 Section 8 of essays on political economy. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Essays on political economy by Friedrich Bastia. Section 8. Government. I wish someone would offer a prize, not of a hundred francs, but of a million, with crowns, medals, and ribbons, for a good, simple, and intelligible definition of the word government. What an immense service it would confer on society. The government. What is it? Where is it? What does it do? What ought it to do? All we know is that it is a mysterious personage, and assuredly it is the most solicited, the most tormented, the most overwhelmed, the most admired, the most accused, the most invoked, and the most provoked of any personage in the world. I have not the pleasure of knowing my reader, but I would stake ten to one that for six months he has been making utopias, and if so, that he is looking to government for the realization of them. And should the reader happen to be a lady, I have no doubt that she is sincerely desirous of seeing all the evils of suffering humanity remedied, and that she thinks this might easily be done if government would only undertake it. But alas that poor unfortunate personage, like Figaro, knows not to whom to listen nor where to turn. The hundred thousand mouths of the press and of the platform cry out all at once, organize labor and workmen, do away with egotism, repress insolence and the tyranny of capital, make experiments upon manure and eggs, cover the country with railways, irrigate the plains, plant the hills, make model farms, found social workshops, colonize Algeria, suckle children, instruct the youth, assist the aged, send the inhabitants of towns into the country, equalize the profits of all trades, lend money without interest to all who wish to borrow, emancipate Italy, Poland and Hungary, rear and perfect the saddle horse, encourage the arts and provide us with musicians and dancers, restrict commerce and at the same time create a merchant navy. Discover truth and put a grain of reason into our heads. The mission of government is to enlighten, to develop, to extend, to fortify, to spiritualize and to sanctify the soul of the people. Do have a little patience, gentlemen, says government, in a beseeching tone. I will do what I can to satisfy you, but for this I must have resources. I have been preparing plans for five or six taxes, which are quite new and not at all oppressive. You will see how willingly people will pay them. Then comes a great exclamation. No, indeed. Where is the merit of doing a thing with resources? Why, it does not deserve the name of a government. So far from loading us with fresh taxes, we would have you withdraw the old ones. You want to suppress the salt tax, the tax on liquors, the tax on letters, custom house duties, patents. In the midst of this tumult, and now that the country has two or three times changed its government, for not having satisfied all its demands, I wanted to show that they were contradictory. But what could I have been thinking about? Could I not keep this unfortunate observation to myself? I have lost my character forever. I am looked upon as a man without heart, and without feeling. A dry philosopher, an individualist, a plebeian, in a word, an economist of the English or American school. But pardon me, sublime writers, who stop at nothing, not even at contradictions. I am wrong, without a doubt, and I would willingly retract. I should be glad enough, you may be sure, if you had really discovered a beneficent and inexhaustible being, calling itself the government, which has bred for all mouths, work for all hands, capital for all enterprises, credit for all projects. Oil for all wounds, bomb for all sufferings, advice for all perplexities, solutions for all doubts, truths for all intellects, diversions for all who want them, milk for infancy, and wine for old age, which can provide for all our wants, satisfy all our curiosity, correct all our errors, repair all our faults, and exempt us henceforth from the necessity of foresight, prudence, judgment, sagacity, experience, order, economy, temperance, and activity. What reason could I have for not desiring to see such a discovery made? Indeed, the more I reflect upon it, the more do I see that nothing could be more convenient than that we should, all of us, have within our reach an inexhaustible source of wealth and enlightenment, a universal physician, an unlimited treasure, and an infallible counselor, such as you describe government to be. Therefore it is that I want to have it pointed out and defined, and that a prize should be offered to the first discoverer of the phoenix. For no one would think of asserting that this precious discovery has yet been made. Since up to this time everything presenting itself under the name of the government is immediately overturned by the people, precisely because it does not fulfill the rather contradictory conditions of the program. I will venture to say that I fear we are in this respect the dupes of one of the strangest illusions which have ever taken possession of the human mind. Man recoils from trouble, from suffering, and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now and there will remain only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural proportion, and causing all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be, whether that of wars, impositions, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc., monstrous abuses. But consistent with the thought which has given them birth, oppression should be detested and resisted. It can hardly be called absurd. Slavery is subsiding, thank heaven, and on the other hand, our disposition to defend our property prevents direct and open plunder from being easy. One thing, however, remains. It is the original inclination, which exists in all men, to divide the lot of life into two parts, throwing the trouble upon others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves. It remains to be shown under what new form this sad tendency is manifesting itself. The oppressor no longer acts directly, and with his own powers upon his victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person between them, which is the government, that is, the law itself. What can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and which is perhaps better appreciated, to ever come our resistance? We all, therefore, put in our claim, under some pretext or other, and apply to government. We say to it, I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labor and my enjoyment. