Chapter OF THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS, OR OF

CHAPTER IX. OF THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS, OR OF THOSE SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY WHICH REPRESENT THE PRODUCE OF LAND, AS EITHER THE SOLE OR THE PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF THE REVENUE AND WEALTH OF EVERY COUNTRY.

  The agricultural systems of political economy will not require so long an
  explanation as that which I have thought it necessary to bestow upon the
  mercantile or commercial system.

  That system which represents the produce of land as the sole source of the
  revenue and wealth of every country, has so far as I know, never been
  adopted by any nation, and it at present exists only in the speculations
  of a few men of great learning and ingenuity in France. It would not,
  surely, be worth while to examine at great length the errors of a system
  which never has done, and probably never will do, any harm in any part of
  the world. I shall endeavour to explain, however, as distinctly as I can,
  the great outlines of this very ingenious system.

  Mr Colbert, the famous minister of Lewis XIV. was a man of probity, of
  great industry, and knowledge of detail; of great experience and acuteness
  in the examination of public accounts; and of abilities, in short, every
  way fitted for introducing method and good order into the collection and
  expenditure of the public revenue. That minister had unfortunately
  embraced all the prejudices of the mercantile system, in its nature and
  essence a system of restraint and regulation, and such as could scarce
  fail to be agreeable to a laborious and plodding man of business, who had
  been accustomed to regulate the different departments of public offices,
  and to establish the necessary checks and controls for confining each to
  its proper sphere. The industry and commerce of a great country, he
  endeavoured to regulate upon the same model as the departments of a public
  office; and instead of allowing every man to pursue his own interest his
  own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice, he
  bestowed upon certain branches of industry extraordinary privileges, while
  he laid others under as extraordinary restraints. He was not only
  disposed, like other European ministers, to encourage more the industry of
  the towns than that of the country; but, in order to support the industry
  of the towns, he was willing even to depress and keep down that of the
  country. In order to render provisions cheap to the inhabitants of the
  towns, and thereby to encourage manufactures and foreign commerce, he
  prohibited altogether the exportation of corn, and thus excluded the
  inhabitants of the country from every foreign market, for by far the most
  important part of the produce of their industry. This prohibition, joined
  to the restraints imposed by the ancient provincial laws of France upon
  the transportation of corn from one province to another, and to the
  arbitrary and degrading taxes which are levied upon the cultivators in
  almost all the provinces, discouraged and kept down the agriculture of
  that country very much below the state to which it would naturally have
  risen in so very fertile a soil, and so very happy a climate. This state
  of discouragement and depression was felt more or less in every different
  part of the country, and many different inquiries were set on foot
  concerning the causes of it. One of those causes appeared to be the
  preference given, by the institutions of Mr Colbert, to the industry of
  the towns above that of the country.

  If the rod be bent too much one way, says the proverb, in order to make it
  straight, you must bend it as much the other. The French philosophers, who
  have proposed the system which represents agriculture as the sole source
  of the revenue and wealth of every country, seem to have adopted this
  proverbial maxim; and, as in the plan of Mr Colbert, the industry of the
  towns was certainly overvalued in comparison with that of the country, so
  in their system it seems to be as certainly under-valued.

  The different orders of people, who have ever been supposed to contribute
  in any respect towards the annual produce of the land and labour of the
  country, they divide into three classes. The first is the class of the
  proprietors of land. The second is the class of the cultivators, of
  farmers and country labourers, whom they honour with the peculiar
  appellation of the productive class. The third is the class of artificers,
  manufacturers, and merchants, whom they endeavour to degrade by the
  humiliating appellation of the barren or unproductive class.

  The class of proprietors contributes to the annual produce, by the expense
  which they may occasionally lay out upon the improvement of the land, upon
  the buildings, drains, inclosures, and other ameliorations, which they may
  either make or maintain upon it, and by means of which the cultivators are
  enabled, with the same capital, to raise a greater produce, and
  consequently to pay a greater rent. This advanced rent may be considered
  as the interest or profit due to the proprietor, upon the expense or
  capital which he thus employs in the improvement of his land. Such
  expenses are in this system called ground expenses (depenses foncieres).

