BOOK IV.
OF SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
INTRODUCTION.
Political economy, considered as a branch
of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes
two distinct objects; first, to provide a
plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people,
or, more properly, to enable them to provide
such a revenue or subsistence for themselves;
and secondly, to supply the state or
commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for
the public services. It proposes to enrich
both the people and the sovereign.
The different progress of opulence in different
ages and nations, has given occasion to
two different systems of political economy,
with regard to enriching the people. The one
may be called the system of commerce, the
other that of agriculture. I shall endeavour
to explain both as fully and distinctly as I can,
and shall begin with the system of commerce.
It is the modern system, and is best understood
in our own country and in our own
times.
CHAP. I.
OF THE PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMERCIAL OR
MERCANTILE SYSTEM.
That wealth consists in money, or in gold
and silver, is a popular notion which naturally
arises from the double function of money, as
the instrument of commerce, and as the measure
of value. In consequence of its being
the instrument of commerce, when we have
money we can more readily obtain whatever
else we have occasion for, than by means of
any other commodity. The great affair, we
always find, is to get money. When that is
obtained, there is no difficulty in making any
subsequent purchase. In consequence of its
being the measure of value, we estimate that
of all other commodities by the quantity of
money which they will exchange for. We
say of a rich man, that he is worth a great
deal, and of a poor man, that he is worth very
little money. A frugal man, or a man eager
to be rich, is said to love money; and a careless,
a generous, or a profuse man, is said to
be indifferent about it. To grow rich is to
get money; and wealth and money, in short,
are, in common language, considered as in
every respect synonymous.
A rich country, in the same manner as a
rich man, is supposed to be a country abounding
in money; and to heap up gold and silver
in any country is supposed to be the readiest
way to enrich it. For some time after the
discovery of America, the first inquiry of the
Spaniards, when they arrived upon any unknown
coast, used to be, if there was any gold
or silver to be found in the neighbourhood?
By the information which they received, they
judged whether it was worth while to make a
settlement there, or if the country was worth
the conquering. Plano Carpino, a monk sent
ambassador from the king of France to one of
the sons of the famous Gengis Khan, says,
that the Tartars used frequently to ask him, if
there was plenty of sheep and oxen in the
kingdom of France? Their inquiry had the
same object with that of the Spaniards. They
wanted to know if the country was rich enough
to be worth the conquering. Among the Tartars,
as among all other nations of shepherds,
who are generally ignorant of the use of money,
cattle are the instruments of commerce
and the measures of value. Wealth, therefore,
according to them, consisted in cattle, as,
according to the Spaniards, it consisted in gold
and silver. Of the two, the Tartar notion,
perhaps, was the nearest to the truth.
Mr Locke remarks a distinction between
money and other moveable goods. All other
moveable goods, he says, are of so consumable
a nature, that the wealth which consists in
them cannot be much depended on; and a
nation which abounds in them one year may,