An inquiry into the various systems of political economy: their advantages and disadvantages: and the theory most favourable to the increase of national wealth

Front matter

Glass.

Book iV,3l\i

Am mauiiiT

Introduction

On the Nature of Wealth.

x^OLITICAL sciences afford few subjects of meditation more extensive, more complicated, more instructive, and more productive of important consequences than the problem of the moral and political advantages and inconveniences of Wealth ; a subject which has been so frequently discussed, and so variously resolved in every treatise on morals and politics.

When we consider how little, in this respect, men have been anxious to make their opinions agree with their practice, their principles with their conduct, and their morality with their actions ; the solution of the problem becomes still more difficult : men appear to have prescribed duties for themselves merely for the purpose of transgressing them, or, at least, to have imagined that to transgress them was allowable as often as it might prove useful. Let it not be suppo- .§€dj however, that this inconsistency is peculiar to some individuals, some classes, or corporations, certain times and certain countries ; it is common to all men, to all nations, and all times. Though despised by the wise, condemned hy religious tenets, accused by moralists and publicists of the perversity of individuals, the depravity of manners, the decline of na= lions, and the fall of empires. Wealth Is yet every where the object of the ambition of individuals and nations ; the cause of their quarrels and contentions,, and but too often the reward of violence, of fraud and injustice, and of the infraction of all laws human and divine. Every where poverty, though praised, commended, and ranked among the virtues most honourable to humanity, is regarded as a misfortune, sometimes as a disgrace, and almost always as a symptom of vice, or of an inferiority of either physical or intiellectual faculties.

To reconcile this singular contra<fiction, to develbpie, its causes, and decide between the passions and the instructors of mankind, is certainly no easy task. It ought, however, to be less difficult, now that political economy indicates pure and salutary sources oC wealth, the abundance of which may be increased bj nieians conformable to reason, justice, and morality ; equally beneficial to the rich and poor, and as lawful as honourable in their application. Yet, by a strange fatality, this precious discovery has not cured pubii<i opinion of its prejudice against riches ; and to write in behalf of wealth, is still as rash, as it is rare to sei? poverty honoured in a drawing-rOom.

If political economy has hitherto been unable f& tnake iiien relinquish their erroneous notions concei*n= mg wealtli, or to convince them of its being morally and politically beneficial, it is to be feared that the same fatal prejudice will be extended to the theory of Wealth, and that mankind will not feel greatly disposed to patronize a science, the object of which is little valued. There is, at least, no hope that it will be diligently studied, successfully cultivated, and eagerly diffused among the enlightened classes of the community, on whose patronage alone the progress of science depends, and without whose co-operation the solitary efforts of a few courageous partisans, wh© have to struggle against the torrent of general indif^ ference, must always prove unavailing.

It is, therefore, of the utmost importance for the success of Political Economy, that the mysterious veil, which has hitherto concealed the true nature of wealth, should be removed. The origin of a prejudice s:o ancient against riches, and the source of the charms which wealth, in despite of this prejudice^ constantly possesses in the eyes of individuals and nations, must be investigated. It must be known whether the disastrous effects of which wealth is accused, spring from its nature or from extraneous causes. It must, in fine, be ascertained whether wealth has been the parent of more virtues than vices; whether it deteriorates more than it improves the condition of nations ; and whether it has been more prejudicial to the duration and safety ofempiTCs, than favourable to their elevation and grandeur.

Wealth is now performing so great a part in all «|0niestic, national, and foreign concerns, and in ever^ public and private transaction, that it is a matter of much importance not to mistake its essence, its origin, its effects, and the universal application of which it is susceptible. The indifference which has proved so fatal to the theory of wealth, cannot be persevered in without endangering the social bonds of modern na-

^ tions. At a time when Europe, shaken in her veryfoundations, is about to be re-established on a new basis, and when it is at length acknowledged that true politics ought no longer to separate the power of governments from the welfare of the people, it particularly behoves us to form correct notions of wealth, and to be acquainted both with the benefits which we are to expect from it, and the calamities which follow in its train. If wealth be viseful, its advantages will be the greater for being more justly appreciated; if prejudicial, its disastrous effects will be better avoided or prevented by being known. Though truth be not always certain to please, it is yet sure of a fa= vourable reception whenever it is beneficial to mankind.

