Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 5

But the great Mind which put harmony into the movements of celestial bodies, could also give it to the internal mechanism of society. We will see the advantages of this invention escaping from the individual, to become forever the common patrimony of mankind.

The process finally becomes known. Guttenberg is no longer alone in his art; others imitate him. Their profits are at first considerable. They are recompensed for being the first who make the effort to imitate the processes of the newly invented art. This again was necessary, in order that they might be induced to the effort, and thus forward the great and final result to which we approach. They gain much; but they gain less than the inventor, for _compet.i.tion_ has commenced its work. The price of books now continually decreases. The gains of the imitators diminish in proportion as the invention becomes older; and in the same proportion imitation becomes less meritorious. Soon the new object of industry attains its normal condition; in other words, the remuneration of printers is no longer an exception to the general rules of remuneration, and, like that of copyists formerly, it is only regulated _by the general rate of profits_. Here then the producer, as such, holds only the old position. The discovery, however, has been made; the saving of time, labor, effort, for a fixed result, for a certain number of volumes, is realized. But in what is this manifested? In the cheap price of books. For the good of whom? For the good of the consumer,--of society,--of humanity. Printers, having no longer any peculiar merit, receive no longer a peculiar remuneration. As men,--as consumers,--they no doubt partic.i.p.ate in the advantages which the invention confers upon the community; but that is all. As printers, as producers, they are placed upon the ordinary footing of all other producers. Society pays them for their labor, and not for the usefulness of the invention.

_That_ has become a gratuitous benefit, a common heritage to mankind.

What has been said of printing can be extended to every agent for the advancement of labor; from the nail and the mallet, up to the locomotive and the electric telegraph. Society enjoys all, by the abundance of its use, its consumption; and it _enjoys all gratuitously_. For as their effect is to diminish prices, it is evident that just so much of the price as is taken off by their intervention, renders the production in so far _gratuitous_. There only remains the actual labor of man to be paid for; and the remainder, which is the result of the invention, is subtracted; at least after the invention has run through the cycle which I have just described as its destined course. I send for a workman; he brings a saw with him; I pay him two francs for his day's labor, and he saws me twenty-five boards. If the saw had not been invented, he would perhaps not have been able to make one board, and I would have paid him the same for his day's labor. The _usefulness_ then of the saw, is for me a gratuitous gift of nature, or rather it is a portion of the inheritance which, _in common_ with my brother men, I have received from the genius of my ancestors. I have two workmen in my field; the one directs the handle of a plough, the other that of a spade. The result of their day's labor is very different, but the price is the same, because the remuneration is proportioned, not to the usefulness of the result, but to the effort, the labor given to attain it.

I invoke the patience of the reader, and beg him to believe, that I have not lost sight of free trade: I entreat him only to remember the conclusion at which I have arrived: _Remuneration is not proportioned to the usefulness of the articles brought by the producer into the market, but to the labor_.[11]

[Footnote 11: It is true that labor does not receive a uniform remuneration; because labor is more or less intense, dangerous, skillful, etc. Compet.i.tion establishes for each category a price current; and it is of this variable price that I speak.]

I have so far taken my examples from human inventions, but will now go on to speak of natural advantages.

In every article of production, nature and man must concur. But the portion of nature is always gratuitous. Only so much of the usefulness of an article as is the result of human labor becomes the object of mutual exchange, and consequently of remuneration. The remuneration varies much, no doubt, in proportion to the intensity of the labor, of the skill which it requires, of its being _a propos_ to the demand of the day, of the need which exists for it, of the momentary absence of compet.i.tion, etc. But it is not the less true in principle, that the a.s.sistance received from natural laws, which belongs to all, counts for nothing in the price.

We do not pay for the air we breathe, although so useful to us, that we could not live two minutes without it. We do not pay for it, because Nature furnishes it without the intervention of man's labor. But if we wish to separate one of the gases which compose it, for instance, to fill a balloon, we must take some trouble and labor; or if another takes it for us, we must give him an equivalent in something which will have cost us the trouble of production. From which we see that the exchange is between troubles, efforts, labors. It is certainly not for hydrogen gas that I pay, for this is every where at my disposal, but for the work that it has been necessary to accomplish in order to disengage it; work which I have been spared, and which I must refund. If I am told that there are other things to pay for; as expense, materials, apparatus; I answer, that still in these things it is the work that I pay for. The price of the coal employed is only the representation of the labor necessary to dig and transport it.

We do not pay for the light of the sun, because Nature alone gives it to us. But we pay for the light of gas, tallow, oil, wax, because here is labor to be remunerated;--and remark, that it is so entirely labor and not utility to which remuneration is proportioned, that it may well happen that one of these means of lighting, while it may be much more effective than another, may still cost less. To cause this, it is only necessary that less human labor should be required to furnish it.

