You pretend that there is no such thing as immaterial produce.Ah!Sir,originally there was no other.A field itself furnished nothing towards the production but its service,which is an immaterial produce.It serves as a crucible in which minerals are put,and from whence tome out metal and dross.Is there any part of the crucible in these productions?No;the crucible serves for a new productive operation.Is there any part of the field in the harvest which it produces?I answer the same:No;for if a fund of land exhausted itself,it would finish at the end of a certain number of years,by being entirely annihilated.A fund of land only returns what is put into it;but this is after an elaboration which I call the productive service of the field.I may be criticised about the word,but I fear not any criticism on the subject,because the thing is,and will be,and wherever political economy is studied this will be found to be the fact,whatever name may be thought proper to be given to it.The service which a capital renders,in whatever enterprise it is employed,whether commercial,agricultural,or manufactural,is the same --an immaterial produce .He who expends a capital unproductively destroys the capital itself;he who expends it productively expends the material capital,and the service of this capital besides,which is an immaterial produce .
When a dyer puts one thousand francs'worth of indigo into his cauldron he consumes a thousand francs'worth of indigo,immaterial produce,and he consumes,besides,the time his capital is employed,that is its interest.
The dye he obtains returns him the value of the material capital which he has employed,and the value of the immaterial service of this same capital besides.
The service of the workman is also an immaterial produce.The workman leaves his manufactory,in the evening,just as he went into it in the morning.He has left nothing material in his workshop,therefore it is an immaterial service which he has furnished to a productive operation.
This service is the daily and annual produce of a fund which I call his industrious powers ,and which constitutes his wealth;a poor wealth !
particularly in England,and I know the cause of it.
All these things constitute immaterial produce ;call.them by whatever name you please,they will be no other than immaterial produce,which will exchange one against the other,or for material produce,and which in all these exchanges will form their regulated price-current,like all other price-currents in the world,on the proportion between the supply and the demand.
All these services,of industry,capital,and land,which are productions independent of all matter,form the revenue of all mankind.What!
all our revenues are immaterial!!Yes,Sir,all:otherwise it would be necessary that the mass of matter of which the Globe is composed should be augmented every year.This would be necessary in order that every year we might have a fresh material revenue.We neither create nor destroy a single atom.We confine ourselves to changing its combinations,and every thing we employ in it is immaterial.It is of value;and it is that value,also immaterial,which we consume daily and yearly,and which keeps us alive;for consumption is a change of form given to matter,or,if you prefer it,a derangement of form,as production is the arrangement of it.
If you find any thing paradoxical in all these propositions,look at the things they express,and I have no doubt they will appear very simple and very reasonable to you.
Without this analysis I defy you to explain the entire facts;to explain,for example,how the same capital is consumed twice,productively by an enterpriser,and unproductively by his workman.By help of the preceding analysis it will be seen,that the workman supplies his labor,the produce of his capacity,which he sells to the enterpriser --takes home his salary,which forms his revenue,and consumes it unproductively.The enterpriser,(who has bought the labor of the workman)on his part,by devoting a part of his capital to it,consumes it productively,the same as the dyer productively consumes the indigo he throws into his cauldron.These values,having been reproductively destroyed,reappear in the produce which comes out of the hands of the enterpriser.It is not the enterpriser's capital which forms the workman's revenue,as M.Sismondi pretends.It is in the workshops,and not in the workman's dwelling,that the enterpriser's capital is consumed.
The value consumed at the workman's house has another source,it is the produce of his industrious powers.The enterpriser devotes a part of his capital to the purchase of this labor.
Having bought it,he consumes it;and the workman on his part consumes the value he has obtained in exchange for his labor.Wherever there is an exchange,there are two values.created and bartered;and where ever two values are created,there can be and there is in fact two consumptions.(7)It is the same with productive service yielded by the capital.The capitalist who lends it sells the service,the labor of his commodity,and the daily or yearly price,which an enterpriser pays him for it,is called interest.
The two terms of exchange are,the one service ate capital,the other interest.