  The cultivators or farmers contribute to the annual produce, by what are
  in this system called the original and annual expenses (depenses
  primitives, et depenses annuelles), which they lay out upon the
  cultivation of the land. The original expenses consist in the instruments
  of husbandry, in the stock of cattle, in the seed, and in the maintenance
  of the farmer’s family, servants, and cattle, during at least a great part
  of the first year of his occupancy, or till he can receive some return
  from the land. The annual expenses consist in the seed, in the wear and
  tear of instruments of husbandry, and in the annual maintenance of the
  farmer’s servants and cattle, and of his family too, so far as any part of
  them can be considered as servants employed in cultivation. That part of
  the produce of the land which remains to him after paying the rent, ought
  to be sufficient, first, to replace to him, within a reasonable time, at
  least during the term of his occupancy, the whole of his original
  expenses, together with the ordinary profits of stock; and, secondly, to
  replace to him annually the whole of his annual expenses, together
  likewise with the ordinary profits of stock. Those two sorts of expenses
  are two capitals which the farmer employs in cultivation; and unless they
  are regularly restored to him, together with a reasonable profit, he
  cannot carry on his employment upon a level with other employments; but,
  from a regard to his own interest, must desert it as soon as possible, and
  seek some other. That part of the produce of the land which is thus
  necessary for enabling the farmer to continue his business, ought to be
  considered as a fund sacred to cultivation, which, if the landlord
  violates, he necessarily reduces the produce of his own land, and, in a
  few years, not only disables the farmer from paying this racked rent, but
  from paying the reasonable rent which he might otherwise have got for his
  land. The rent which properly belongs to the landlord, is no more than the
  neat produce which remains after paying, in the completest manner, all the
  necessary expenses which must be previously laid out, in order to raise
  the gross or the whole produce. It is because the labour of the
  cultivators, over and above paying completely all those necessary
  expenses, affords a neat produce of this kind, that this class of people
  are in this system peculiarly distinguished by the honourable appellation
  of the productive class. Their original and annual expenses are for the
  same reason called, In this system, productive expenses, because, over and
  above replacing their own value, they occasion the annual reproduction of
  this neat produce.

  The ground expenses, as they are called, or what the landlord lays out
  upon the improvement of his land, are, in this system, too, honoured with
  the appellation of productive expenses. Till the whole of those expenses,
  together with the ordinary profits of stock, have been completely repaid
  to him by the advanced rent which he gets from his land, that advanced
  rent ought to be regarded as sacred and inviolable, both by the church and
  by the king; ought to be subject neither to tithe nor to taxation. If it
  is otherwise, by discouraging the improvement of land, the church
  discourages the future increase of her own tithes, and the king the future
  increase of his own taxes. As in a well ordered state of things,
  therefore, those ground expenses, over and above reproducing in the
  completest manner their own value, occasion likewise, after a certain
  time, a reproduction of a neat produce, they are in this system considered
  as productive expenses.

  The ground expenses of the landlord, however, together with the original
  and the annual expenses of the farmer, are the only three sorts of
  expenses which in this system are considered as productive. All other
  expenses, and all other orders of people, even those who, in the common
  apprehensions of men, are regarded as the most productive, are, in this
  account of things, represented as altogether barren and unproductive.

