‹Do ut des› (commodity against commodity), ‹Do ut facias› (commodity
against service), ‹Facio ut des› (service against commodity), ‹Facio
ut facias› (service against service).[37]
Seeing that products and services are thus exchanged for one another,
it is quite necessary that they should have something in common,
something by which they can be compared and estimated—namely, ‹Value›.
But value is always identically the same. Whether it be in the
product or in the service, it has always the same origin and
foundation.
This being so, we may ask, is Value originally and essentially in the
‹commodity›, and is it only by analogy that we extend the notion to
the ‹service›?
Or, on the contrary, does Value reside in the service, and is it not
mixed up and amalgamated with the product, simply and exclusively
because the service is so?
Some people seem to think that this is a question of pure subtilty.
We shall see by-and-by. At present I shall only observe, that it
would be strange if, in Political Economy, a good or a bad definition
of Value were a matter of indifference.
I cannot doubt that, at the outset, Political Economists thought they
discovered value rather in the product, as such, than in the matter
of the product. The Physiocrates [the ‹Économistes› of Quesnay’s
school] attributed value exclusively to land, and stigmatized as
‹sterile› such classes as added nothing to matter,—so strictly in
their eyes were ‹value› and ‹matter› bound up together.
Adam Smith ought to have discarded this idea, since he makes ‹value›
flow from ‹labour›. Do not pure services, services ‹per se›, exact
labour, and, consequently, do they not imply value? Near to the
truth as Smith had come, he did not make himself master of it; for,
besides pronouncing formally that labour, in order to possess value,
must be applied to matter, to something physically [p173] tangible
and capable of accumulation, we know that, like the Physiocrates,
he ranked those who simply render services among the unproductive
classes.
These classes, in fact, occupy a prominent position in the Wealth of
Nations. But this only shows us that the author, after having given a
definition, found himself straitened by it, and, consequently, that
that definition is erroneous. Adam Smith would not have gained his
great and just renown had he not written his magnificent chapters on
Education, on the Clergy, and on Public Services, and if he had, in
treating of Wealth, confined himself within the limits of his own
definition. Happily, by this inconsistency, he freed himself from the
fetters which his premises imposed upon him. This always happens.
A man of genius who sets out with a false principle never escapes
inconsistency, without which he would get deeper and deeper into
error, and, far from appearing a man of genius, would show himself no
longer a man of sense.
As Adam Smith advanced a step beyond the Physiocrates, Jean Baptiste
Say advanced a step beyond Smith. By degrees Say was led to refer
value to services, but only by way of analogy. It is in the product
that he discovers true value, and nothing shows this better than
his whimsical denomination of services as “immaterial products”—two
words which absolutely shriek out on finding themselves side by side.
Say, in the outset, agrees with Smith; for the entire theory of the
master is to be found in the first ten lines of the work of the
disciple.[38] But he thought and meditated on the subject for thirty
years, and he made progress. He approximated more and more to the
truth, without ever fully attaining it.
Moreover, we might have imagined that Say did his duty as an
Economist as well by referring the value of the service to the
product, as by referring the value of the product to the service,
if the Socialist propaganda, founding on his own deductions, had
not come to reveal to us the insufficiency and the danger of his
principle.
The question I propose, then, is this:—Seeing that certain products
are possessed of value, seeing that certain services are possessed
of value, and seeing that value is one and identical, and can have
but one origin, one foundation, one explanation,—is this origin, this
explanation to be found in the product or in the service?
The reply to that question is obvious, and for this unanswerable
[p174] reason, that every product which has value implies service,
but every service does not necessarily imply a product.
This appears to me mathematically certain—conclusive.
A service, as such, has value, whether it assume a material form or
not.
A material object has value if, in transferring it to another, we
render him a service,—if not, it has no value.
Then value does not proceed from the material object to the service,
but from the service to the material object.
Nor is this all. Nothing is more easily explained than this
pre-eminence, this priority, given to the service over the product,
so far as value is concerned. We shall immediately see that this is
owing to a circumstance which might have been easily perceived, but
which has not been observed, just because it is under our eyes. It
is nothing else than that foresight which is natural to man, and in
virtue of which, in place of limiting himself to the services which
are demanded of him, he prepares himself beforehand to render those
services which he foresees are likely to be demanded. It is thus
that the ‹facio ut facias› transforms itself into the ‹do ut des›,
without its ceasing to be the dominant fact which explains the whole
transaction.
John says to Peter, I want a cup. I could make it for myself, but if
you will make it for me, you will render me a service, for which I
will pay you by an equivalent service.
Peter accepts the offer, and, in consequence, sets out in quest of
suitable materials, mixes them, manipulates them, and, in fine, makes
the article which John wants.