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not perhaps lend me gratuitously some capital, which you may take from its possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense, or grant me some prizes, or secure me a competence when I have attained my fiftieth year? By this means I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, and the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its risk, or its disgrace. As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making some similar requests to the government, and as, on the other, it is proved that government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others, until I can obtain another definition of the word government, I feel authorized to give my own, who knows but it may obtain the prize. Here it is. Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. For now, as formerly, everyone is, more or less, for profiting by the labors of others. No one would dare to profess such a sentiment, he even hides it from himself. And then what is done? A medium is thought of, government is applied to, and every class in its turn comes to it, and says, You who can take justifiably and honestly, take from the public, and we will partake. Alas, government is only too much disposed to follow this diabolical advice, for it is composed of ministers and officials, of men, in short, who, like all other men, desire in their hearts, and always seize every opportunity, with eagerness, to increase their wealth and influence. The government is not slow, to perceive the advantages, it may derive from the part which is entrusted to it by the public. It is glad to be the judge and the master of the destinies of all. It will take much, for then a large share will remain for itself, it will multiply the number of its agents, it will enlarge the circle of its privileges, it will end by appropriating a ruinous proportion. But the most remarkable part of it is the astonishing blindness of the public through it all. When successful soldiers used to reduce the vanquished to slavery, they were barbarous, but they were not absurd. Their object, like ours, was to live at other people's expense, and they did not fail to do so. What are we to think of a people who never seem to suspect that reciprocal plunder is no less plunder because it is reciprocal, that it is no less criminal because it is executed legally and with order, that it adds nothing to the public good, that it diminishes it, just in proportion to the cost of the expensive medium which we call the government, and it is this great chimera which we have placed for the edification of the people as a frontispiece to the constitution. The following is the beginning of the introductory discourse. France has constituted itself a republic for the purpose of raising all the citizens to an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being. Thus it is, France, or an abstraction which is to raise the French, or realities, to morality, well-being, etc. Is it not by yielding to this strange delusion that we are led to expect everything from an energy not our own? Is it not giving out that there is, independently of the French, a virtuous, enlightened, and rich being who can and will bestow upon them its benefits? Is not this supposing, and certainly very gratuitously, that there are between France and the French, between the simple abridged and abstract denomination of all the individualities, and these individualities themselves, relations as of father to son, tutor to his pupil, professor to his scholar? I know it is often said, metaphorically, the country is a tender mother. But, to show the inanity of the constitutional proposition, it is only needed to show that it may be reversed, not only without inconvenience, but even with advantage. Would it be less exact to say? The French have constituted themselves a republic to raise France to an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being. Now, where is the value of an axiom where the subject and the attribute may change places without inconvenience? Everybody understands what is meant by this. The mother will feed the child. But it would be ridiculous to say, the child will feed the mother. The Americans formed another idea of the relations of the citizens with the government, when they placed these simple words at the head of their constitution. We, the people of the United States, for the purpose of forming a more perfect union of establishing justice, of securing interior tranquility, of providing for our common defence, of increasing the general well-being, and of securing the benefits of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, decree, etc. Here there is no chimerical creation, no abstraction, from which the citizens may demand everything. They expect nothing except from themselves and their own energy. If I may be permitted to criticise the first words of our constitution, I would remark that what I complain of is something more than a mere metaphysical subtlety, as might seem at first sight. I contend that this personification of government has been in past times and will be hereafter a fertile source of calamities and revolutions. There is the public on one side, governments on the other, considered as two distinct beings. The latter bound to bestow upon the former, and the former having the right to claim from the latter all imaginable human benefits. What will be the consequence? In fact, government is not maimed and cannot be so. It has two hands, one to receive and the other to give. In other words, it has a rough hand and a smooth one. The activity of the second is necessarily subordinate to the activity of the first. Strictly, government may take and not restore. This is evident, and may be explained by the porous and absorbing nature of its hands, which always retain a part and sometimes the whole of what they touch. But the thing that never was seen and never will be seen or conceived is that the government can restore more to the public than it has taken from it. It is therefore ridiculous for us to appear before it in the humble attitude of beggars. It is radically impossible for it to confer a particular benefit upon any one of the individualities which constitute the community, without inflicting a greater injury upon the community as a whole. Our requisitions, therefore, place it in a dilemma. If it refuses to grant the requests made to it, it is accused of weakness, ill-will, and incapacity. If it endeavors to grant them, it is obliged to load the people with fresh taxes, to do more harm than good, and to bring upon itself from another quarter the general displeasure. Thus the public has two hopes, and the government makes two promises. Many benefits and no taxes. Hopes and promises, which, being contradictory, can never be realized. Now, is not this the cause of all our revolutions? Four, between the governments, which lavishes promises which it is impossible to perform, and the public, which has conceived hopes which can never be realized, two classes of men interpose, the ambitious and the utopians. It is circumstances which give these their cue. It is enough if these vassals of popularity cry out to the people, the