  Artificers and manufacturers, in particular, whose industry, in the common
  apprehensions of men, increases so much the value of the rude produce of
  land, are in this system represented as a class of people altogether
  barren and unproductive. Their labour, it is said, replaces only the stock
  which employs them, together with its ordinary profits. That stock
  consists in the materials, tools, and wages, advanced to them by their
  employer; and is the fund destined for their employment and maintenance.
  Its profits are the fund destined for the maintenance of their employer.
  Their employer, as he advances to them the stock of materials, tools, and
  wages, necessary for their employment, so he advances to himself what is
  necessary for his own maintenance; and this maintenance he generally
  proportions to the profit which he expects to make by the price of their
  work. Unless its price repays to him the maintenance which he advances to
  himself, as well as the materials, tools, and wages, which he advances to
  his workmen, it evidently does not repay to him the whole expense which he
  lays out upon it. The profits of manufacturing stock, therefore, are not,
  like the rent of land, a neat produce which remains after completely
  repaying the whole expense which must be laid out in order to obtain them.
  The stock of the farmer yields him a profit, as well as that of the master
  manufacturer; and it yields a rent likewise to another person, which that
  of the master manufacturer does not. The expense, therefore, laid out in
  employing and maintaining artificers and manufacturers, does no more than
  continue, if one may say so, the existence of its own value, and does not
  produce any new value. It is, therefore, altogether a barren and
  unproductive expense. The expense, on the contrary, laid out in employing
  farmers and country labourers, over and above continuing the existence of
  its own value, produces a new value the rent of the landlord. It is,
  therefore, a productive expense.

  Mercantile stock is equally barren and unproductive with manufacturing
  stock. It only continues the existence of its own value, without producing
  any new value. Its profits are only the repayment of the maintenance which
  its employer advances to himself during the time that he employs it, or
  till he receives the returns of it. They are only the repayment of a part
  of the expense which must be laid out in employing it.

  The labour of artificers and manufacturers never adds any thing to the
  value of the whole annual amount of the rude produce of the land. It adds,
  indeed, greatly to the value of some particular parts of it. But the
  consumption which, in the mean time, it occasions of other parts, is
  precisely equal to the value which it adds to those parts; so that the
  value of the whole amount is not, at any one moment of time, in the least
  augmented by it. The person who works the lace of a pair of fine ruffles
  for example, will sometimes raise the value of, perhaps, a pennyworth of
  flax to £30 sterling. But though, at first sight, he appears thereby to
  multiply the value of a part of the rude produce about seven thousand and
  two hundred times, he in reality adds nothing to the value of the whole
  annual amount of the rude produce. The working of that lace costs him,
  perhaps, two years labour. The £30 which he gets for it when it is
  finished, is no more than the repayment of the subsistence which he
  advances to himself during the two years that he is employed about it. The
  value which, by every day’s, month’s, or year’s labour, he adds to the
  flax, does no more than replace the value of his own consumption during
  that day, month, or year. At no moment of time, therefore, does he add any
  thing to the value of the whole annual amount of the rude produce of the
  land: the portion of that produce which he is continually consuming, being
  always equal to the value which he is continually producing. The extreme
  poverty of the greater part of the persons employed in this expensive,
  though trifling manufacture, may satisfy us that the price of their work
  does not, in ordinary cases, exceed the value of their subsistence. It is
  otherwise with the work of farmers and country labourers. The rent of the
  landlord is a value which, in ordinary cases, it is continually producing
  over and above replacing, in the most complete manner, the whole
  consumption, the whole expense laid out upon the employment and
  maintenance both of the workmen and of their employer.

  Artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, can augment the revenue and
  wealth of their society by parsimony only; or, as it is expressed in this
  system, by privation, that is, by depriving themselves of a part of the
  funds destined for their own subsistence. They annually reproduce nothing
  but those funds. Unless, therefore, they annually save some part of them,
  unless they annually deprive themselves of the enjoyment of some part of
  them, the revenue and wealth of their society can never be, in the
  smallest degree, augmented by means of their industry. Farmers and country
  labourers, on the contrary, may enjoy completely the whole funds destined
  for their own subsistence, and yet augment, at the same time, the revenue
  and wealth of their society. Over and above what is destined for their own
  subsistence, their industry annually affords a neat produce, of which the
  augmentation necessarily augments the revenue and wealth of their society.
  Nations, therefore, which, like France or England, consist in a great
  measure, of proprietors and cultivators, can be enriched by industry and
  enjoyment. Nations, on the contrary, which, like Holland and Hamburgh, are
  composed chiefly of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, can grow
  rich only through parsimony and privation. As the interest of nations so
  differently circumstanced is very different, so is likewise the common
  character of the people. In those of the former kind, liberality,
  frankness, and good fellowship, naturally make a part of their common
  character; in the latter, narrowness, meanness, and a selfish disposition,
  averse to all social pleasure and enjoyment.

