The difficulty,you will say,is to create articles which are worth the expences of their production;in my next letter you will see what Ithink on this subject.But in the hypothesis in which we still are,of the liberty of industry,you will allow me to observe that there is no difficulty experienced in creating articles which are worth the expences of their production,except the high demands of suppliers of productive services.Now the high price of productive services denotes that what we seek for exists,that is to say,that there is a mode of employing them so as to make the produce sufficient to repay what they cost.
You reproach those who subscribe to my opinion with "having no regard to the influence so general and so important of man's disposition to indolence and laziness"(page 358).You suppose a case,in which men after having produced wherewith to satisfy their most necessary wants would prefer to do nothing more,the love of ease being predominant in their minds over that of pleasure.This supposition,allow me to say,proves in my favor and against vou.What more shall I say than that we only sell to those who produce?Why are not articles of luxury sold to a farmer who likes to lead a rustic life?Because he had rather be idle than produce wherewith to purchase them.Whatever be the cause that circumscribes production,whether the want of capital,of population,of diligence,or liberty,the effect in my mind is the same:the articles which are offered on the one hand are not sold because too few are produced on the other.
You look upon indolence that will not produce as directly against a vent,and I am entirely of your opinion.But then,how can you consider as you do (ch.7sec.9)the indolence of what you call unproductive consumers as favorable to this same vent.It is absolutely necessary you say (page 463)that a country which has great means of production should posses a numerous body of unproductive consumers.How can it be that that indolence which refuses to produce,should overate against a vent in the first ease,and be favorable to it in the second.
If I must speak plain,this indolence is against it in both eases.Who do you mean by this numerous body of unproductive consumers so necessary in your opinion to producers?Are they the proprietors of land and capitals?
Doubtless they do not produce directly,but their property produces for them.They consume the value,to the creation of which their lands and capitals have contributed.They contribute therefore to the production,and can only purchase what they do,in consequence of that contribution.
If they further contribute by their labor,and join to their profit as proprietors and capitalists other profit as laborers,thereby producing more,they can consume more,but it is not in their character of non-producers that they augment the vent of producers.
Do you mean public functionaries,soldiers,and state pensioners?Neither is it in their character of non-producers that they favor a vent.I am far from contesting the legitimacy of the emoluments they receive,but I cannot think that those who pay taxes would be at a loss what to do with their money if the collector did not come to their assistance either their wants would be more amply satisfied,or they would employ the same money in a reproductive manner.In either ease,the money would be spent and would favor the vent of some productions equal in value to what is now purchased by those you call unproductive consumers.Confess therefore,Sir,that it is not by unproductive consumers that the vent is favored,but rather by those who help to keep them,and that in ease the unproductive consumers should happen to disappear,which God forbid,the vent would not be injured the value of a single halfpenny.
I know no better on what principle you decide (page 856)that production cannot go on if the value of commodities only pays a little more than the labor they have cost.It is by no means necessary that the produce should yield more than the cost of production,to enable the producers to go on.
When an enterprise begins with a capital of a hundred thousand francs,it is sufficient if it yield a produce or a hundred thousand francs,to enable it to recommence its operation.And where,you ask,are the producer's profits?The whole capital has served to pay them.(15)And it is the price that has been paid for it which forms the revenue of all the producers.If the produce resulting from it is worth only a hundred thousand francs,the same capital is re-established and all the producers are paid.(16)I am therefore not afraid of maldng your objection stronger than you have done by expressing it thus:"Although each commodity may have cost in its production the same quantity of labor and capital,and the one may be equivalent to the other,still they may both be so abundant,as not to purchase more labor than they cost.In this case,can production go on?certainly not."No?why not,I beseech you?Why cannot the farmers and manufacturers,who make together 60francs worth of wheat and cloth,who I have shown would be in a situation to purchase this entire quantity of commodity,sufficient for their wants,why can they not after having bought and consumed it,begin again?They would have the same land,the same capital,the stone industry as before,they would be precisely where they were when they began,and they would have lived,and supported themselves upon their income from the sale of their productive services.What more is necessary for the preservation of society ?This great phenomenon Production being analysed and shewn in its true colors explains every thing.