Wealth, in the simplest and most general acceptation of the term, consists in the surplus of produce above consumption, or of income above expenditure. The extent both of public and private wealth depends on the accumulation of this surplus, and on the manner in which it is managed and applied.*

:: The passion for wealth is general, universal, and,

* When individuals, hordes, tribes, and na,tions, have not enough to supply their vi^nts, they are poor ; when their means are adequate to their wants, they are equally removed from poverty and wealth :. when they have a surplus left after having supplied all their wantSj this surplus constitutes their rwaW,

QF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 23

as it were, inherent in mankind. The history of man and civil society shows it always active and enterprising. It is the spring of every private action, the principle and end of all public resolutions. In every country, in every nation, among the Scythian or Tartar hordes, among the tribes of Arabia or the savages of America, among the ancients and moderns, at all times and under all governments, the desire of riches exercises the same influence ; whether mankind live insulated or collected in societies, whether they be governed by instinct or obedient to reason, this desire never varies but in its direction and its means.

The passion for wealth is not peculiar to mankind exclusively : vestiges of it are even found among some species of the brute creation. Several animals reserve the surplus of their provisions for future wants. By this reservation, they indicate the instinct of riches; and it is extremely remarkable, that these economical and provident classes of creatures happen also to be the most laborious of the animal kind.

But, in the brute creation, this propensity is limited ; in men, it is without bounds. It has not influenced animals to proceed a step beyond the instinct for their own preservation ; while, in men, it has been the principle and promoter of intellectual faculties, of liberal and mechanical talents, of ingenious and active industry : , it has afforded mankind ample means and vast resources; secured them against want, procured them conveniencies, comforts and enjoyments the most exquisite; and extended, as it were, the domain which nature destined for man, so that the distance which separates mankind from the animal creation, might be measured by the distance of the most refined enjoyments from the most ordi^ nary wants, or, in other words, by the distance of weahh from poverty.

Unfortunately, this passion for riches, which nature designed for such useful and beneficial purposes, has Joffo- been a coiistant source of disorder, violence, and calamities, among individuals and nations. Ancient history, and the records of the middle age, Continually exhibit the passion for wealth to the philosophicat observer as an obstacle to the safety, liberty, and happiness of individuals, to the independence and prosperity of nations, and to the increase and welfare of mankind : it is always arming men against men, cities against cities, and people against people. During those two periods, it seemed as if one man could not possess more than he stood in need of, without depriving another of the necessaries of life ; as if cities could not be rich but at the expense of the country, and as if a nation could not be wealthy but by impoverishing other nations. Every where wealth is wrested from poverty, and opulence amassed out of the wrecks of indigence. Ages had rolled along before men perceived, or even before they suspected a more productive, a more abundant source of wealth, than the misery of their fellow-creatures. Communities, or individuals, all fancied they could not be rich but by seizing the property of others; and all attempted to secure a surplus by depriving others of their absolute necessary.

With this intent were framed the constitutions of the ancients, and of the people of the middle age ;

in this spirit were their laws conceived, digested, and executed : such was the peculiar character of their institutions, governments, and public and private manners ; such the end of their social compact.

The servitude of the most numerous part of the people was the first consequence of this system. We find slavery established in the most remote times ; and this circumstance has betrayed some writers (in other respects estimable) into the supposition that servitude is a law of na:ure.

Independently of the greatest part of the people being enslaved, we find another considerable portion plunged into a depth of misery little preferable to slavery, and opulence reserved for a few privileged beings, whose number bears no proportion to the multitude bending under the load of social calamities.