When the water-carrier comes to supply my house, were I to pay him in proportion to the _absolute utility_ of the water, my whole fortune would not be sufficient. But I pay him only for the trouble he has taken. If he requires more, I can get others to furnish it, or finally go and get it myself. The water itself is not the subject of our bargain; but the labor taken to get the water. This point of view is so important, and the consequences that I am going to draw from it so clear, as regards the freedom of international exchanges, that I will still elucidate my idea by a few more examples.

The alimentary substance contained in potatoes does not cost us very dear, because a great deal of it is attainable with little work. We pay more for wheat, because, to produce it Nature requires more labor from man. It is evident that if Nature did for the latter what she does for the former, their prices would tend to the same level. It is impossible that the producer of wheat should permanently gain more than the producer of potatoes. The law of compet.i.tion cannot allow it.

If by a happy miracle the fertility of all arable lands were to be increased, it would not be the agriculturist, but the consumer, who would profit by this phenomenon; for the result of it would be, abundance and cheapness. There would be less labor incorporated into an acre of grain, and the agriculturist would be therefore obliged to exchange it for a less labor incorporated into some other article. If, on the contrary, the fertility of the soil were suddenly to deteriorate, the share of Nature in production would be less, that of labor greater, and the result would be higher prices. I am right then in saying that it is in consumption, in mankind, that at length all political phenomena find their solution. As long as we fail to follow their effects to this point, and look only at _immediate_ effects, which act but upon individual men or cla.s.ses of men _as producers_, we know nothing more of political economy than the quack does of medicine, when, instead of following the effects of a prescription in its action upon the whole system, he satisfies himself with knowing how it affects the palate and the throat.

The tropical regions are very favorable to the production of sugar and coffee; that is to say, Nature does most of the business and leaves but little for labor to accomplish. But who reaps the advantage of this liberality of Nature? Not these regions, for they are forced by compet.i.tion to receive simply remuneration for their labor. It is mankind who is the gainer; for the result of this liberality is _cheapness_, and cheapness belongs to the world.

Here in the temperate zone, we find coal and iron ore, on the surface of the soil; we have but to stoop and take them. At first, I grant, the immediate inhabitants profit by this fortunate circ.u.mstance. But soon comes compet.i.tion, and the price of coal and iron falls, until this gift of Nature becomes gratuitous to all, and human labor is only paid according to the general rate of profits.

Thus natural advantages, like improvements in the process of production, are, or have a constant tendency to become, under the law of compet.i.tion, the common and _gratuitous_ patrimony of consumers, of society, of mankind. Countries therefore which do not enjoy these advantages, must gain by commerce with those which do; because the exchanges of commerce are between _labor and labor_; subtraction being made of all the natural advantages which are combined with these labors; and it is evidently the most favored countries which can incorporate into a given labor the largest proportion of these _natural advantages_.

Their produce representing less labor, receives less recompense; in other words, is _cheaper_. If then all the liberality of Nature results in cheapness, it is evidently not the producing, but the consuming country, which profits by her benefits.

Hence we may see the enormous absurdity of the consuming country, which rejects produce precisely because it is cheap. It is as though we should say: "We will have nothing of that which Nature gives you. You ask of us an effort equal to two, in order to furnish ourselves with articles only attainable at home by an effort equal to four. You can do it because with you Nature does half the work. But we will have nothing to do with it; we will wait till your climate, becoming more inclement, forces you to ask of us a labor equal to four, and then we can treat with you _upon an equal footing_."

A is a favored country; B is maltreated by Nature. Mutual traffic then is advantageous to both, but princ.i.p.ally to B, because the exchange is not between _utility_ and _utility_, but between _value_ and _value_.

Now A furnishes a greater _utility in a similar value_, because the _utility_ of any article includes at once what Nature and what labor have done; whereas the _value_ of it only corresponds to the portion accomplished by labor. B then makes an entirely advantageous bargain; for by simply paying the producer from A for his labor, it receives in return not only the results of that labor, but in addition there is thrown in whatever may have accrued from the superior bounty of Nature.

We will lay down the general rule.

Traffic is an exchange of _values_; and as value is reduced by compet.i.tion to the simple representation of labor, traffic is the exchange of equal labors. Whatever Nature has done towards the production of the articles exchanged, is given on both sides _gratuitously_; from whence it necessarily follows, that the most advantageous commerce is transacted with those countries which are the most favored by Nature.

