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Page 46
F. The others will do the same.
B. I shall redouble my exertions.
F. The others will redouble theirs. In the meantime, we have no proof
that you would succeed in selling to a great extent.
B. It is but too true. It would be well if the commercial efforts
would neutralize each other.
F. And the military efforts also. And, tell me, are not these
custom-house officers, soldiers, and vessels, these oppressive taxes,
this perpetual struggle towards an impossible result, this permanent
state of open or secret war with the whole world, are they not the
logical and inevitable consequence of the legislators having adopted an
idea, which you admit is acted upon by no man who is his own master,
that "wealth is cash; and to increase cash, is to increase wealth?"
B. I grant it. Either the axiom is true, and then the legislator ought
to act as I have described, although universal war should be the
consequence; or it is false; and in this case men, in destroying each
other, only ruin themselves.
F. And, remember, that before you became a king, this same axiom had
led you by a logical process to the following maxims:--That which one
gains, another loses. The profit of one, is the loss of the
other:--which maxims imply an unavoidable antagonism amongst all men.
B. It is only too certain. Whether I am a philosopher or a legislator,
whether I reason or act upon the principle that money is wealth, I
always arrive at one conclusion, or one result:--universal war. It is
well that you pointed out the consequences before beginning a discussion
upon it; otherwise, I should never have had the courage to follow you to
the end of your economical dissertation, for, to tell you the truth, it
is not much to my taste.
F. What do you mean? I was just thinking of it when you heard me
grumbling against money! I was lamenting that my countrymen have not the
courage to study what it is so important that they should know.
B. And yet the consequences are frightful.
F. The consequences! As yet I have only mentioned one. I might have
told you of others still more fatal.
B. Yon make my hair stand on end! What other evils can have been
caused to mankind by this confusion between money and wealth?
F. It would take me a long time to enumerate them. This doctrine is
one of a very numerous family. The eldest, whose acquaintance we have
just made, is called the _prohibitive system_; the next, the _colonial
system_; the third, _hatred of capital_; the Benjamin, _paper money_.
B. What! does paper money proceed from the same error?
F. Yes, directly. When legislators, after having ruined men by war and
taxes, persevere in their idea, they say to themselves, "If the people
suffer, it is because there is not money enough. We must make some." And
as it is not easy to multiply the precious metals, especially when the
pretended resources of prohibition have been exhausted, they add, "We
will make fictitious money, nothing is more easy, and then every citizen
will have his pocket-book full of it, and they will all be rich."
B. In fact, this proceeding is more expeditious than the other, and
then it does not lead to foreign war.
F. No, but it leads to civil war.
B. You are a grumbler. Make haste and dive to the bottom of the
question. I am quite impatient, for the first time, to know if money (or
its sign) is wealth.
F. You will grant that men do not satisfy any of their wants
immediately with crown pieces. If they are hungry, they want bread; if
naked, clothing; if they are ill, they must have remedies; if they are
cold, they want shelter and fuel; if they would learn, they must have
books; if they would travel, they must have conveyances--and so on. The
riches of a country consist in the abundance and proper distribution of
all these things. Hence you may perceive and rejoice at the falseness of
this gloomy maxim of Bacon's, "_What one people gains, another
necessarily loses_:" a maxim expressed in a still more discouraging
manner by Montaigne, in these words: "_The profit of one is the loss of
another._" When Shem, Ham, and Japhet divided amongst themselves the
vast solitudes of this earth, they surely might each of them build,
drain, sow, reap, and obtain improved lodging, food and clothing, and
better instruction, perfect and enrich themselves--in short, increase
their enjoyments, without causing a necessary diminution in the
corresponding enjoyments of their brothers. It is the same with two
nations.
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