It is very evident that here it is the service which determines the
value. The dominant word in the transaction is ‹facio›. And if,
afterwards, the value is incorporated with the product, it is only
because it flows from the service, which combines the labour executed
by Peter with the labour saved to John.
Now, it may happen that John may make frequently the same proposal
to Peter, and that other people may also make it; so that Peter can
foresee with certainty the kind of services which will be demanded
of him, and prepare himself for rendering them. He may say, I have
acquired a certain degree of skill in making cups. Experience
tells me that cups supply a want which must be satisfied, and I am
therefore enabled to manufacture them beforehand.
Henceforth John says no longer to Peter, ‹facio ut facias›, but
‹facio ut des›. If he in turn has foreseen the wants of Peter, and
laboured beforehand to provide for them, he can then say ‹do ut
des›. [p175]
But in what respect, I ask, does this progress, which flows from
human foresight, change the nature and origin of value? Does service
cease to be its foundation and measure? As regards the true idea of
value, what difference does it make whether Peter, before he makes
the cup, waits till there is a demand for it, or, foreseeing a future
demand, manufactures the article beforehand?
There is another remark which I would make here. In human life,
inexperience and thoughtlessness precede experience and foresight.
It is only in the course of time that men are enabled to foresee
each other’s wants, and to make preparations for satisfying them.
Logically, the ‹facio ut facias› must precede the ‹do ut des›. The
latter is at once the fruit and the evidence of a certain amount of
knowledge diffused, of experience acquired, of political security
obtained, of a certain confidence in the future,—in a word, of
a certain degree of civilisation. This social prescience, this
faith in a future ‹demand›, which causes us to provide a present
‹supply›; this sort of intuitive acquaintance with statistics which
each possesses in a greater or less degree, and which establishes a
surprising equilibrium between our wants and the means of supplying
them, is one of the most powerful and efficacious promoters of
human improvement. To it we owe the division of labour, or at least
the separation of trades and professions. To it we owe one of the
advantages which men seek for with the greatest ardour, the fixity
of remuneration, under the form of ‹wages› as regards labour,
and ‹interest› as regards capital. To it we are indebted for the
institution of credit, transactions having reference to the future,
those which are designed to equalize risk, etc. It is surprising,
in an Economical point of view, that this noble attribute of man,
Foresight, has not been made more the subject of remark. This arises,
as Rousseau has said, from the difficulty we experience in observing
the medium in which we live and move, and which forms our natural
atmosphere. We notice only exceptional appearances and abnormal
facts, while we allow to pass unperceived those which act permanently
around us, upon us, and within us, and which modify profoundly both
individual men and society at large.
To return to the subject which at present engages us. It may be that
human foresight, in its infinite diffusion, tends more and more to
substitute the ‹do ut des› for the ‹facio ut facias›; but we must
never forget that it is in the primitive and ‹necessary› form of
exchange that the notion of value first makes its appearance, that
this primitive form is that of reciprocal service; and that, after
all, [p176] as regards exchange, the product is only a ‹service
foreseen› and provided for.
But although I have shown that value is not inherent in matter, and
cannot be classed among its attributes, I am far from maintaining
that it does not pass from the ‹service› to the ‹product›, so as (if
I may be allowed the expression) to become incorporated with it. I
hope my opponents will not believe that I am pedant enough to wish to
exclude from common language such phrase as these—gold ‹has value›,
wheat ‹has value›, land ‹has value›. But I have a right to demand of
science why this is so? and if I am answered, because gold, wheat,
and land possess in themselves intrinsic ‹value›, then I think I
have a right to say—“You are mistaken, and your error is dangerous.
You are mistaken, for there are gold and land which are destitute of
value, gold and land which have not yet had any human labour bestowed
upon them. Your error is dangerous, for it leads men to regard what
is simply a right to a reciprocity of services as a usurpation of the
gratuitous gifts of God.”
I am quite willing, then, to acknowledge that products are possessed
of value, provided you grant me that it is not essential to them, and
that it attaches itself to services, and proceeds from them.
This is so true, that a very important consequence, and one which is
fundamental in Political Economy, flows from it—a consequence which
has not been, and indeed could not be remarked. It is this:—
‹Where value has passed from the service to the product, it undergoes
in the product all the risks and chances to which it is subject in
the service itself.›
It is not fixed in the product, as it would have been had it been one
of its own intrinsic qualities. It is essentially variable; it may
rise indefinitely, or it may fall until it disappears altogether,
just as the species of service to which it owes its origin would have
done.
The man who makes a cup to-day for the purpose of selling it a year
hence, confers value on it, and that value is determined by that of
the service—not the value which the service possesses at the present
moment, but that which it will possess at the end of the year. If
at the time when the cup comes to be sold such services are more in
demand, the cup will be worth more, or it will be depreciated in the
opposite case.