authorities are deceiving you, if we were in their place, we would load you with benefits and exempt you from taxes. And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a revolution. No sooner are their friends at the head of affairs than they are called upon to redeem their pledge. Give us work, bread, assistance, credit, instruction, colonies, say the people, and with all deliver us, as you promised, from the talons of the Exchequer. The new government is no less embarrassed than the former one, for it soon finds that it is much more easy to promise than to perform. It tries to gain time, for this is necessary for maturing its vast projects. At first it makes a few timid attempts. On one hand, it institutes a little elementary instruction. On the other, it makes a little reduction in the liquor tax, 1850. But the contradiction is forever starting up before it. If it would be philanthropic, it must attend to its Exchequer. If it neglects its Exchequer, it must abstain from being philanthropic. These two promises are forever clashing with each other. It cannot be otherwise. To live upon credit, which is the same as exhausting the future, is certainly a present means of reconciling them. An attempt is made to do a little good now, at the expense of a great deal of harm in future. But such proceedings call forth the specter of bankruptcy, which puts an end to credit. What is to be done then? Why, then, the new government takes a bold step. It unites all its forces in order to maintain itself. Its mother's opinion has recourse to arbitrary measures. Ridicules its former maxims, declares that it is impossible to conduct the administration, except at the risk of being unpopular. In short, it proclaims itself governmental. And it is here that the other candidates for popularity are waiting for it. They exhibit the same illusion, pass by the same way, obtain the same success, and are soon swallowed up in the same gulf. We had arrived at this point in February. At this time, the illusion which is the subject of this article had made more way than at any former period in the ideas of the people, in connection with socialist doctrines. They expected, more firmly than ever, that government, under a republican form, would open in grand style the source of benefits, and close that of taxation. We have often been deceived, said the people, but we will see to it ourselves this time, and take care not to be deceived again. What could the provisional government do? Alas, just that which always is done in similar circumstances, make promises and gain time. It did so, of course, and to give its promises more weight, it announced them publicly thus. Increase of prosperity, diminution of labour, assistance, credit, gratuitous instruction, agricultural colonies, cultivation of wasteland, and at the same time, reduction of the tax on salt, liquor, letters, meat. All this shall be granted when the National Assembly meets. The National Assembly meets, and as it is impossible to realize two contradictory things, its task, its sad task, is to withdraw, as gently as possible, one after the other, all the decrees of the provisional government. However, in order somewhat to mitigate the cruelty of the deception, it is found necessary to negotiate a little. Certain engagements are fulfilled, others are, in a measure, begun, and therefore the new administration is compelled to contrive some new taxes. Now I transport myself, in thought, to a period a few months hence, and ask myself, with sorrowful forebodings, what will come to pass when the agents of the new government go into the country to collect new taxes upon legacies, revenues, and the profits of agricultural traffic? It is to be hoped that my presentiments may not be verified, but I foresee a difficult part for the candidates for popularity to play. Read the last manifesto of the Montignards, that which they issued on the occasion of the election of the president. It is rather long, but at length it concludes with these words. Government ought to give a great deal to the people and take little from them. It is always the same tactics, or rather the same mistake. Government is bound to give gratuitous instruction and education to all the citizens. It is bound to give a general and appropriate professional education, as much as possible adapted to the wants, the callings, and the capacities of each citizen. It is bound to teach every citizen his duty to God, to man and to himself, to develop his sentiments, his tendencies, and his faculties, to teach him, in short, the scientific part of his laborer, to make him understand his own interests, and to give him a knowledge of his rights. It is bound to place within the reach of all, literature and the arts, the patrimony of thought, the treasures of the mind, and all those intellectual enjoyments which elevate and strengthen the soul. It is bound to give compensation for every accident from fire, inundation, etc., experienced by a citizen. The etc. means more than it says. It is bound to attend to the relations of capital with labor, and to become the regulator of credit. It is bound to afford important encouragement and efficient protection to agriculture. It is bound to purchase railroads, canals and mines, and doubtless to transact affairs with that industrial capacity which characterizes it. It is bound to encourage useful experiments, to promote and assist them by every means likely to make them successful. As a regulator of credit, it will exercise such extensive influence over industrial and agricultural associations as shall ensure them success. Government is bound to do all this, in addition to the services to which it is already pledged, and further, it is always to maintain a menacing attitude towards foreigners, for, according to those who sign the program, bound together by this holy union and by the precedents of the French Republic, we carry our wishes and hopes beyond the boundaries which despotism has placed between nations. The rights which we desire for ourselves, we desire for all those who are oppressed by the yoke of tyranny. We desire that our glorious army, should still, if necessary, be the army of liberty. You see that the gentle hand of government, that good hand which gives and distributes, will be very busy under the governments of the Montagnards. You think, perhaps, that it will be the same with the rough hands, that hand which dives into our pockets. Do not deceive yourselves. The aspirants after popularity would not know their trade if they had not the art when they show the gentle hand to conceal the rough one. Their reign will assuredly be the jubilee of the taxpayers. It is superfluities, not necessaries, they say, which ought to be taxed. Truly it will be a good time when the exchequer, for the sake of loading us with benefits, will content itself with curtailing our superfluities. This