  The unproductive class, that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers,
  is maintained and employed altogether at the expense of the two other
  classes, of that of proprietors, and of that of cultivators. They furnish
  it both with the materials of its work, and with the fund of its
  subsistence, with the corn and cattle which it consumes while it is
  employed about that work. The proprietors and cultivators finally pay both
  the wages of all the workmen of the unproductive class, and the profits of
  all their employers. Those workmen and their employers are properly the
  servants of the proprietors and cultivators. They are only servants who
  work without doors, as menial servants work within. Both the one and the
  other, however, are equally maintained at the expense of the same masters.
  The labour of both is equally unproductive. It adds nothing to the value
  of the sum total of the rude produce of the land. Instead of increasing
  the value of that sum total, it is a charge and expense which must be paid
  out of it.

  The unproductive class, however, is not only useful, but greatly useful,
  to the other two classes. By means of the industry of merchants,
  artificers, and manufacturers, the proprietors and cultivators can
  purchase both the foreign goods and the manufactured produce of their own
  country, which they have occasion for, with the produce of a much smaller
  quantity of their own labour, than what they would be obliged to employ,
  if they were to attempt, in an awkward and unskilful manner, either to
  import the one, or to make the other, for their own use. By means of the
  unproductive class, the cultivators are delivered from many cares, which
  would otherwise distract their attention from the cultivation of land. The
  superiority of produce, which in consequence of this undivided attention,
  they are enabled to raise, is fully sufficient to pay the whole expense
  which the maintenance and employment of the unproductive class costs
  either the proprietors or themselves. The industry of merchants,
  artificers, and manufacturers, though in its own nature altogether
  unproductive, yet contributes in this manner indirectly to increase the
  produce of the land. It increases the productive powers of productive
  labour, by leaving it at liberty to confine itself to its proper
  employment, the cultivation of land; and the plough goes frequently the
  easier and the better, by means of the labour of the man whose business is
  most remote from the plough.

  It can never be the interest of the proprietors and cultivators, to
  restrain or to discourage, in any respect, the industry of merchants,
  artificers, and manufacturers. The greater the liberty which this
  unproductive class enjoys, the greater will be the competition in all the
  different trades which compose it, and the cheaper will the other two
  classes be supplied, both with foreign goods and with the manufactured
  produce of their own country.

  It can never be the interest of the unproductive class to oppress the
  other two classes. It is the surplus produce of the land, or what remains
  after deducting the maintenance, first of the cultivators, and afterwards
  of the proprietors, that maintains and employs the unproductive class. The
  greater this surplus, the greater must likewise be the maintenance and
  employment of that class. The establishment of perfect justice, of perfect
  liberty, and of perfect equality, is the very simple secret which most
  effectually secures the highest degree of prosperity to all the three
  classes.

  The merchants, artificers, and manufacturers of those mercantile states,
  which, like Holland and Hamburgh, consist chiefly of this unproductive
  class, are in the same manner maintained and employed altogether at the
  expense of the proprietors and cultivators of land. The only difference
  is, that those proprietors and cultivators are, the greater part of them,
  placed at a most inconvenient distance from the merchants, artificers, and
  manufacturers, whom they supply with the materials of their work and the
  fund of their subsistence; are the inhabitants of other countries, and the
  subjects of other governments.

  Such mercantile states, however, are not only useful, but greatly useful,
  to the inhabitants of those other countries. They fill up, in some
  measure, a very important void; and supply the place of the merchants,
  artificers, and manufacturers, whom the inhabitants of those countries
  ought to find at home, but whom, from some defect in their policy, they do
  not find at home.

  It can never be the interest of those landed nations, if I may call them
  so, to discourage or distress the industry of such mercantile states, by
  imposing high duties upon their trade, or upon the commodities which they
  furnish. Such duties, by rendering those commodities dearer, could serve
  only to sink the real value of the surplus produce of their own land, with
  which, or, what comes to the same thing, with the price of which those
  commodities are purchased. Such duties could only serve to discourage the
  increase of that surplus produce, and consequently the improvement and
  cultivation of their own land. The most effectual expedient, on the
  contrary, for raising the value of that surplus produce, for encouraging
  its increase, and consequently the improvement and cultivation of their
  own land, would be to allow the most perfect freedom to the trade of all
  such mercantile nations.