This is the reason why man is constantly stimulated to exercise
foresight, in order to turn it to account. He has always in [p177]
perspective a possible rise or fall of value,—a recompense for just
and sagacious prevision, and chastisement when it is erroneous. And,
observe, his success or failure coincides with the public good or the
public detriment. If his foresight has been well directed, if he has
made preparations beforehand to give society the benefit of services
which are more in request, more appreciated, more efficacious,
which supply more adequately wants which are deeply felt, he has
contributed to diminish the scarcity, to augment the abundance, of
that description of service, and to bring it within the reach of a
greater number of persons at less expense. If, on the other hand, he
is mistaken in his calculations for the future, he contributes, by
his competition, to depress still farther those services for which
there is little demand. He only effects, and at his own expense, a
negative good,—he advertises the public that a certain description of
wants no longer call for the exertion of much social activity, which
activity must now take another direction, or go without recompense.
This remarkable fact—that ‹value›, ‹incorporated› in a product,
depends on the value of the kind of service to which it owes its
origin—is of the very highest importance, not only because it
demonstrates more and more clearly the theory that the principle of
value resides in the service, but because it explains, easily and
satisfactorily, phenomena which other systems regard as abnormal and
exceptional.
When once the product has been thrown upon the market of the world,
do the general tendencies of society operate towards elevating or
towards depressing its ‹value›? This is to ask whether the particular
kind of services which have engendered this value are liable to
become more or less appreciated, and better or worse remunerated.
The one is as possible as the other, and it is this which opens an
unlimited field to human foresight.
This we may remark at least, that the general law of beings, capable
of making experiments, of acquiring information, and of rectifying
mistakes, is progress. The probability, then, is, that at any given
period a certain amount of time and pains will effect greater
results than were effected by the same agency at an anterior period:
whence we may conclude that the prevailing tendency of ‹value›,
‹incorporated› with a commodity, is to fall. If, for example, we
suppose the cup which I took by way of illustration, and as a symbol
of other products, to have been made many years ago, the probability
is that it has undergone depreciation, inasmuch as we have at the
present day more resources for the manufacture of such articles,
more skill, better tools, capital [p178] obtained on easier terms,
and a more extended division of labour. In this way the person who
wishes to obtain the cup does not say to its possessor, Tell me the
exact amount of labour (quantity and quality both taken into account)
which that cup has cost you, in order that I may remunerate you
accordingly. No, he says, Now-a-days, in consequence of the progress
of art, I can make for myself, or procure by exchange, a similar cup
at the expense of so much labour of such a quality; and that is the
limit of the remuneration which I can consent to give you.
Hence it follows that all labour incorporated with commodities, in
other words, all accumulated labour, all capital, has a tendency to
become depreciated in presence of services naturally improvable and
increasingly and progressively productive; and that, in exchanging
present labour against anterior labour, the advantage is generally on
the side of present labour, as it ought to be, seeing that it renders
a greater amount of service.
This shows us how empty are the declamations which we hear
continually directed against the value of landed property. That value
differs from other values in nothing—neither in its origin, nor in
its nature, nor in the general law of its slow depreciation, as
compared with the labour which it originally cost.
It represents anterior services,—the clearing away of trees and
stones, draining, enclosing, levelling, manuring, building: it
demands the recompense of these services. But that recompense is
not regulated with reference to the labour which has been actually
performed. The landed proprietor does not say. “Give me in exchange
for this land as much labour as it has received from me.” (But he
would so express himself if, according to Adam Smith’s theory, value
came from labour, and were proportional to it.) Much less does he
say, as Ricardo and a number of economists suppose, “Give me first
of all as much labour as this land has had bestowed upon it, and a
certain amount of labour over and above, as an equivalent for the
natural and inherent powers of the soil.” No, the proprietor, who
represents all the possessors of the land who have preceded him, up
to those who made the first clearance, is obliged, in their name, to
hold this humble language:—
“We have prepared services, and what we ask is to exchange these
for equivalent services. We worked hard formerly, for in our days
we were not acquainted with your powerful means of execution—there
were no roads—we were forced to do everything by muscular exertion.
Much sweat and toil, many human lives, are buried under these
furrows. But we do not expect from you [p179] labour for labour—we
have no means of effecting an exchange on those terms. We are quite
aware that the labour bestowed on land now-a-days, whether in this
country or abroad, is much more perfect and much more productive than
formerly. All that we ask, and what you clearly cannot refuse us,
is that our anterior labour and the new labour shall be exchanged,
not in proportion to their comparative duration and intensity, but
proportionally to their results, so that we may both receive the same
remuneration for the same service. By this arrangement we are losers
as regards labour, seeing that three or four times more of ours than
of yours is required to accomplish the same service; but we have no
choice, and can no longer effect the exchange on any other terms.”