is not all. The Montagnards intend that taxation shall lose its oppressive character and to be only an act of fraternity. Good heavens, I know it is the fashion to thrust fraternity in everywhere, but I did not imagine it would ever be put into the hands of the tax-gatherer. To come to the details, those who sign the program say, we desire the immediate abolition of those taxes which affect the absolute necessaries of life as salt, liquors, etc., etc., the reform of the tax on landed property, customs, and patents, gratuitous justice, that is, the simplification of its forms and reduction of its expenses. This, no doubt, has reference to stamps. Thus the tax on landed property, customs, patents, stamps, salt, liquors, postage, all are included. These gentlemen have found out the secret of giving an excessive activity to the gentle hands of governments, while they entirely paralyze its rough hands. Well, I ask the impartial reader, is it not childishness, and more than that, dangerous childishness, is it not inevitable that we shall have revolution after revolution, if there is a determination never to stop till this contradiction is realized, to give nothing to government and to receive much from it? If the Montagnards were to come into power, would they not become the victims of the means which they employ to take possession of it? Citizens. In all times, two political systems have been in existence, and each may be maintained by good reasons. According to one of them, government ought to do much, but then it ought to take much. According to the other, this twofold activity ought to be little felt. We have to choose between these two systems. But as regards the third system, which partakes of both the others, and which consists in extracting everything from government without giving it anything, it is chimerical, absurd, childish, contradictory, and dangerous. Those who parade it, for the sake of the pleasure of accusing all governments of weakness, and thus exposing them to your attacks, are only flattering and deceiving you, while they are deceiving themselves. For ourselves we consider that government is, and ought to be, nothing whatever but common force, organized, not to be an instrument of oppression and mutual plunder among citizens, but on the contrary, to secure to every one his own, and to cause justice and security to reign. End of Section 8. Recording by Katie Riley. February, 2010. Section 9 of Essays on Political Economy. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Essays on Political Economy by Frédéric Bastiat. Section 9. What is Money? Hateful Money! Hateful Money! cried F., the Economist, despairingly, as he came from the Committee of Finance, where a project of paper money had just been discussed. What's the matter? said I. What is the meaning of this sudden dislike of the most extolled of all the divinities of this world? F., hateful money, hateful money. B., you alarm me. I hear, peace, liberty and life, cried down, and Brutus went so far even as to say, Virtue, thou art but a name. But what can have happened? F., hateful money, hateful money. B., come, come, exercise a little philosophy. What has happened to you? Has creases been affecting you? Has Mondra been playing you false? Or has Zoelus been libeling you in the papers? F., I have nothing to do with creases. My character, by its insignificance, is safe from any slander of Zoelus. And as to Mondra... B., ah, now I have it. How could I be so blind? You, too, are the inventor of a social reorganization of the F. system, in fact. Your society is to be more perfect than that of Sparta, and therefore all money is to be rigidly banished from it. And the thing that troubles you is how to persuade your people to empty their purses. What would you have? This is the rock on which all reorganizers split. There is not one but would do wonders if he could only contrive to overcome all resisting influences, and if all mankind would consent to become soft wax in his fingers. But men are resolved not to be soft wax. They listen, applaud, or reject, and go on as before. F., thank heaven, I am still free from this fashionable mania. Instead of inventing social laws, I am studying those which it has pleased providence to invent, and I am delighted to find them admirable in their progressive development. This is why I exclaim, hateful money, hateful money. B., you are a disciple of Proudhon then. Well, there is a very simple way for you to satisfy yourself. Throw your purse into the scene, only reserving a hundred Sue, to take an action from the bank of exchange. F., if I cry out against money, is it likely I should tolerate its deceitful substitute? B., then I have only one more guest to make. You are a new Diogenes, and are going to victimize me with a discourse on the contempt of riches. F., heaven preserve me from that, for riches, don't you see, are not a little more or a little less money. They are bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, fuel to warm you, oil to lengthen the day, a career open to your son, a certain portion for your daughter, a day of rest after fatigue, a cordial for the faint, a little assistance slipped into the hand of a poor man, a shelter from the storm, a diversion for a brain worn by thought, the incomparable pleasure of making those happy who are dear to us. Riches are instruction, independence, dignity, confidence, charity. They are progress and civilization. Riches are the admirable civilizing result of two admirable agents, more civilizing even than riches themselves, labor and exchange. B., well, now you seem to be singing the praises of riches when, a moment ago, you were loading them with implications. F., why don't you see that it was only the whim of an economist? I cry out against money, just because everybody confounds it, as you just did now, with riches, and that this confusion is the cause of errors and calamities without number. I cry out against it because its function in society is not understood and very difficult to explain. I cry out against it because it jumbles all ideas, causes the means to be taken for the end, the obstacle for the cause, the alpha for the omega, because its presence in the world, though in itself beneficial, has nevertheless introduced a fatal notion, a perversion of principles, a contradictory theory, which, in a multitude of forms, has impoverished mankind and deluged the earth with blood. I cry out against it because I feel that I am incapable of contending against the error to which it has given birth, otherwise then by a long and fastidious dissertation to which no one would listen. O., if I could only find a patient and benevolent listener. B., well it shall not be said that for want of a victim you remain in the state of irritation in which you are now. I am listening, speak, lecture, do not restrain yourself in any way. F., you promise