The theory of which I have attempted, in this chapter, to trace the outlines, would require great developments. But perhaps the attentive reader will have perceived in it the fruitful seed which is destined in its future growth to smother Protection, at once with Fourierism, Saint Simonism, Commonism, and the various other schools whose object is to exclude the law of COMPEt.i.tION from the government of the world.

Compet.i.tion, no doubt, considering man as producer, must often interfere with his individual and _immediate_ interests. But if we consider the great object of all labor, the universal good, in a word, _Consumption_, we cannot fail to find that Compet.i.tion is to the moral world what the law of equilibrium is to the material one. It is the foundation of true Commonism, of true Socialism, of the equality of comforts and condition, so much sought after in our day; and if so many sincere reformers, so many earnest friends to the public rights, seek to reach their end by commercial _legislation_, it is only because they do not yet understand _commercial freedom_.

V.

OUR PRODUCTIONS ARE OVERLOADED WITH TAXES.

This is but a new wording of the last Sophism. The demand made is, that the foreign article should be taxed, in order to neutralize the effects of the tax, which weighs down national produce. It is still then but the question of equalizing the facilities of production. We have but to say that the tax is an artificial obstacle, which has exactly the same effect as a natural obstacle, i.e. the increasing of the price. If this increase is so great that there is more loss in producing the article in question than in attracting it from foreign parts by the production of an equivalent value, let it alone. Individual interest will soon learn to choose the lesser of two evils. I might refer the reader to the preceding demonstration for an answer to this Sophism; but it is one which recurs so often in the complaints and the pet.i.tions, I had almost said the demands, of the protectionist school, that it deserves a special discussion.

If the tax in question should be one of a special kind, directed against fixed articles of production, I agree that it is perfectly reasonable that foreign produce should be subjected to it. For instance, it would be absurd to free foreign salt from impost duty; not that in an economical point of view France would lose any thing by it; on the contrary, whatever may be said, principles are invariable, and France would gain by it, as she must always gain by avoiding an obstacle whether natural or artificial. But here the obstacle has been raised with a fiscal object. It is necessary that this end should be attained; and if foreign salt were to be sold in our market free from duty, the treasury would not receive its revenue, and would be obliged to seek it from some thing else. There would be evident inconsistency in creating an obstacle with a given object, and then avoiding the attainment of that object. It would have been better at once to seek what was needed in the other impost without taxing French salt. Such are the circ.u.mstances under which I would allow upon any foreign article a duty, _not protecting_ but fiscal.

But the supposition that a nation, because it is subjected to heavier imposts than those of another neighboring nation, should protect itself by tariffs against the compet.i.tion of its rival, is a Sophism, which it is now my purpose to attack.

I have said more than once, that I am opposing only the theory of the protectionists, with the hope of discovering the source of their errors.

Were I disposed to enter into controversy with them, I would say: Why direct your tariffs princ.i.p.ally against England and Belgium, both countries more overloaded with taxes than any in the world? Have I not a right to look upon your argument as a mere pretext? But I am not of the number of those who believe that prohibitionists are guided by interest, and not by conviction. The doctrine of Protection is too popular not to be sincere. If the majority could believe in freedom, we would be free. Without doubt it is individual interest which weighs us down with tariffs; but it acts upon conviction.

The State may make either a good or a bad use of taxes; it makes a good use of them when it renders to the public services equivalent to the value received from them; it makes a bad use of them when it expends this value, giving nothing in return.

To say in the first case that they place the country which pays them in more disadvantageous conditions for production, than the country which is free from them, is a Sophism. We pay, it is true, twenty millions for the administration of justice, and the maintenance of the police, but we have justice and the police; we have the security which they give, the time which they save for us; and it is most probable that production is neither more easy nor more active among nations, where (if there be such) each individual takes the administration of justice into his own hands. We pay, I grant, many hundred millions for roads, bridges, ports, railways; but we have these railways, these ports, bridges and roads, and unless we maintain that it is a losing business to establish them, we cannot say that they place us in a position inferior to that of nations who have, it is true, no taxes for public works, but who likewise have no public works. And here we see why (even while we accuse internal taxes of being a cause of industrial inferiority) we direct our tariffs precisely against those nations which are the most taxed. It is because these taxes, well used, far from injuring, have ameliorated the _conditions of production_ to these nations. Thus we again arrive at the conclusion that the protectionist Sophisms not only wander from, but are the contrary--the very ant.i.thesis of truth.

As to unproductive imposts, suppress them if you can; but surely it is a most singular idea to suppose, that their evil effect is to be neutralized by the addition of individual taxes to public taxes. Many thanks for the compensation! The State, you say, has taxed us too much; surely this is no reason why we should tax each other!