And, in point of fact, this represents the actual state of things.
If we could form an exact estimate of the amount of efforts, of
incessant labour, and toil, expended in bringing each acre of our
land to its present state of productiveness, we should be thoroughly
convinced that the man who purchases that land does not give labour
for labour—at least in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred.
I add this qualification, because we must not forget that an
‹incorporated service› may gain value as well as lose it. And
although the general tendency be towards depreciation, nevertheless
the opposite phenomenon manifests itself sometimes, in exceptional
circumstances, as well in the case of land as of anything else, and
this without violating the law of justice, or affording adequate
cause for the cry of monopoly.
Services always intervene to bring out the principle of value. In
most cases the anterior labour probably renders a less amount of
service than the new labour, but this is not an absolute law which
admits of no exception. If the anterior labour renders a less amount
of service than the new, as is nearly always the case, a greater
quantity of the first than of the second must be thrown into the
scale to establish the equiponderance, seeing that the equiponderance
is regulated by services. But if it happen, as it sometimes may, that
the anterior labour renders greater service than the new, the latter
must make up for this by the sacrifice of quantity. [p180]
VI.
WEALTH.
We have seen that in every commodity which is adapted to satisfy
our wants and desires, there are two things to be considered
and distinguished: what nature does, and what man does,—what is
gratuitous, and what is onerous—the gift of God and the service
of man—‹utility› and ‹value›. In the same commodity the one may
be immense, and the other imperceptible. The former remaining
invariable, the latter may be indefinitely diminished; and is
diminished, in fact, as often as an ingenious process or invention
enables us to obtain the same result with less effort.
One of the greatest difficulties, one of the most fertile sources of
misunderstanding, controversy, and error, here presents itself to us
at the very threshold of the science—
What is ‹wealth›?
Are we ‹rich› in proportion to the utilities which we have at our
disposal,—that is, in proportion to the wants and desires which we
have the means of satisfying? “A man is rich or poor,” says Adam
Smith, “according as he possesses a greater or smaller amount of
‹useful› commodities which minister to his enjoyments.”
Are we ‹rich› in proportion to the ‹values› which we possess,—that
is to say, the ‹services› which we can command? “Wealth,” says J. B.
Say, “is in proportion to Value. It is great if the sum of the value
of which it is composed is great—it is small if the value be small.”
The vulgar employ the word Wealth in two senses. Sometimes we hear
them say—“The abundance of water is Wealth to such a country.” In
this case, they are thinking only of utility. But when one wishes to
reckon up his own wealth, he makes what is called an Inventory, in
which only commercial Value is taken into account.
With deference to the ‹savants›, I believe that the vulgar are
[p181] right for once. Wealth is either ‹actual› or ‹relative›. In
the first point of view, we judge of it by our satisfactions. Mankind
become richer in proportion as they acquire a greater amount of ease
or material prosperity, whatever be the commodities by which it is
procured. But do you wish to know what proportional share each man
has in the general prosperity; in other words, his ‹relative wealth›?
This is simply a relation, which value alone reveals, because value
is itself a relation.
Our science has to do with the general welfare and prosperity of men,
with the proportion which exists between their Efforts and their
Satisfactions,—a proportion which the progressive participation
of gratuitous utility in the business of production modifies
advantageously. You cannot, then, exclude this element from the
idea of Wealth. In a scientific point of view, actual or effective
wealth is not the sum of values, but the aggregate of the utilities,
gratuitous and onerous, which are attached to these values. As
regards satisfactions,—that is to say, as regards actual results of
wealth, we are as much enriched by the value annihilated by progress
as by that which still subsists.
In the ordinary transactions of life, we cease to take utility into
account, in proportion as that utility becomes ‹gratuitous› by the
lowering of value. Why? because what is gratuitous is ‹common›, and
what is common alters in no respect each man’s share or proportion
of actual or effective wealth. We do not exchange what is common to
all; and as in our every-day transactions we only require to be made
acquainted with the proportion which value establishes, we take no
account of anything else.
This subject gave rise to a controversy between Ricardo and J. B.
Say. Ricardo gave to the word Wealth the sense of Utility—Say,
that of Value. The exclusive triumph of one of these champions was
impossible, since the word admits of both senses, according as we
regard wealth as actual or relative.