To what cause ought we to ascribe a distinction so degrading to humanity ? Not to human nature : it makes neither masters nor slaves, neither rich nor poor. The inequality of strength, courage, and activity, may have produced the inequality of riches; but it could not be the immediate cause of servitude and misery. The individual who is least favoured by nature, may much more easily do without the assistance of his fellow-creatures, in the social state^ than in the state of nature : and surely it was not for the greater benefit of the weak man, that he was Teduced to slavery by the strong one; nor was it from a motive of humanity, or by way of kindness, that the rich rendered the misery of the poor subservient to the increase of their riches.

This distinction of masters and slaves, of rich and

22 ON THi! Various systems

poor, was, in ancient times and in the middle age, ths unavoidable consequence of their civil associations being founded upon a system which stripped the weak for the benefit of the strong ; or, rather, upon the wrong direction given to the inexhaustible passion for ■wealth. Aware that they could not grow rich without their assistance, men used every means in their power to subdue their fellow- creatures, and to impose upon them the yoke of their caprices and vices, and the care of supplying their wants and providing for their enjoyments. Man became the property of man, and in this respect J. J. Rousseau was right when he asserted, that he who laid the first foundation of property, was guilty of treason against humanity, and deserved the curses of mankind.

Fatal as this attempt of the passion for riches proved, every where, to the most numerous part of the people, it was yet repeated with the same ardour, and, at first, with the same success, by nations against each other. They were all anxious to appropriate to themselves the wealth of other states, and to submit them to their domination. Hostilities became permanent, and in this general struggle, a few proving victorious, subdued the others and stripped them of their tiches. But punishment followed close upon the crime. The predominating states were no sooner arrived at the summit of power, than they fell with the same rapidity, and, to use the more correct than elegant comparison of Fergtisson*, they disappeared all at once, and "the conflagration, which had filled

* Fergusson's History of Civil Society.

*' the world with its flames, subsided like a wax-ta- " per under an. extinguisher."

The causes and effects of this political phenomenon are established beyond contradiction, by the annals of all the distinguished nations of antiquity.

The Persians, who appear first on the theatre of history, were wretchedly poor when Cyrus led theni on to the conquest of the rich provinces of Asia. The hope of emerging from misery was their only motive for war. They became conquerors for the sole purpose of enriching themselves ; which they accomplished by stripping the vanquished of their wealths. The treasures of the conquered kings were distributed by the conquerors among the army, the generals and grandees, and all who, by their services, had deserved 'well of the country. Thus the wealth acquired by conquest contributed, at first, to the grandeur of the monarch, and the splendour of the empire : but it soon devolved to a few favourites, courtiers, and slaves ; to all, in short, who, under absolute governments, feed upon the depravity and vices of their masters. From that instant the power of the Persians declined, until it vanished before an army of thirty-five thousand men, who issued from the barren mountains of Macedonia, or enlisted from among the Proletarians of Greece.*

* The Proletarians (Froktarii d, prole creanddj were those citizens among the Romans who, being possessed of no more than fifteen hundred sesterces, had nothing to contribute to the exigences of the state but their children. Asperis reipublicee temporibiis cum juventutis inopia essei, Froktarii in militiam timuUimriam legebantin\ Aul. Gell. xvi. 10.— T.

The Spartans, not less celebrated for their contempt of riches than for their astonishing exploits, appear little entitled to the praises with which they have been honoured by posterity. They reduced the Helotes, or inhabitants of Laconia, to servitude, for the purpose of imposing upon them the task of supplying their wants. The laws of Lycurgus, which had grounded the happiness of the Spartans upon disinterestedness,^ and obtained the approbation of the gods, could not guard them against the dangerous seduction of riches Scarcely had their illustrious Lawgiver ended his days, than, regardless of both his laws and the gods, who had, as it were, declared themselves the patrons of those laws, the Spartans conquered Messene, and exterminated, banished, or enslaved its inhabitants : and it is this very period of oppression and robbery which marks the beginning of their importance and consideration among the nations of Greece. The Spartans did not shew themselves more rigid observers of the laws of Lycurgus against riches at any other period of their history : the ransom of the prisoners of war, and the booty of Plataea, were eagerly heaped up in their public exchequer ; and, as Plutarch justly observes, *' private in- * ■ dividuals took care not to despise the wealth which '^ the public held in estimation ; and the law which "' watched at the gate of their houses to keep them ^ " shut against gold, proved less powerful than the ex- *' ample of the people, who opened their hearts to '* cupidity." Their best generals, and even the chiefs ©f the state, were bribed by the gold of the great king, and the owls of Athens* crept under the roof of the covetous Spartan,