  This perfect freedom of trade would even be the most effectual expedient
  for supplying them, in due time, with all the artificers, manufacturers,
  and merchants, whom they wanted at home; and for filling up, in the
  properest and most advantageous manner, that very important void which
  they felt there.

  The continual increase of the surplus produce of their land would, in due
  time, create a greater capital than what would be employed with the
  ordinary rate of profit in the improvement and cultivation of land; and
  the surplus part of it would naturally turn itself to the employment of
  artificers and manufacturers, at home. But these artificers and
  manufacturers, finding at home both the materials of their work and the
  fund of their subsistence, might immediately, even with much less art and
  skill be able to work as cheap as the little artificers and manufacturers
  of such mercantile states, who had both to bring from a greater distance.
  Even though, from want of art and skill, they might not for some time be
  able to work as cheap, yet, finding a market at home, they might be able
  to sell their work there as cheap as that of the artificers and
  manufacturers of such mercantile states, which could not be brought to
  that market but from so great a distance; and as their art and skill
  improved, they would soon be able to sell it cheaper. The artificers and
  manufacturers of such mercantile states, therefore, would immediately be
  rivalled in the market of those landed nations, and soon after undersold
  and justled out of it altogether. The cheapness of the manufactures of
  those landed nations, in consequence of the gradual improvements of art
  and skill, would, in due time, extend their sale beyond the home market,
  and carry them to many foreign markets, from which they would, in the same
  manner, gradually justle out many of the manufacturers of such mercantile
  nations.

  This continual increase, both of the rude and manufactured produce of
  those landed nations, would, in due time, create a greater capital than
  could, with the ordinary rate of profit, be employed either in agriculture
  or in manufactures. The surplus of this capital would naturally turn
  itself to foreign trade and be employed in exporting, to foreign
  countries, such parts of the rude and manufactured produce of its own
  country, as exceeded the demand of the home market. In the exportation of
  the produce of their own country, the merchants of a landed nation would
  have an advantage of the same kind over those of mercantile nations, which
  its artificers and manufacturers had over the artificers and manufacturers
  of such nations; the advantage of finding at home that cargo, and those
  stores and provisions, which the others were obliged to seek for at a
  distance. With inferior art and skill in navigation, therefore, they would
  be able to sell that cargo as cheap in foreign markets as the merchants of
  such mercantile nations; and with equal art and skill they would be able
  to sell it cheaper. They would soon, therefore, rival those mercantile
  nations in this branch of foreign trade, and, in due time, would justle
  them out of it altogether.

  According to this liberal and generous system, therefore, the most
  advantageous method in which a landed nation can raise up artificers,
  manufacturers, and merchants of its own, is to grant the most perfect
  freedom of trade to the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of all
  other nations. It thereby raises the value of the surplus produce of its
  own land, of which the continual increase gradually establishes a fund,
  which, in due time, necessarily raises up all the artificers,
  manufacturers, and merchants, whom it has occasion for.

  When a landed nation on the contrary, oppresses, either by high duties or
  by prohibitions, the trade of foreign nations, it necessarily hurts its
  own interest in two different ways. First, by raising the price of all
  foreign goods, and of all sorts of manufactures, it necessarily sinks the
  real value of the surplus produce of its own land, with which, or, what
  comes to the same thing, with the price of which, it purchases those
  foreign goods and manufactures. Secondly, by giving a sort of monopoly of
  the home market to its own merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, it
  raises the rate of mercantile and manufacturing profit, in proportion to
  that of agricultural profit; and, consequently, either draws from
  agriculture a part of the capital which had before been employed in it, or
  hinders from going to it a part of what would otherwise have gone to it.
  This policy, therefore, discourages agriculture in two different ways;
  first, by sinking the real value of its produce, and thereby lowering the
  rate of its profits; and, secondly, by raising the rate of profit in all
  other employments. Agriculture is rendered less advantageous, and trade
  and manufactures more advantageous, than they otherwise would be; and
  every man is tempted by his own interest to turn, as much as he can, both
  his capital and his industry from the former to the latter employments.