But it is necessary to remark, and the more so on account of the
great authority of Say in these matters, that if we confound ‹wealth›
(in the sense of actual or effective prosperity) with ‹value›; above
all, if we affirm that the one is proportional to the other, we
shall be apt to give the science a wrong direction. The works of
second-rate Economists, and those of the Socialists, show this but
too clearly. To set out by concealing from view precisely that which
forms the fairest patrimony of the human race, is an unfortunate
beginning. It leads us to consider as annihilated that portion of
wealth which progress renders common to all, and exposes us to the
danger of falling into a ‹petitio principii›, and studying [p182]
Political Economy backwards,—the ‹end›, the design, which it is our
object to attain, being perpetually confounded with the ‹obstacle›
which impedes our efforts.
In truth, but for the existence of obstacles, there could be no
such thing as Value, which is the sign, the symptom, the witness,
the proof of our native weakness. It reminds us incessantly of the
decree which went forth in the beginning—“In the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread.” With reference to Omnipotence, the words
‹Effort›, ‹Service›, and, consequently, ‹Value›, have no meaning. As
regards ourselves, we live in an atmosphere of ‹utilities›, of which
utilities the greater part are gratuitous, but there are others which
we can acquire only by an onerous title. Obstacles are interposed
between these utilities and the wants to which they minister. We are
condemned either to forego the Utility, or vanquish these obstacles
by Efforts. Sweat must drop from the brow before bread can be eaten,
whether the toil be undergone by ourselves or by others for our
benefit.
The greater the amount of value we find existing in a country, the
greater evidence we have that obstacles have been surmounted, but the
greater evidence we also have that there are obstacles to surmount.
Are we to go so far as to say that these obstacles constitute Wealth,
because, apart from them, Value would have no existence?
We may suppose two countries. One of them possesses the means of
enjoyment to a greater extent than the other with a less amount of
Value, because it is favoured by nature, and it has fewer obstacles
to overcome. Which is the richer?
Or, to put a stronger case, let us suppose the same people at
different periods of their history. The obstacles to be overcome
are the same at both periods. But, now-a-days, they surmount these
obstacles with so much greater facility; they execute, for instance,
the work of transport, of tillage, of manufactures, at so much
less an expense of effort that values are considerably reduced.
There are two courses, then, which a people in such a situation may
take,—they may content themselves with the same amount of enjoyments
as formerly,—progress in that case resolving itself simply into
the attainment of additional leisure; and, in such circumstances,
should we be authorized to say that the Wealth of the society had
retrograded because it is possessed of a smaller amount of value?
Or, they may devote the efforts which progress and improvement
have rendered disposable to the increase and extension of their
enjoyments; but should we be warranted to conclude that, because the
amount of values had remained [p183] stationary, the wealth of the
society had remained stationary also? It is to this result, however,
that we tend if we confound the two things, ‹Riches› and ‹Value›.
Political Economists may here find themselves in a dilemma. Are we to
measure wealth by Satisfactions realized, or by Values created?
Were no obstacles interposed between utilities and desires, there
would be neither efforts, nor services, nor Values in our case, any
more than in that of God and nature. In such circumstances, were
wealth estimated by the satisfactions realized, mankind, like nature,
would be in possession of infinite riches; but, if estimated by the
values created, they would be deprived of wealth altogether. An
economist who adopted the first view might pronounce us ‹infinitely
rich›,—another, who adopted the second view, might pronounce us
‹infinitely poor›.
The infinite, it is true, is in no respect an attribute of humanity.
But mankind direct their exertions to certain ends; they make
efforts, they have tendencies, they gravitate towards progressive
Wealth or progressive Poverty. Now, how could Economists make
themselves mutually intelligible if this successive diminution of
effort in relation to result, of labour to be undergone or to be
remunerated; in a word, if this successive diminution of Value were
considered by some of them as a progress towards Wealth, and by
others as a descent towards Poverty?
Did the difficulty, indeed, concern only Economists, we might say,
let them settle the matter among themselves. But legislators and
governments have every day to introduce measures which exercise a
serious influence on human affairs; and in what condition should we
be if these measures were taken in the absence of that light which
enables us to distinguish Riches from Poverty?
I affirm that the theory which defines Wealth as Value is only
the glorification of Obstacles. Its syllogism is this: “Wealth is
in proportion to Value, value to efforts, efforts to obstacles;
‹ergo›, wealth is in proportion to obstacles.” I affirm also that,
by reason of the division of labour, which includes the case of
every one who exercises a trade or profession, the illusion thus
created is very difficult to be got rid of. We all of us see that
the services which we render are called forth by some obstacle, some
want, some suffering,—those of the physician by disease, those of
the agricultural labourer by hunger, those of the manufacturer of
clothing by cold, those of the carrier by distance, those of the
advocate by injustice, those of the soldier by danger to his country.
