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;
in 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