THEORY AND PRACTICE.
Defenders of free trade, we are accused of being mere theorists, of
not giving sufficient weight to the practical.
"What a fearful charge against you, free traders," say the
protectionists, "is this long succession of distinguished statesmen,
this imposing race of writers, who have all held opinions differing
from yours!" This we do not deny. We answer, "It is said, in support
of established errors, that 'there must be some foundation for ideas
so generally adopted by all nations. Should not one distrust opinions
and arguments which overturn that which, until now, has been held as
settled; that which is held as certain by so many persons whose
intelligence and motives make them trustworthy?'"
We confess this argument should make a profound impression, and ought
to throw doubt on the most incontestable points, if we had not seen,
one after another, opinions the most false, now generally acknowledged
to be such, received and professed by all the world during a long
succession of centuries. It is not very long since all nations, from
the most rude to the most enlightened, and all men, from the
street-porter to the most learned philosopher, believed in the four
elements. Nobody had thought of contesting this doctrine, which is,
however, false; so much so, that at this day any mere naturalist's
assistant, who should consider earth, water, and fire, elements, would
disgrace himself.
On which our opponents make this observation: "If you suppose you have
thus answered the very forcible objection you have proposed to
yourselves, you deceive yourselves strangely. Suppose that men,
otherwise intelligent, should be mistaken on any point whatever of
natural history for many centuries, that would signify or prove
nothing. Would water, air, earth, fire, be less useful to man whether
they were or were not elements? Such errors are of no consequence;
they lead to no revolutions, do not unsettle the mind; above all, they
injure no interests, so they might, without inconvenience, endure for
millions of years. The physical world would progress just as if they
did not exist. Would it be thus with errors which attack the moral
world? Can we conceive that a system of government, absolutely false,
consequently injurious, could be carried out through many centuries,
among many nations, with the general consent of educated men? Can we
explain how such a system could be reconciled with the ever-increasing
prosperity of nations? You acknowledge that the argument you combat
ought to make a profound impression. Yes, truly, and this impression
remains, for you have rather strengthened than destroyed it."
Or again, they say: "It was only in the middle of the last century,
the eighteenth century, in which all subjects, all principles, without
exception, were delivered up to public discussion, that these
furnishers of speculative ideas which are applied to everything
without being applicable to anything--commenced writing on political
economy. There existed, however, a system of political economy, not
written, but practised by governments. It is said that Colbert was its
inventor, and it was the rule of all the States of Europe. What is
more singular, it has remained so till lately, despite anathemas and
contempt, and despite the discoveries of the modern school. This
system, which our writers have called the _mercantile system_,
consists in opposing, by prohibitions and duties, such foreign
productions as might ruin our manufacturers by their competition. This
system has been pronounced futile, absurd, capable of ruining any
country, by economical writers of all schools. It has been banished
from all books, reduced to take refuge in the practice of every
people; and we do not understand why, in regard to the wealth of
nations, governments should not have yielded themselves to wise
authors rather than to _the old experience_ of a system. Above all, we
cannot conceive why, in political economy, the American government
should persist in resisting the progress of light, and in preserving,
in its practice, those old errors which all our economists of the pen
have designated. But we have said too much about this mercantile
system, which has in its favor _facts_ alone, though sustained by
scarcely a single writer of the day."
Would not one say, who listened only to this language, that we
political economists, in merely claiming for every one _the free
disposition of his own property_, had, like the Fourierists, conjured
up from our brains a new social order, chimerical and strange; a sort
of phalanstery, without precedent in the annals of the human race,
instead of merely talking plain _meum_ and _tuum_ It seems to us that
if there is in all this anything utopian, anything problematical, it
is not free trade, but protection; it is not the right to exchange,
but tariff after tariff applied to overturning the natural order of
commerce.
But it is not the point to compare and judge of these two systems by
the light of reason; the question for the moment is, to know which of
the two is founded upon experience.
So, Messrs. Monopolists, you pretend that the facts are on your side;
that we have, on our side, theories only.
You even flatter yourselves that this long series of public acts, this
old experience of the world, which you invoke, has appeared imposing
to us, and that we confess we have not as yet refuted you as fully as
we might.
But we do not cede to you the domain of facts, for you have on your
side only exceptional and contracted facts, while we have universal
ones to oppose to them; the free and voluntary acts of all men.
What do you say, and what say we?
We say:
"It is better to buy from others anything which would cost more to
make ourselves."