There is not, in fact, a single obstacle, the disappearance of which
does not [p184] prove very inopportune and very troublesome to
somebody, or which does not even appear fatal in a public point of
view, because it seems to dry up a source of employment, of services,
of values, of wealth. Very few Economists have been able to preserve
themselves entirely from this illusion; and if the science shall
ever succeed in dispelling it, its practical mission will have been
fulfilled. For I venture to make a third affirmation—namely, that
our official practice is saturated with this theory, and that when
governments believe it to be their duty to favour certain classes,
certain professions, or certain manufactures, they have no other mode
of accomplishing their object than by setting up Obstacles, in order
to give to particular branches of industry additional development,
in order to enlarge artificially the circle of services to which the
community is forced to have recourse,—and thus to increase Value,
falsely assumed as synonymous with Wealth.
And, in fact, it is quite true that such legislation is useful to the
classes which are favoured by it—they exult in it—congratulate each
other upon it,—and what is the consequence? Why this, that the same
favours are successively accorded to all other classes.
What more natural than to confound Utility with Value, and Value
with Riches! The science has never encountered a snare which she has
less suspected. For what has happened? At every step of progress the
reasoning has been this: “The obstacle is diminished, then effort
is lessened, then value is lessened, then utility is lessened, then
wealth is lessened,—then we are the most unfortunate people in the
world to have taken it into our heads to invent and exchange, to have
five fingers in place of three, and two hands in place of one; and
then it is necessary to engage government, which is in possession of
force, to take order with this abuse.”
This Political Economy ‹à rebours›—this Political Economy read
backwards—is the staple of many of our journals, and the life of
legislative assemblies. It has misled the candid and philanthropic
Sismondi, and we find it very logically set forth in the work of M.
de Saint-Chamans.
“There are two kinds of national wealth,” he tells us. “If we have
regard only to ‹useful› products with reference to their quantity,
their abundance, we have to do with a species of wealth which
procures enjoyments to society, and which I shall denominate ‹the
Wealth of enjoyment›.
“If we regard products with reference to their exchangeable Value, or
simply with reference to their value, we have to do with [p185] a
species of Wealth which procures values to society, and which I call
‹the Wealth of value›.
“‹It is this last species of Wealth which forms the special subject
of Political Economy, and it is with it, above all, that governments
have to do.›”
This being so, how are Economists and Statesmen to proceed? The first
are to point out the means of increasing this species of riches, this
‹wealth of value›; the second to set about adopting these means.
But this kind of wealth bears proportion to efforts, and efforts
bear proportion to obstacles. Political Economy, then, is to teach,
and Government to contrive, how to multiply obstacles. M. de
Saint-Chamans does not flinch in the least from this consequence.
Does exchange facilitate our acquiring more of the ‹wealth of
enjoyment› with less of the ‹wealth of value›? We must, then,
counteract this tendency of exchange.[39]
Is there any portion of gratuitous Utility which we can replace by
onerous Utility; for example, by prohibiting the use of a tool or a
machine? We must not fail to do so; for it is very evident, he says,
that if machinery augments the ‹wealth of enjoyment›, it diminishes
the ‹wealth of value›. “‹Let us bless the obstacles› which the
dearness and scarcity of fuel in this country has opposed to the
multiplication of steam-engines.”[40]
Has nature favoured us in any particular respect? It is our
misfortune; for, by that means, we are deprived of the opportunity of
exerting ourselves. “I avow that I could desire to see manufactured
by manual labour, forced exertion, and the sweat of the brow, things
that are now produced without trouble and spontaneously.”[41]
What a misfortune, then, is it for us that we are not obliged to
manufacture the water which we drink! It would have been a fine
opportunity of producing the ‹wealth of value›. Happily we take our
revenge upon wine. “Discover the secret of drawing wine from springs
in the earth as abundantly as you draw water, and you will soon see
that this fine order of things will ruin a fourth part of France.”[42]
According to the ideas which this Economist sets forth with such
‹naïveté›, there are many methods, and very simple methods too, of
obliging men to create what he terms the ‹wealth of value›.
The first is to deprive them of what they have. “If taxation [p186]
lays held of money where it is plentiful, to distribute it where it
is scarce, it is useful, and far from being a loss, ‹it is a gain›,
to the state.”[43]
The second is to dissipate what you take. “Luxury and prodigality,
which are so hurtful to individual fortunes, ‹benefit› public
wealth. You teach me a fine moral lesson, it may be said—I have no
such pretension—my business is with Political Economy, and not with
morals. You seek the means of rendering nations richer, and I preach
up luxury.”[44]
A more prompt method still is to destroy the wealth which you take
from the tax-payer by good sweeping wars. “If you grant me that the
expenditure of prodigals is as productive as any other, and that the
expenditure of governments is equally productive, . . . you will no
longer be astonished at the wealth of England after so expensive a
war.”[45]
But, as tending to promote the creation of this ‹Wealth of value›,
all these means—taxes, luxury, wars—must hide their diminished
heads before an expedient infinitely more efficacious—namely,
‹conflagration›.