A protective duty is a tax directed against foreign produce, but which returns, let us keep in mind, upon the national consumer. Is it not then a singular argument to say to him, "Because the taxes are heavy, we will raise prices higher for you; and because the State takes a part of your revenue, we will give another portion of it to benefit a monopoly?"

But let us examine more closely this Sophism so accredited among our legislators; although, strange to say, it is precisely those who keep up the unproductive imposts (according to our present hypothesis) who attribute to them afterwards our supposed inferiority, and seek to re-establish the equilibrium by further imposts and new clogs.

It appears to me to be evident that protection, without any change in its nature and effects, might have taken the form of a direct tax, raised by the State, and distributed as a premium to privileged industry.

Let us admit that foreign iron could be sold in our market at eight francs, but not lower; and French iron at not lower than twelve francs.

In this hypothesis there are two ways in which the State can secure the national market to the home producer.

The first, is to put upon foreign iron a duty of five francs. This, it is evident, would exclude it, because it could no longer be sold at less than thirteen francs; eight francs for the cost price, five for the tax; and at this price it must be driven from the market by French iron, which we have supposed to cost twelve francs. In this case the buyer, the consumer, will have paid all the expenses of the protection given.

The second means would be to lay upon the public a tax of five francs, and to give it as a premium to the iron manufacturer. The effect would in either case be equally a protective measure. Foreign iron would, according to both systems, be alike excluded; for our iron manufacturer could sell at seven francs, what, with the five francs premium, would thus bring him in twelve. While the price of sale being seven francs, foreign iron could not obtain a market at eight.

In these two systems the principle is the same; the effect is the same.

There is but this single difference; in the first case the expense of protection is paid by a part, in the second by the whole of the community.

I frankly confess my preference for the second system, which I regard as more just, more economical and more legal. More just, because, if society wishes to give bounties to some of its members, the whole community ought to contribute; more economical, because it would banish many difficulties, and save the expenses of collection; more legal, lastly, because the public would see clearly into the operation, and know what was required of it.

But if the protective system had taken this form, would it not have been laughable enough to hear it said, "We pay heavy taxes for the army, the navy, the judiciary, the public works, the schools, the public debt, etc. These amount to more than a thousand million. It would therefore be desirable that the State should take another thousand million, to relieve the poor iron manufacturers; or the suffering stockholders of coal mines; or those unfortunate lumber dealers, or the useful codfishery."

This, it must be perceived, by an attentive investigation, is the result of the Sophism in question. In vain, gentlemen, are all your efforts; you cannot _give money_ to one without taking it from another. If you are absolutely determined to exhaust the funds of the taxable community, well; but, at least, do not mock them; do not tell them, "We take from you again, in order to compensate you for what we have already taken."

It would be a too tedious undertaking to endeavor to point out all the fallacies of this Sophism. I will therefore limit myself to the consideration of it in three points.

You argue that France is overburthened with taxes, and deduce thence the conclusion that it is necessary to protect such and such an article of produce. But protection does not relieve us from the payment of these taxes. If, then, individuals devoting themselves to any one object of industry, should advance this demand: "We, from our partic.i.p.ation in the payment of taxes, have our expenses of production increased, and therefore ask for a protective duty which shall raise our price of sale;" what is this but a demand on their part to be allowed to free themselves from the burthen of the tax, by laying it on the rest of the community? Their object is to balance, by the increased price of their produce, the amount which _they_ pay in taxes. Now, as the whole amount of these taxes must enter into the treasury, and the increase of price must be paid by society, it follows that (where this protective duty is imposed) society has to bear, not only the general tax, but also that for the protection of the article in question. But it is answered, let _every thing_ be protected. Firstly, this is impossible; and, again, were it possible, how could such a system give relief? _I_ will pay for you, _you_ will pay for me; but not the less, still there remains the tax to be paid.

Thus you are the dupes of an illusion. You determine to raise taxes for the support of an army, a navy, the church, university, judges, roads, etc. Afterwards you seek to disburthen from its portion of the tax, first one article of industry, then another, then a third; always adding to the burthen of the ma.s.s of society. You thus only create interminable complications. If you can prove that the increase of price resulting from protection, falls upon the foreign producer, I grant something specious in your argument. But if it be true that the French people paid the tax before the pa.s.sing of the protective duty, and afterwards that it has paid not only the tax, but the protective duty also, truly I do not perceive wherein it has profited.

But I go much further, and maintain that the more oppressive our taxes are, the more anxiously ought we to open our ports and frontiers to foreign nations, less burthened than ourselves. And why? In order that we may share with them, as much as possible, the burthen which we bear.