  Though, by this oppressive policy, a landed nation should be able to raise
  up artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of its own, somewhat sooner
  than it could do by the freedom of trade; a matter, however, which is not
  a little doubtful; yet it would raise them up, if one may say so,
  prematurely, and before it was perfectly ripe for them. By raising up too
  hastily one species of industry, it would depress another more valuable
  species of industry. By raising up too hastily a species of industry which
  duly replaces the stock which employs it, together with the ordinary
  profit, it would depress a species of industry which, over and above
  replacing that stock, with its profit, affords likewise a neat produce, a
  free rent to the landlord. It would depress productive labour, by
  encouraging too hastily that labour which is altogether barren and
  unproductive.

  In what manner, according to this system, the sum total of the annual
  produce of the land is distributed among the three classes above
  mentioned, and in what manner the labour of the unproductive class does no
  more than replace the value of its own consumption, without increasing in
  any respect the value of that sum total, is represented by Mr Quesnai, the
  very ingenious and profound author of this system, in some arithmetical
  formularies. The first of these formularies, which, by way of eminence, he
  peculiarly distinguishes by the name of the Economical Table, represents
  the manner in which he supposes this distribution takes place, in a state
  of the most perfect liberty, and, therefore, of the highest prosperity; in
  a state where the annual produce is such as to afford the greatest
  possible neat produce, and where each class enjoys its proper share of the
  whole annual produce. Some subsequent formularies represent the manner in
  which he supposes this distribution is made in different states of
  restraint and regulation; in which, either the class of proprietors, or
  the barren and unproductive class, is more favoured than the class of
  cultivators; and in which either the one or the other encroaches, more or
  less, upon the share which ought properly to belong to this productive
  class. Every such encroachment, every violation of that natural
  distribution, which the most perfect liberty would establish, must,
  according to this system, necessarily degrade, more or less, from one year
  to another, the value and sum total of the annual produce, and must
  necessarily occasion a gradual declension in the real wealth and revenue
  of the society; a declension, of which the progress must be quicker or
  slower, according to the degree of this encroachment, according as that
  natural distribution, which the most perfect liberty would establish, is
  more or less violated. Those subsequent formularies represent the
  different degrees of declension which, according to this system,
  correspond to the different degrees in which this natural distribution of
  things is violated.

  Some speculative physicians seem to have imagined that the health of the
  human body could be preserved only by a certain precise regimen of diet
  and exercise, of which every, the smallest violation, necessarily
  occasioned some degree of disease or disorder proportionate to the degree
  of the violation. Experience, however, would seem to shew, that the human
  body frequently preserves, to all appearance at least, the most perfect
  state of health under a vast variety of different regimens; even under
  some which are generally believed to be very far from being perfectly
  wholesome. But the healthful state of the human body, it would seem,
  contains in itself some unknown principle of preservation, capable either
  of preventing or of correcting, in many respects, the bad effects even of
  a very faulty regimen. Mr Quesnai, who was himself a physician, and a very
  speculative physician, seems to have entertained a notion of the same kind
  concerning the political body, and to have imagined that it would thrive
  and prosper only under a certain precise regimen, the exact regimen of
  perfect liberty and perfect justice. He seems not to have considered, that
  in the political body, the natural effort which every man is continually
  making to better his own condition, is a principle of preservation capable
  of preventing and correcting, in many respects, the bad effects of a
  political economy, in some degree both partial and oppressive. Such a
  political economy, though it no doubt retards more or less, is not always
  capable of stopping altogether, the natural progress of a nation towards
  wealth and prosperity, and still less of making it go backwards. If a
  nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and
  perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have
  prospered. In the political body, however, the wisdom of nature has
  fortunately made ample provision for remedying many of the bad effects of
  the folly and injustice of man; it the same manner as it has done in the
  natural body, for remedying those of his sloth and intemperance.