“To build is a great source of wealth, because it supplies revenues
to proprietors, who furnish the materials, to workmen, and to divers
classes of artisans and artists. Melon cites Sir William Petty, who
regards, as a ‹national profit›, the labour employed in rebuilding
the streets of London after the great fire which consumed two-thirds
of the city, and he estimates it (the profit!) at a million sterling
per annum (in money of 1666) during four years, and this without the
least injury having been done to other branches of trade. Without
regarding this pecuniary estimate ‹of profit› as quite accurate,”
adds M. de Saint-Chamans, “it is certain at least that this event
had no detrimental effect upon the wealth of England at that
period. . . . The result stated by Sir W. Petty is not impossible,
seeing that the necessity of rebuilding London must have created a
large amount of new revenues.”[46]
All Economists, who set out by confounding ‹wealth› with ‹value›,
must infallibly arrive at the same conclusions, if they are logical;
but they are not logical; for on the road of absurdity men of any
common sense always sooner or later stop short. M. de Saint-Chamans
seems himself to recede a little before the consequences of his
principle, when it lands him in a eulogium on conflagration. We see
that he hesitates, and contents himself with a negative panegyric.
He should have carried out his principle to [p187] its logical
conclusions, and told us roundly what he so clearly indicates.
Of all our Economists, M. de Sismondi has succumbed to the difficulty
now under consideration in the manner most to be regretted. Like
M. de Saint-Chamans, he set out with the idea that value forms an
element of wealth; and, like him, he has built upon this datum a
Political Economy ‹à rebours›, denouncing everything which tends
to diminish value. Sismondi, like Saint-Chamans, exalts obstacles,
proscribes machinery, anathematizes exchange, competition, and
liberty, extols luxury and taxation, and arrives at length at this
conclusion, that the more we possess the poorer we become.[47]
From beginning to end of his work, however, M. de Sismondi seems to
have a lurking consciousness that he is mistaken, and that a dark
veil may have interposed itself between his mind and the truth. He
does not venture, like M. de Saint-Chamans, to announce roughly
and bluntly the consequences of his principle—he hesitates, and is
troubled. He asks himself sometimes if it is possible that all men
from the beginning of the world have been in error, and on the road
to self-destruction, in seeking to diminish the proportion which
Effort bears to Satisfaction,—that is to say, ‹value›. At once the
friend and the enemy of liberty, he fears it, since the abundance
which depreciates value leads to universal poverty, and yet he knows
not how to set about the destruction of this fatal liberty. He thus
arrives at the confines of socialism and artificial organization, and
insinuates that government and science should regulate and control
everything. Then he sees the danger of the advice he is giving,
retracts it, and ends by falling into despair, exclaiming—“Liberty
leads to the abyss of poverty—Constraint is as impossible as it is
useless—there is no escape.” In truth and reality, there is none, if
Value be Riches; in other words, if the obstacle to prosperity be
prosperity itself,—that is to say, if Evil be Good.
The latest writer, as far as I know, who has stirred this question
[p188] is M. Proudhon. It made the fortune of his book, ‹Des
Contradictions Économiques›. Never was there a finer opportunity
of seizing a paradox by the forelock, and snapping his fingers
at science. Never was there a fairer occasion of asking—“Do you
see in the increase of value a good or an evil? ‹Quidquid dixeris
argumentabor.›” Just think what a treat![48]
“I call upon any earnest Economist to explain to me, otherwise
than by varying and repeating the question, why value diminishes
in proportion as production increases, and ‹vice versa›. . . . In
technical phrase, value in use and value in exchange, although
necessary to each other, are in an inverse ratio to each
other. . . . . Value in use and value in exchange remain, then,
fatally enchained, although in their own nature they tend to exclude
each other.”
“For this contradiction, which is inherent in the notion of value,
no cause can be assigned, nor is any explanation of it possible. . .
From the data, that man has need of a great variety of commodities,
and that he must provide them by his labour, the necessary conclusion
is, that there exists an antagonism between value in use and value
in exchange, and from this antagonism a contradiction arises at the
very threshold of Political Economy. No amount of intelligence, no
agency, divine or human, can make it otherwise. In place, then, of
beating about for a useless explanation, let us content ourselves
with pointing out clearly the ‹necessity of the contradiction›.”
