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Page 49
B. The gold which is imported implies that a _useful thing_ is
_ex_ported, and in this respect there is a satisfaction withdrawn from
the country. But is there not a corresponding benefit? And will not this
gold be the source of a number of new satisfactions, by circulating from
hand to hand, and inciting to labour and industry, until at length it
leaves the country in its turn, and causes the importation of some
useful thing?
F. Now you have come to the heart of the question. Is it true that a
crown is the principle which causes the production of all the objects
whose exchange it facilitates? It is very clear that a piece of five
francs is only _worth_ five francs; but we are led to believe that this
value has a particular character: that it is not consumed like other
things, or that it is exhausted very gradually; that it renews itself,
as it were, in each transaction; and that, finally this crown has been
worth five francs, as many times as it has accomplished
transactions--that it is of itself worth all the things for which it
has been successively exchanged; and this is believed, because it is
supposed that without this crown these things would never have been
produced. It is said, the shoemaker would have sold fewer shoes,
consequently he would have bought less of the butcher; the butcher would
not have gone so often to the grocer, the grocer to the doctor, the
doctor to the lawyer, and so on.
B. No one can dispute that.
F. This is the time, then, to analyse the true function of cash,
independently of mines and importations. You have a crown. What does it
imply in your hands? It is, as it were, the witness and proof that you
have, at some time or other, performed some labour, which, instead of
profiting by it, you have bestowed upon society in the person of your
client. This crown testifies that you have performed a _service_ for
society, and, moreover, it shows the value of it. It bears witness,
besides, that you have not yet obtained from society a _real_ equivalent
service, to which you have a right. To place you in a condition to
exercise this right, at the time and in the manner you please, society,
by means of your client, has given you an acknowledgment, a title, a
privilege from the republic, a counter, a crown in fact, which only
differs from executive titles by bearing its value in itself; and if you
are able to read with your mind's eye the inscriptions stamped upon it
you will distinctly decipher these words:--"_Pay the bearer a service
equivalent to what he has rendered to society, the value received being
shown, proved, and measured by that which is represented by me._" Now,
you give up your crown to me. Either my title to it is gratuitous, or it
is a claim. If you give it me as payment for a service, the following is
the result:--your account with society for real satisfactions is
regulated, balanced, and closed. You had rendered it a service for a
crown, you now restore the crown for a service; as far as you are
concerned, you are clear. As for me, I am just in the position in which
you were just now. It is I who am now in advance to society for the
service which I have just rendered it in your person. I am become its
creditor for the value of the labour which I have performed for you, and
which I might devote to myself. It is into my hands, then, that the
title of this credit--the proof of this social debt--ought to pass. You
cannot say that I am any richer; if I am entitled to receive, it is
because I have given. Still less can you say that society is a crown
richer, because one of its members has a crown more, and another has one
less. For if you let me have this crown gratis, it is certain that I
shall be so much the richer, but you will be so much the poorer for it;
and the social fortune, taken in a mass, will have undergone no change,
because as I have already said, this fortune consists in real services,
in effective satisfactions, in useful things. You were a creditor to
society, you made me a substitute to your rights, and it signifies
little to society, which owes a service, whether it pays the debt to you
or to me. This is discharged as soon as the bearer of the claim is paid.
B. But if we all had a great number of crowns we should obtain from
society many services. Would not that be very desirable?
F. You forget that in the process which I have described, and which is
a picture of the reality, we only obtain services from society because
we have bestowed some upon it. Whoever speaks of a _service_, speaks at
the same time of a service _received_ and _returned_, for these two
terms imply each other, so that the one must always be balanced by the
other. It is impossible for society to render more services than it
receives, and yet this is the chimera which is being pursued by means of
the multiplication of coins, of paper money, &c.
B. All that appears very reasonable in theory, but in practice I
cannot help thinking, when I see how things go, that if, by some
fortunate circumstance, the number of crowns could be multiplied in such
a way that each of us could see his little property doubled, we should
all be more at our ease; we should all make more purchases, and trade
would receive a powerful stimulus.
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