  The capital error of this system, however, seems to lie in its
  representing the class of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, as
  altogether barren and unproductive. The following observations may serve
  to shew the impropriety of this representation:—

  First, this class, it is acknowledged, reproduces annually the value of
  its own annual consumption, and continues, at least, the existence of the
  stock or capital which maintains and employs it. But, upon this account
  alone, the denomination of barren or unproductive should seem to be very
  improperly applied to it. We should not call a marriage barren or
  unproductive, though it produced only a son and a daughter, to replace the
  father and mother, and though it did not increase the number of the human
  species, but only continued it as it was before. Farmers and country
  labourers, indeed, over and above the stock which maintains and employs
  them, reproduce annually a neat produce, a free rent to the landlord. As a
  marriage which affords three children is certainly more productive than
  one which affords only two, so the labour of farmers and country labourers
  is certainly more productive than that of merchants, artificers, and
  manufacturers. The superior produce of the one class, however, does not,
  render the other barren or unproductive.

  Secondly, it seems, on this account, altogether improper to consider
  artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, in the same light as menial
  servants. The labour of menial servants does not continue the existence of
  the fund which maintains and employs them. Their maintenance and
  employment is altogether at the expense of their masters, and the work
  which they perform is not of a nature to repay that expense. That work
  consists in services which perish generally in the very instant of their
  performance, and does not fix or realize itself in any vendible commodity,
  which can replace the value of their wages and maintenance. The labour, on
  the contrary, of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, naturally does
  fix and realize itself in some such vendible commodity. It is upon this
  account that, in the chapter in which I treat of productive and
  unproductive labour, I have classed artificers, manufacturers, and
  merchants among the productive labourers, and menial servants among the
  barren or unproductive.

  Thirdly, it seems, upon every supposition, improper to say, that the
  labour of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, does not increase the
  real revenue of the society. Though we should suppose, for example, as it
  seems to be supposed in this system, that the value of the daily, monthly,
  and yearly consumption of this class was exactly equal to that of its
  daily, monthly, and yearly production; yet it would not from thence
  follow, that its labour added nothing to the real revenue, to the real
  value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the society. An
  artificer, for example, who, in the first six months after harvest,
  executes ten pounds worth of work, though he should, in the same time,
  consume ten pounds worth of corn and other necessaries, yet really adds
  the value of ten pounds to the annual produce of the land and labour of
  the society. While he has been consuming a half-yearly revenue of ten
  pounds worth of corn and other necessaries, he has produced an equal value
  of work, capable of purchasing, either to himself, or to some other
  person, an equal half-yearly revenue. The value, therefore, of what has
  been consumed and produced during these six months, is equal, not to ten,
  but to twenty pounds. It is possible, indeed, that no more than ten pounds
  worth of this value may ever have existed at any one moment of time. But
  if the ten pounds worth of corn and other necessaries which were consumed
  by the artificer, had been consumed by a soldier, or by a menial servant,
  the value of that part of the annual produce which existed at the end of
  the six months, would have been ten pounds less than it actually is in
  consequence of the labour of the artificer. Though the value of what the
  artificer produces, therefore, should not, at any one moment of time, be
  supposed greater than the value he consumes, yet, at every moment of time,
  the actually existing value of goods in the market is, in consequence of
  what he produces, greater than it otherwise would be.

  When the patrons of this system assert, that the consumption of
  artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, is equal to the value of what
  they produce, they probably mean no more than that their revenue, or the
  fund destined for their consumption, is equal to it. But if they had
  expressed themselves more accurately, and only asserted, that the revenue
  of this class was equal to the value of what they produced, it might
  readily have occurred to the reader, that what would naturally be saved
  out of this revenue, must necessarily increase more or less the real
  wealth of the society. In order, therefore, to make out something like an
  argument, it was necessary that they should express themselves as they
  have done; and this argument, even supposing things actually were as it
  seems to presume them to be, turns out to be a very inconclusive one.