We know that the grand discovery of M. Proudhon is, that everything
is at once true and false, good and bad, legitimate and illegitimate,
that there exits no principle which is not self-contradictory, and
that contradiction lurks not only in erroneous theories, but in the
very essence of things,—“it is the pure expression of necessity,
the peculiar law of existence,” etc.; so that it is inevitable,
and would be incurable, rationally, but for ‹progression›,
and, practically, but for the ‹Banque du Peuple›. Nature is a
contradiction, liberty a contradiction, competition a contradiction,
property a contradiction,—value, credit, monopoly, community, all
contradictions. When M. Proudhon achieved this wonderful discovery
his heart must have leaped for joy; for since contradiction is
everywhere and in everything, he can never want something to gainsay,
which for him is the supreme good. He said to me one day, “I should
rather like to go to heaven, but I [p189] fear that everybody there
will be of one mind, and I should find nobody to argue with.”
We must confess that the subject of Value gave him an excellent
opportunity of indulging his taste. But, with great deference to
him, the contradictions and paradoxes to which the word Value has
given rise are to be found in the false theories which have been
constructed, and not at all, as he would have us believe, in the
nature of things.
Theorists have set out, in the first instance, by confounding
Value with Utility,—that is to say, evil with good; for utility is
the desired result, and value springs from the obstacle which is
interposed between the desire and the result. This was their first
error, and, when they perceived the consequences of it, they thought
to obviate the difficulty by imagining a distinction between value in
use and value in exchange—an unwieldy tautology, which had the great
fault of attaching the same word—Value—to two opposite phenomena.
But if, putting aside these subtilties, we adhere strictly to facts,
what do we perceive? Nothing, assuredly, but what is quite natural
and consistent.
A man, we shall suppose, works exclusively for himself. If he acquire
skill, if his force and intelligence are developed, if nature becomes
more liberal, or if he learns how to make nature co-operate better in
his work, he obtains ‹more wealth with less trouble›. Where is the
contradiction, and what is there in this to excite so much wonder?
Well, then, in place of remaining an isolated being, suppose this man
to have relations with his fellow-men. They exchange; and I repeat
my observation,—in proportion as they acquire skill, experience,
force, and intelligence,—in proportion as nature (become more
liberal or brought more into subjection) lends them more efficacious
co-operation, they obtain ‹more wealth with less trouble›; they have
at their disposal a greater amount of gratuitous utility; in their
transactions they transfer to one another a greater sum of useful
results in proportion to a given amount of labour. Where, then, is
the contradiction?
If, indeed, following the example of Adam Smith and his successors,
you commit the error of applying the same denomination—‹value›—both
to the results obtained and to the exertion made; in that case, an
antinomy or contradiction will show itself. But be assured that that
contradiction is not at all in the facts, but in your own erroneous
explanation of those facts.
M. Proudhon ought, then, to have shaped his proposition thus: [p190]
It being granted that man has need of a great variety of products,
that he can only obtain them by his labour, and that he has the
precious gift of educating and improving himself, nothing in the
world is more natural than the sustained increase of results in
relation to efforts; and there is nothing at all contradictory in a
given value serving as the vehicle of a greater amount of realized
utility.
Let me repeat, once more, that for man Utility is the fair side
of the medal and Value the reverse. Utility has relation only to
our Satisfactions, Value only with our Pains. Utility realizes our
enjoyments, and is proportioned to them; Value attests our native
weakness, springs from obstacles, and is proportioned to those
Obstacles.
In virtue of the law of human perfectibility, gratuitous utility
tends more and more to take the place of onerous utility, expressed
by the word ‹value›. Such is the phenomenon, and it presents
assuredly nothing contradictory.
But the question recurs—Should the word Wealth comprehend these two
kinds of utility united, or only the last?
If we could form, once for all, two classes of utilities, putting
on the one side all those which are gratuitous, and on the other
all those which are onerous, we should form, at the same time, two
classes of Wealth, which we should denominate, with M. Say, ‹Natural
Wealth› and ‹Social Wealth›; or else, with M. de Saint-Chamans, the
‹Wealth of Enjoyment› and the ‹Wealth of Value›; after which, as
these authors propose, we should have nothing mere to do with the
first of these classes.
“Things which are accessible to all,” says M. Say, “and which
everyone may enjoy at pleasure, without being forced to acquire them,
and without the fear of exhausting them, such as air, water, the
light of the sun, etc., are the gratuitous gifts of nature, and may
be denominated ‹Natural Wealth›. As these can be neither produced nor
distributed, nor consumed by us, ‹they come not within the domain of
Political Economy›.
“The things which this science has to do with are things which we
possess, and which have a recognised value. These we denominate
‹Social Wealth›, because they exist only among men united in society.”
“It is the ‹Wealth of Value›,” says M. de Saint-Chamans, “‹which
forms the special subject of Political Economy›, and whenever in
this work I mention Wealth without being more specific, I mean that
description of it.”