But the wealth which the Spartans so anxiously coveted, could only be obtained by reducing other nations to poverty and wretchedness ; and when, in spite of the laws of Lycurgus, riches had been accumulated in the hands of a few citizens, Sparta had no longer any virtue, glory, or power, leftf.

Attica, a dreary and barren country, could never have emerged from the state of indigence to which it was condemned by nature, had not the road to wealth and the career of ambition been opened to it, by its sharing in the booty of Plataea, and in the plunder of the cities of Asia Minor, which had declared for Xerxes. This first favour of fortune proved a powerful stimulus to fresh usurpations. The Athenians seized the chest containing the contributions which the confederate cities of Greece levied among themselves to repel the attacks of the great king. They arbitrarily raised the rate of contribution, subdued several towns and islands of Greece, stripped them of their riches, and exacted exorbitant tributes Thus the

* The money of Athens bore the impression of an owl.

t It has been remarked by historians, that when, after the battles of Leuctrura and Mantinaea, the power of Sparta declined, the Lacedemonians were more attached to their gold than to their country; and though their laws condemned the passion for riches, their avarice was carried so far, that of the nine thousand families who in the.time of Lycurgus shared the whole wealth of the state, there remained not above seven hundred in the reign of Agis, of ■which perhaps, one hundred had estates in lauds. Pltttarch's Lites. h9ndon. lS05,Vol.iy, Jgis,f.3S5.

Athenians grew rich by plundering, oppressing, and impoverishing other nations, and as their wealth got into the hands of a few citizens, it caused the ruin of the state*.

A few huts, built by strangers and fugitives on the sea-shore, were the slender foundations on which arose the magnificent towers of proud Carthage. Though at firstindebted for her wealth to commerce, it wasthe^ plunder of the small nations by which she was surrounded, ancl the conquest and spoliation of the principal islands of the Mediterranean and of a large portion of Africa, which gave Carthage so considerable a mass of riches, that many of her private citizens were said to have been as wealthy as monarchsf.

The history of Carthage does not inform us what became of her riches, and whether they fellcxclusively into the hands of a few citizens, as they did among the other nations of antiquity : but it positively acquaints us with the inordinate passion of the Carthagenians for wealth. The citizens were obliged to pay for whatever the state might or ought to have given them, and were paid for every service rendered to the statej. This mutual avarice of the citizens and of the state caused the misfortunes and ruin of Carthage, and produced precisely the same effects which wealth, exclusively possessed by a small portion of the people, had produced in other countries.

* There were citizens at Athens, whose landed estates were three miles in extent ; while others had not sufficient to pay for thei!'; - burial. De Pmo, sur Ics Grecs.

t Montesquievj Grandeur et Decadei^ce des Romains. c, 4, \ Ibid.

It was the fear of having their treasures diminished by extraordinary expfkices, which, in the first Punic war, induced that celebrated people to submit to the laws of the conqueror.

During the second Punic war, the interested policy of Carthage confined her attention to the preservation of her wealth. She did not extend her views to futurity, nor did she appreciate the genius of Hannibal. The Carthaginians were alarmed at the expences to which they were driven by the illustrious exploits of that great man; while they ought to have sacrifirCed the whole of their riches to his glory. And it may be asserted of this extraordinary people, that if the passion for riches was the principal cause of their greatness and power, it was the dread of poverty ■^vhich occasioned their decline and ruiu.

Rome, founded by robbers and fugitive slaves who were seeking an asylum against the justice of the laws, had for a long time nothing to subsist upon but what the Romans seized from the harvest of their neighbours. " Romulus was almost constantly at " v/ar to procure citizens, women, or lands.