to take an interest. B., I promise to have patience. F., that is not much. B., it is all that I can give. Begin and explain to me, at first, how a mistake on the subject of cash, if mistake there be, is to be found at the root of all economical errors. F., well, now, is it possible that you can conscientiously assure me that you have never happened to confound wealth with money? B., I don't know, but, after all, what would be the consequence of such a confusion? F., nothing very important, an error in your brain which would have no influence over your actions. For you see that, with respect to labour and exchange, although there are as many opinions as there are heads, we all act in the same way. B., just as we walk upon the same principle, although we are not agreed upon the theory of equilibrium and gravitation. F., precisely, a person who argued himself into the opinion that, during the night, our heads and feet changed places, might write very fine books upon the subject, but still he would walk about like everybody else. B., so I think. Nevertheless, he would soon suffer the penalty of being too much of a logician. F., in the same way, a man would die of hunger, who, having decided that money is real wealth, should carry out the idea to the ends. That is the reason that this theory is false, for there is no true theory but such as results from facts themselves, as manifested at all times and in all places. B., I can understand that practically, and under the influence of personal interest, the fatal effects of the erroneous action would tend to correct an error. But if that of which you speak has so little influence, why does it disturb you so much? F., because, when a man, instead of acting for himself, decides for others, personal interest, that ever watchful and sensible sentinel, is no longer present to cry out, Stop! The responsibility is misplaced. It is Peter who is deceived, and John suffers. The false system of the legislature necessarily becomes the rule of action of whole populations. And observe the difference. When you have money, and are very hungry, whatever your theory on cash may be, what do you do? B., I go to a baker's and buy some bread. F., you do not hesitate about getting rid of your money. B., the only use of money is to buy what one wants. F., and if the baker should happen to be thirsty, what does he do? B., he goes to the wine merchants, and buys wine with the money I have given him. F., what? Is he not afraid he shall ruin himself? B., the real ruin would be to go without eating or drinking. F., and everybody in the world, if he is free, acts in the same manner? B., without a doubt. Would you have them die of hunger for the sake of laying by pens? F., so far from it, that I consider they act wisely, and I only wish that the theory was nothing but the faithful image of this universal practice. But suppose now that you were the legislator, the absolute king of a vast empire, where there were no gold mines. B., no unpleasant fiction. F., suppose again that you were perfectly convinced of this, that wealth consists solely and exclusively in cash. To what conclusion would you come? B., I should conclude that there was no other means for me to enrich my people, or for them to enrich themselves, but to draw away the cash from other nations. F., that is to say, to impoverish them. The first conclusion then, to which you would arrive would be this. A nation can only gain when another loses. B., this axiom has the authority of Bagan and Montaigne. F., it is not the less sorrowful for that. It implies that progress is impossible. Two nations, no more than two men, cannot prosper side by side. B., it would seem that such is the result of this principle. F., and as all men are ambitious to enrich themselves, it follows that all are desirous, according to a law of providence, of ruining their fellow-creatures. B., this is not Christianity, but it is political economy. F., such a doctrine is detestable. But to continue, I have made you an absolute king. You must not be satisfied with reasoning. You must act. There is no limit to your power. How would you treat this doctrine? Wealth is money. B., it would be my endeavour to increase, incessantly, among my people the quantity of cash. F., but there are no minds in your kingdom. How would you set about it? What would you do? B., I should do nothing. I should merely forbid, on pain of death, that a single crown should leave the country. F., and if your people should happen to be hungry as well as rich. B., never mind. In the system we are discussing, to allow them to export crowns would be to allow them to impoverish themselves. F., so that, by your own confession, you would force them to act upon a principle equally opposite to that upon which you would yourself act under similar circumstances. Why so? B., just because my own hunger touches me and the hunger of the nation does not touch legislators. F., well, I can tell you that your plan would fail and that no superintendence would be sufficiently vigilant when the people were hungry to prevent the crowns from going out in the corn from coming in. B., if so, this plan, whether erroneous or not, would affect nothing. It would do neither good nor harm and therefore requires no further consideration. F., you forget that you are a legislator. A legislator must not be disheartened at trifles when he is making experiments on others. The first measure, not having succeeded, you want to take some other means of attaining your end. B., what end? F., you must have a bad memory. Why that of increasing in the midst of your people the quantity of cash which is presumed to be true wealth? B., ah, to be sure, I beg your pardon, but then you see, as they say of music, a little is enough, and this may be said, I think with still more reason of political economy. I must consider, but really I don't know how to contrive F., ponder it well. First, I would have you observe that your first plan solved the problem only negatively. To prevent the crowns from going out of the country is the way to prevent the wealth from diminishing, but it is not the way to increase it. B., ah, now I am beginning to see, the corn which is allowed to come in. A bright idea strikes me. The contrivance is ingenious, the means infallible. I am coming to it now. F., now I, in turn, must ask you, to what? B., why to a means of increasing the quantity of cash? F., how would you set about it, if you please? B., is it not evident that if the heap of money is to be constantly increasing, the first condition is that none must be taken from it. F., certainly. B., and the second, that additions must constantly be made to it. F., to be sure. B., then the problem will be solved, either negatively or positively, as the socialists say, if on the one hand I prevent the foreigner from taking it, and on the other I oblige him to add to it. F., better and better. B., and for this, there must be two simple laws made, in which cash will not even be mentioned. By the one my subjects will be forbidden to buy anything abroad, and by the other they will be required to sell a great deal. F., a well-advised plan. B., is it new, I must take out a patent for the invention. F., you need do know such thing, you have been forestalled, but you must take care of one thing. B., what is that? F., I have made you an absolute king, I understand that you are going to prevent your subjects from buying foreign productions. It will be enough if you prevent them from entering the country. 