And on your part you say:
"It is better to make things ourselves, even though it would cost less
to purchase them from others."
Now, gentlemen, laying aside theory, demonstration, argument,
everything which appears to afflict you with nausea, which of these
assertions has in its favor the sanction of _universal practice_?
Visit the fields, work-rooms, manufactories, shops; look above,
beneath, and around you; investigate what is going on in your own
establishment; observe your own conduct at all times, and then say
which is the principle that directs these labors, these workmen, these
inventors, these merchants; say, too, which is your own individual
practice.
Does the farmer make his clothes? Does the tailor raise the wheat
which he consumes? Does not your housekeeper cease making bread at
home so soon as she finds it more economical to buy it from the baker?
Do you give up the pen for the brush in order to avoid paying tribute
to the shoe-black? Does not the whole economy of society depend on the
separation of occupations, on the division of labor; in one word, on
_exchange_? And is exchange anything else than the calculation which
leads us to discontinue, as far as we can, direct production, when
indirect acquisition spares us time and trouble?
You are not, then, men of _practice_, since you cannot show a single
man on the surface of the globe who acts in accordance with your
principle.
"But," you will say, "we have never heard our principle made the rule
of individual relations. We comprehend perfectly that this would break
the social bond, and force men to live, like snails, each one in his
own shell. We limit ourselves to asserting that it governs _in fact_
the relations which are established among the agglomerations of the
human family."
But still, this assertion is erroneous. The family, the village, the
town, the county, the state, are so many agglomerations, which all,
without any exception, _practically_ reject your principle, and have
never even thought of it. All of them procure, by means of exchange,
that which would cost them more to procure by means of production.
Nations would act in the same natural manner, if you did not prevent
it _by force_.
It is _we_, then, who are the men of practice and of experience; for,
in order to combat the interdict which you have placed exceptionally
on certain international exchanges, we appeal to the practice and
experience of all individuals, and all agglomerations of individuals
whose acts are voluntary, and consequently may be called on for
testimony. But you commence by _constraining_, by _preventing_, and
then you avail yourself of acts caused by prohibition to exclaim,
"See! practice justifies us!" You oppose our _theory_, indeed all
_theory_. But when you put a principle in antagonism with ours, do
you, by chance, fancy that you have formed no _theory_? No, no; erase
that from your plea. You form a theory as well as ourselves; but
between yours and ours there is this difference: our theory consists
merely in observing universal facts, universal sentiments, universal
calculations and proceedings, and further, in classifying them and
arranging them, in order to understand them better. It is so little
opposed to practice, that it is nothing but _practice explained_. We
observe the actions of men moved by the instinct of preservation and
of progress; and what they do freely, voluntarily, is precisely what
we call _political economy_, or the economy of society. We go on
repeating with out cessation: "Every man is _practically_ an
excellent economist, producing or exchanging, according as it is most
advantageous to him to exchange or to produce. Each one, through
experience, is educated to science; or rather, science is only that
same experience scrupulously observed and methodically set forth."
As for you, you form a theory, in the unfavorable sense of the word.
You imagine, you invent--proceedings which are not sanctioned by the
practice of any living man under the vault of heaven--and then you
call to your assistance constraint and prohibition. You need, indeed,
have recourse to _force_, since, in wishing that men should _produce_
that which it would be more advantageous to them to _buy_, you wish
them to renounce an _advantage_; you demand that they should act in
accordance with a doctrine which implies contradiction even in its
terms.
Now, this doctrine, which, you argue, would be absurd in individual
relations, we defy you to extend, even in speculation, to transactions
between families, towns, counties, states. By your own avowal, it is
applicable to international relations only.
And this is why you are obliged to repeat daily: "Principles are not
in their nature absolute. That which is _well_ in the individual, the
family, the county, the state, is _evil_ in the nation. That which is
_good_ in detail--such as, to purchase rather than to produce, when
purchase is more advantageous than production--is bad in the mass. The
political economy of individuals is not that of nations," and other
rubbish, _ejusdem farinæ_. And why all this? Look at it closely. It is
in order to prove to us that we, consumers, are your property, that
we belong to you body and soul, that you have an exclusive right to
our stomachs and limbs, and it is for you to nourish us and clothe us
at your own price, however great may be your ignorance, your rapacity,
or the inferiority of your position.
No, you are not men of practice; you are men of abstraction--and of
extraction!