" The Romans used to return loaded with the " spoils of the vanquished, which consisted in sheaves '* of corn and droves of cattle. This proved the occa- " sion of great rejoicings.

'' Rome being Avithout commerce, and almost withr " out arts, pillage was the only road to wealth. There " was, nevertheless, a kind of order and regularity " observed in plundering. The booty was collected *' into on.e heap, and distributed amongst the soldiers.

" The citizens, who had been left at home shared

" likewise in the fruits of victory. Part of the " conquered lands was confiscated and divided into *' two lots; one was sold for the benefit of the pub- " lie, and the other given to the poor citizens, at an *' annual rent paid to the state.

" As the glory of a general rose in proportion to *' the quantity of gold and silver that graced his *' triumph, none was left to the vanquished.

" Rome continued enriching herself, and every " successive war enabled her to undertake a new one.

•' Her allies, or friends, ruined themselves by the *' astonishing quantity of presents which they made ** to obtain a greater deg. ^ of favour, or to secure *' that which they enjoyed : half of the sums sent to " Rome for this purpose, would have been sufficient *' for her overthrow.

'' Masters of the world, the Romans arrogated to '■ bemselves all its treasures. Their rapacity as " v:onq«ierors was less unjust, than as legislators. ^' Having heard of the immense wealth of Ptolemy, *' kmg of Egypt, they passed a law by which they *' constituted themselves heirs of a living monarch, *' and confiscated the dominions of an ally.*

" The cupidity of private individuc^ls was not " backward in seizing whatever had esdaped public ** avarice. Magistrates and governors made a traffic *' of their injustice to princes. Competitors vied *' in rushing to their ruin to purchase a doubtful

* Montesquieu. Grandeur et Decadence des Remains, c. 6. The example has not been lost. The conduct of France towards Spain is the exact copy.— T.

*' protection against a rival whose means were note " yet completely exhausted ; and the grandees of *' Rome showed themselves devoid of that kind of ^' probity which even robbers observe in their crimes,

^' No right, in short, lawful or usurped, could be ^' kept safe but by means of bribes. To obtain mo- *• ney, princes robbed the temples of their gods, and *' confiscated the property of their richest subjects ; " they perpetrated a thousand crimes, to throw all ^* the money of the world into the lap of the Ro- ''mans."*

This eloquent sketch of the passion for wealth among the Romans, sufficiently explains the motive of their wars and the cause of their victories, conquests, dommation, and power; and it is with as much justice as truth that the immortal Montesquieu has ranked their passion for wealth among the causes of their grandeur.

The riches accumulated at Rome by the pillage of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and the opulent countries of Asia, became the exclusive patrimony of the Patricians, and caused those perpetual complaints of the Plebeians against them. They gave birth to the dissentions which convulsdd the republic, and repeatedly threatened its dissolution. They furnished

* The nations by which the empire was surrounded in Europe, absorbed, by degrees, the wealth of the Romans ; and as they had grown powerful because the neighbouring monarchs had sent them their gold and silver, they grew weak, because their treasures were carried. to other nations, Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romaiits,

Julius Csesar v^ith the means of destroying public liberty, and enslaving his country. It was the prodigious wealth which the proscriptions of the richest citizens of Rome had placed at his disposal, that enabled Octavius to raise the Roman empire on the wrecks of the republic. It was, also, merely by lavishing upon the legions, Praetorian bands, and Barbarians, (by whose seditions and continual incursions their power was constantly menaced,) the produce of the proscriptions, murder and spoliation of the richest individuals of Rome and the empire, that his successors maintained themselves on the imperial throne. As long as mere private persons, whom their riches assimilated to kings, Were smarting under the extortion of the emperors, the people felt no abhorrence for their execrable crimes : but as soon as the increasincr load of taxes began to fall heavy upon themselves, the nation revolted against their oppressors ; and from^ that instant the empire rapidly declined, and shortly became the prey of the Barbarians.*

Lastly, it was with the sole view to possess themselves of the wealth of which the Romans had stripped the then known world, that the barbarous nations which surrounded the einpire from the north to the east, commenced their harassing incursions, and contended for its wrecks.