30 or 40,000 custom house officers will do the business. B., it would be rather expensive, but what does that signify? The money they receive will not go out of the country. F., true, and in this system, it is the grand point. But to ensure a sale abroad, how would you proceed? B., I should encourage it by prizes, obtained by means of some good taxes laid upon my people. F., in this case, the exporters constrained by competition among themselves would lower their prices in proportion, and it would be like making a present to the foreigner of the prizes or of the taxes. B., still the money would not go out of the country. F., of course, that is understood, but if your system is beneficial, the kings around you will adopt it. They will make similar plans to yours. They will have their custom house officers and reject your productions, so that with them, as with you, the heap of money may not be diminished. B., I shall have an army enforce their barriers. F., they will have an army enforce yours. B., I shall arm vessels, make conquests, acquire colonies, and create consumers for my people, who will be obliged to eat our corn and drink our wine. F., the other kings will do the same. They will dispute your conquests, your colonies, and your consumers. Then on all sides there will be war, and all will be uproar. B., I shall raise my taxes and increase my custom house officers, my army, and my navy. F., the others will do the same. B., I shall redouble my exertions. F., the others will redouble theirs. In the meantime, we have no proof that you would succeed in selling to a great extent. B., it is but too true. It would be well if the commercial efforts would neutralize each other. F., and the military efforts also. And tell me, are not these custom house officers, soldiers, and vessels, these oppressive taxes, this perpetual struggle towards an impossible result, this permanent state of open or secret war with the whole world? Are they not the logical and inevitable consequence of the legislatures having adopted an idea which you admit is acted upon by no man who is his own master, that wealth is cash, and who increase cash is to increase wealth? B., I grant it. Either the axiom is true and then the legislator ought to act as I have described, although universal war should be the consequence or it is false, and in this case men, in destroying each other, only ruin themselves. F., and remember that before you became a king, this same axiom had led you biological process to the following maxims. That which one gains, another loses. The profit of one is the loss of the other, which maxims imply an unavoidable antagonism amongst all men. B., it is only too certain whether I am a philosopher or a legislator, whether I reason or act upon the principle that money is wealth, I always arrive at one conclusion or one result, universal war. It is well that you pointed out the consequences before beginning a discussion upon it, otherwise I should never have had the courage to follow you to the end of your economical dissertation. For, to tell you the truth, it is not much to my taste. F., what do you mean? I was just thinking of it when you heard me grumbling against money. I was lamenting that my countrymen have not the courage to study what is so important that they should know. B., and yet the consequences are frightful. F., the consequences, as yet I have only mentioned one. I might have told you of others, still more fatal. B., you make my hair stand on ends. What other evils can have been caused to mankind by this confusion between money and wealth? F., it would take me a long time to enumerate them. This doctrine is one of a very numerous family. The eldest, whose acquaintance we have just made, is called the prohibitive system. The next, the colonial system. The third, hatred of capital. The Benjamin, paper money. B., what does paper money proceed from the same error? F., yes, directly. When legislatures, after having ruined men by war and taxes, persevere in their idea, they say to themselves, if the people suffer it is because there is not money enough, we must make some. And as it is not easy to multiply the precious metals, especially when the pretended resources of prohibition have been exhausted, they add, we will make fictitious money, nothing is more easy, and then every citizen will have his pocketbook full of it, and they will all be rich. B., in fact, this proceeding is more expeditious than the other, and then it does not lead to foreign war. F., no, but it leads to civil war. B., you are a grumbler, make haste and dive to the bottom of the question. I am quite impatient, for the first time, to know if money, or its sign, is wealth. F., you will grant that men do not satisfy any of their wants immediately with crown pieces. If they are hungry, they want bread. If naked, clothing. If they are ill, they must have remedies. If they are cold, they want shelter and fuel. If they would learn, they must have books. If they would travel, they must have conveyances, and so on. The riches of a country consist in the abundance and proper distribution of all these things. Hence you may perceive and rejoice at the falseness of this gloomy maxim of bagons. What one people gains another necessarily loses. A maxim expressed in a still more discouraging manner by Montaigne, in these words, the prophet of one is the loss of another. When Chem, Ham, and J-Pet divided amongst themselves the vast solitudes of this earth, they surely might each of them build, drain, sow, reap, and obtain improved lodging, food and clothing, and better instruction, perfect and enrich themselves. In short, increase their enjoyments without causing a necessary diminution in the corresponding enjoyments of their brothers. It is the same with two nations. B. There is no doubt that two nations, the same as two men, unconnected with each other, may, by working more and working better, prosper at the same time, without injuring each other. It is not this which is denied by the axioms of Montaigne and Bacon. They only mean to say that in the transactions which take place between two nations or two men, if one gains, the other must lose. And this is self-evident, as exchange adds nothing by itself to the mass of those useful