  Fourthly, farmers and country labourers can no more augment, without
  parsimony, the real revenue, the annual produce of the land and labour of
  their society, than artificers, manufacturers, and merchants. The annual
  produce of the land and labour of any society can be augmented only in two
  ways; either, first, by some improvement in the productive powers of the
  useful labour actually maintained within it; or, secondly, by some
  increase in the quantity of that labour.

  The improvement in the productive powers of useful labour depends, first,
  upon the improvement in the ability of the workman; and, secondly, upon
  that of the machinery with which he works. But the labour of artificers
  and manufacturers, as it is capable of being more subdivided, and the
  labour of each workman reduced to a greater simplicity of operation, than
  that of farmers and country labourers; so it is likewise capable of both
  these sorts of improvement in a much higher degree {See book i chap. 1.}
  In this respect, therefore, the class of cultivators can have no sort of
  advantage over that of artificers and manufacturers.

  The increase in the quantity of useful labour actually employed within any
  society must depend altogether upon the increase of the capital which
  employs it; and the increase of that capital, again, must be exactly equal
  to the amount of the savings from the revenue, either of the particular
  persons who manage and direct the employment of that capital, or of some
  other persons, who lend it to them. If merchants, artificers, and
  manufacturers are, as this system seems to suppose, naturally more
  inclined to parsimony and saving than proprietors and cultivators, they
  are, so far, more likely to augment the quantity of useful labour employed
  within their society, and consequently to increase its real revenue, the
  annual produce of its land and labour.

  Fifthly and lastly, though the revenue of the inhabitants of every country
  was supposed to consist altogether, as this system seems to suppose, in
  the quantity of subsistence which their industry could procure to them;
  yet, even upon this supposition, the revenue of a trading and
  manufacturing country must, other things being equal, always be much
  greater than that of one without trade or manufactures. By means of trade
  and manufactures, a greater quantity of subsistence can be annually
  imported into a particular country, than what its own lands, in the actual
  state of their cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants of a town,
  though they frequently possess no lands of their own, yet draw to
  themselves, by their industry, such a quantity of the rude produce of the
  lands of other people, as supplies them, not only with the materials of
  their work, but with the fund of their subsistence. What a town always is
  with regard to the country in its neighbourhood, one independent state or
  country may frequently be with regard to other independent states or
  countries. It is thus that Holland draws a great part of its subsistence
  from other countries; live cattle from Holstein and Jutland, and corn from
  almost all the different countries of Europe. A small quantity of
  manufactured produce, purchases a great quantity of rude produce. A
  trading and manufacturing country, therefore, naturally purchases, with a
  small part of its manufactured produce, a great part of the rude produce
  of other countries; while, on the contrary, a country without trade and
  manufactures is generally obliged to purchase, at the expense of a great
  part of its rude produce, a very small part of the manufactured produce of
  other countries. The one exports what can subsist and accommodate but a
  very few, and imports the subsistence and accommodation of a great number.
  The other exports the accommodation and subsistence of a great number, and
  imports that of a very few only. The inhabitants of the one must always
  enjoy a much greater quantity of subsistence than what their own lands, in
  the actual state of their cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants of
  the other must always enjoy a much smaller quantity.

  This system, however, with all its imperfections, is perhaps the nearest
  approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of
  political economy; and is upon that account, well worth the consideration
  of every man who wishes to examine with attention the principles of that
  very important science. Though in representing the labour which is
  employed upon land as the only productive labour, the notions which it
  inculcates are, perhaps, too narrow and confined; yet in representing the
  wealth of nations as consisting, not in the unconsumable riches of money,
  but in the consumable goods annually reproduced by the labour of the
  society, and in representing perfect liberty as the only effectual
  expedient for rendering this annual reproduction the greatest possible,
  its doctrine seems to be in every respect as just as it is generous and
  liberal. Its followers are very numerous; and as men are fond of
  paradoxes, and of appearing to understand what surpasses the
  comprehensions of ordinary people, the paradox which it maintains,
  concerning the unproductive nature of manufacturing labour, has not,
  perhaps, contributed a little to increase the number of its admirers. They
  have for some years past made a pretty considerable sect, distinguished in
  the French republic of letters by the name of the Economists. Their works

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