Thus wealth, among the nations of antiquity, was alike the object of individual and public ambitioUj^ and the principal cause of the elevation and grandeur, and of the decline and utter ruin of states.

See the preceding note.

OF POLITICAL ECONOBIY, 31

The people of the middle age exhibited the same spectacle, and experienced the same fate.

''The country of the Scythians being almost un- ** cultivated," says Montesquieu, " its inhabitants ** were su' ject to frequent famines : they partly ^' subsisted upon their trade with the Romans, who *' used to bring them provisions from the provinces *' bordering on tlie Danube ; the Barbarians gave them *'in return the commodities they had gained by pil- '* lage, the prisoners they had made, and the gold and " silver they had been paid to keep the peace : but " when the Romans became unable to grant them '* tributes sufficient for their maintenance, the Scy- '* thians were forced to seek for settlements."*

Wherever they settled, they possessed themselves of a more or less considerable portion of land, of slaves, and moveable wealth; and although these riches must have appeared immense comparatively to their former poverty, they yet failed to produce upon them any of the effects which they had produced upon the nations of antiquity. The Barbarians underwent none of the vicissitudes which those nations had experienced. They preserved their spirit, their man^ ners^ their character, and their propensity to robbery and devastation. " To kave no one to rob was to " them a state of slax)er\j''''\

When they had no more enemies to fight, no more booty to share, no more wealth to wrest by conquest

- * Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains.

from strangers, they ^warred with themselves to strip each other ; and hurried along by their insatiable cupidity, they paid no respect either to the identity of origin, to the ties of blood, to political connexions, Or even to social and domestic relations. Fathers, children, and brothers, kings and barons, lords and vassals, all fought against each other to increase their riches by the misery and poverty of their enemies : but their culpable expectations were deceived. Their general and continued hostilities, instead of enriching them, created every where wretchedness and indigence ; harbingers of the revolution which caused the destruction of the feudal government.

The barrenness of the soil introduced, among the Arabs, a maxim in which they have confided, and which they have practised ever since the most remote times : they suppose that, by the division of the earth, the rich and fertile climates have been assigned to pther branches of the human race ; and that the posterity of the proscribed Ismael, from whom they are descended, may recover, by fraud or violence, that portion of his inheritance of which he has been unjustly deprived. According to Pliny, the Arabs are equally addicted to theft and commerce ; the caravans which journey across the desert, must either , ransom themselves, or submit to be pillaged : and ever since the remote times of Job and Sesostris, their neighbours have been the victims of their rapacity.*

Mahomet took advantage of this rapacious dispo-

* Diodorus Siculus, vol. i. Book I.

sition, and, by methodizing it, united all the Arabs under the banners of religion and plunder. He set apart the fifth of the gold and silver, prisoners, cattle, and moveables, for pious uses ; the rest was divided in equal portions among the soldiers who had contributed to the victory and those who were left to guard the camp. The share of those who had fallen in battle, was given to their widows and orphans.

The first cahphs who succeeded Mahomet, took no more from the public revenue than was requisite to supply their wants, which were extremely moderate ; the remainder was scrupulously applied to the salutary work of spiritual and temporal conquests.

The Abassides impoverished themselves by the multitude of their wants, and their neglect of economy. Instead of taking ambition for their guide, as the first caliphs had done, their leisure, their affections, and the faculties of their minds, were solely engrossed with the pomp of feasts and pleasures. The rewards due to valour were dissipated by women and eunuchs ; and the royal camp was incumbered with the luxury of the palace. The same vices spread among their subjects ; and from that instant their tottering empire, dismembered and disunited, leftnothinp^in their impoverished hands but the barren deposit of the laws and religion of Mahomet.

This hasty sketch of the passion for wealth among the nations of antiquity and the middle age, of the course it followed, and the share it had in their elevation and decline, leaves no doubt respecting the power and empire which it exercised over them. Notwithstanding the high colouring employed by historians,