things of which you were speaking. For if, after the exchange, one of the parties is found to have gained something, the other will, of course, be found to have lost something. F. You have formed a very incomplete, nay, a false idea of exchange. If chem is located upon a plain, which is fertile in corn, a japet upon a slope adapted for growing the vine, ham upon a rich pasture ridge, the distinction of their occupations, far from hurting any of them, might cause all three to prosper more. It must be so, in fact, for the distribution of labor introduced by exchange will have the effect of increasing the mass of corn, wine, and meat, which is produced and which is to be shared. How can it be otherwise if you allow liberty in these transactions? From the moments that any one of the brothers should perceive that labor and company, as it were, was a permanent loss compared to solitary labor he would cease to exchange. Exchange brings with it its claims to our gratitude. The fact of its being accomplished proves that it is a good thing. B. But Bacon's axiom is true in the case of gold and silver. If we admit that at a certain moment there exists in the world the given quantity, it is perfectly clear that one purse cannot be filled without another being emptied. F. And if gold is considered to be riches, the natural conclusion is that displacements of fortune take place among men, but no general progress. It is just what I said when I began. If, on the contrary, you look upon an abundance of useful things fit for satisfying our wants and our tastes, as true riches, you will see that simultaneous prosperity is possible. Cash serves only to facilitate the transmission of these useful things from one to another, which may be done equally well with an ounce of rare metal like gold, with a pound of more abundant material as silver, or with a hundred weight of still more disposable metal as copper. According to that, if the French had at their disposal as much again of all these useful things, France would be twice as rich, although the quantity of cash remained the same. But it would not be the same if there were double the cash, for in that case the amount of useful things would not increase. 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 connection can there be between these two terms? Food, clothing, houses, fuel, all come from nature and from labor, from more or less skillful labor 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 quantity of rare metal facilitates transactions as much as a large quantity of abundant metal, once 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 enjoyment, 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 moments 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 neighbor, and of the neighbor of my neighbor, 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 Frenchman 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 obtains, chimerical enough, was this. Everyone 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 placed 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 minds or its commerce must be such as to give useful things in exchange for cash. Apart from these two circumstances, 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 true 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. 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 minds in a country, if that country obtains from them, sufficient gold to purchase a useful thing from abroad, 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 effort 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, or 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 the future. 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 X ported and in this respect there is a satisfaction with the drone from the country, but is there not a corresponding benefit and while not this gold be the source of a number of new satisfactions by circulating from hand to hand and inciting it to labor 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 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 labor 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 same time and in the manner you please society by means of your client has given you an acknowledgement a title a privilege from the republic a crown in fact which only differs from executive titles 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 title to it is gratuitous or it is a claim if you give it to 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 labor which I have performed for you and which I might devote to myself it is into my hands then that the title of this credit the proof of this social debt ought to pass you cannot say that I am any richer if I am entitled 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 greatest 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 mass you 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 substitute 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 etc B all that appears very reasonable in theory in practice I cannot help thinking when I see how things go that if by some fortunate circumstance the number of crowns should 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 asexats be put in action at the national printing office for you cannot reasonably think that if the quantity 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 fictitious 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 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 proof of this in what passes 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 amounts of them in a country where there are no mines b. no but it is easy to substitute 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 banknotes, etc 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 assuredly 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 banknotes 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 labor itself except the board of asignats but we have yet to learn how asignats 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 arguments 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 philosophers stone which would teach us the secret of changing flints into golds 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 ever 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 reimposition of several taxes on the faith of a resource which must infallibly fail nevertheless you'll 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 deposit has altered the money B who says anything about altering the money F why to force people to take in payment scraps of paper which have been officially baptized Frank's 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 Frank is the same thing if not worse and all the reasoning which can be made in favor of assignments has been made in favor 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 affected 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 