fix your whole attention upon this essential point:--When once false money (under whatever form it may take) is put into circulation, depreciation will ensue, and manifest itself by the universal rise of every thing which is capable of being sold. But this rise in prices is not instantaneous and equal for all things. Sharp men, brokers, and men of business, will not suffer by it; for it is their trade to watch the fluctuations of prices, to observe the cause, and even to speculate upon it. But little tradesmen, countrymen, and workmen, will bear the whole weight of it. The rich man is not any the richer for it, but the poor man becomes poorer by it.

Therefore, expedients of this kind have the effect of increasing the distance which separates wealth from poverty, of paralysing the social tendencies which are incessantly bringing men to the same level, and it will require centuries for the suffering cla.s.ses to regain the ground which they have lost in their advance towards _equality of condition_.

B. Good morning; I shall go and meditate upon the lecture you have been giving me.

F. Have you finished your own dissertation? As for me, I have scarcely begun mine. I have not yet spoken of the _hatred_ of capital, of gratuitous credit--a fatal notion, a deplorable mistake, which takes its rise from the same source.