mass of useful things which we produce by labor 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 barger 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 space 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 entitled 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 circumstance 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 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 then 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 5, 10 or 20 francs as we say this weighs 5, 10 or 20 grains this measures 5, 10 or 20 yards this ground contains 5, 10 or 20 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 quantity 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 labor 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 labor 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 circumstance 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 circumstances 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 circumstances 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 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 pass before all the values will find their proper level under the influence of ignorance and custom the days pay of a country laborer will remain for a long time at a franc while the sellable price of all the articles of consumption around him will be rising he will sink into destitution 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 on 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 everything 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 expedience of this kind have the effect of increasing the distance which separates wealth from poverty of paralyzing the social tendencies which are incessantly bringing men to the same level and it will require centuries for the suffering classes 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 B what does this frightful commotion of the populace against capitalists arise from money being confounded with wealth F it is the result of different causes unfortunately certain capitalists have aggregated to themselves monopolies and privileges which are quite sufficient to account for this feeling but when the theorists of democracy have wished to justify it to systematize it to give it the appearance of a reasonable opinion and to turn it against the very nature of capital they have had recourse to that false political economy at whose root the same confusion is always to be found they have said to the people take a crown, put it under a glass forget it for a year then go and look at it and you will be convinced that it has not produced ten sue, nor five sue nor any fraction of a sue therefore money produces no interest then follow this series of consequences therefore he who lends a capital ought to obtain nothing from it therefore he who lends you a capital if he gains something by it is robbing you therefore all capitalists are robbers therefore wealth which ought to serve gratuitously those who borrow it belongs in reality to those to whom it does not belong therefore there is no such thing as property therefore everything belongs to everybody therefore be this is very serious the more so from the syllogism being so admirably formed I should very much like to be enlightened on the subject but alas I can no longer command my attention there is such a confusion in my head of the words cash, money, services capital, interest that really I hardly know where I am we will, if you please resume the conversation another day F in the meantime here is a little work entitled capital and rent it may perhaps remove some of your doubts just look at it when you are in want of a little amusement B to amuse me F who knows one nail drives in another one worrisome thing drives away another B from your conversation this is what I have gathered that these questions are of the highest importance for peace or war order or anarchy the union or the antagonism of citizens are at the root of the answer to them how is it that in France a science which concerns us all so nearly and the diffusion of which would have so decisive an influence upon the fate of mankind is so little known is it that the state does not teach it sufficiently? F not exactly for without knowing it it applies itself to loading everybody's brain with prejudices and everybody's heart with sentiments favorable to the spirit of anarchy war and hatred so that when a doctrine of order peace and union presents itself it is in vain that it has clearness and truth on its side cannot gain admittance B decidedly you are a frightful grumbler what interest can the state have in mystifying people's intellects in favor of revolutions and civil and foreign wars there must certainly be a great deal of exaggeration in what you say F consider at the period when our intellectual faculties begin to develop themselves at the age when impressions are liveliest when habits of mind are formed with the greatest ease when we might look at society and understand it in a word as soon as we are seven or eight years old what does the state do? it puts a bandage over our eyes takes us gently from the midst of the social circle which surrounds us to plunge us with our susceptible faculties our impressionable hearts into the midst of Roman society it keeps us there for ten years at least long enough to make an ineffacable impression on the brain now observe that Roman society is directly opposed to what our society ought to be there they lived upon war here we ought to hate war there they hated labor here we ought to live upon labor there the means of subsistence were founded upon slavery and plunder here they should be drawn from free industry Roman society was organized in consequence of its principle it necessarily admired what made it prosper there they considered as virtue what we look upon as vice its poets and historians had to exalt what we ought to despise the very words liberty, order justice, people honor, influence, etc could not have the same signification at Rome as they have or ought to have at Paris how can you expect that all these youths who have been at university or conventional schools with Livy and Quintus Cirtius for their catechism will not understand liberty like the Gracchi virtue like Cato patriotism like Caesar how can you expect them not to be factitious and warlike how can you expect them to take the slightest interest in the mechanism of our social order do you think that their minds have been prepared to understand it do you not see that in order to do so they must get rid of their present impressions and receive others entirely opposed to them B what do you conclude from that F, I will tell you the most urgent necessity is not that the state should teach but that it should allow education all monopolies are detestable but the worst of all is the monopoly of education end of section 9 recording by Katie Riley March 2010