But this answer.is not sufficient for those who take a more extended and complete view of the phenomenon of the production of our riches.Allow me to lay before you a striking figure;the public,by whom we are judged,will I hope find great facilities in it,in weighing the merit of your objections and my answers.
For the purpose of showing the operation of industry,capital,and land,in the work of production,I personify them;and I find that each one of these persons sells his services,(which I call productive services ,)to an enterpriser who is a merchant,a manufacturer,or rather a farmer.
This enterpriser having bought the services of a parcel of land,by paying a rent to the proprietor,the services of a capital by paying interest to a capitalist,and the industrious services of laborers,clerks,or agents of any kind,by paying them a salary,consumes and annihilates all these productive services;and from this consumption,a produce of a certain value emanates.
'The value of the produce,provided it be equal to the costs of production,that is to say,to the price which it has been necessary.to advance for all the productive services,is sufficient to pay the profits of all those who have contributed,directly or indirectly,to this production The profit of the enterpriser,on whose account the operation has been made,by deducting the interest of the capital that has been employed,represents the salary for his time and talent,that is to say,his own services productive to himself.
If his capacity was great,and his calculations well made,his profit is considerable.If instead of talent,he has shown ignorance in his business,he will have gained nothing;he will have lost.It is the enterpriser who takes all the risk;but it is he,on the other hand,who benefits by every favorable result .
All the productions which daily come before us,and all those which our imaginations tan conceive,have been formed by operations,every one of which forms part of those I have just explained,but combined in an infinity of different ways.What some enterprisers do to obtain certain productions,others do to obtain other productions.Now it is these various productions,which being exchanged against each other,open a reciprocal vent each to the other..The greater or less want there is of one of these productions,compared with others,determines an exchange at a greater or less price;that is,for a greater or less quantity of any other production.
Money is nothing more in this matter than a passing agent,which,the exchange once complete,has nothing more to do with it,but is employed in other exchanges.
It is with the rent of the land,the interest,and the salaries,which form the profits resulting from this production,that the producers purchase the articles of their consumption.Producers are at the same time consumers;and the nature of their wants,having an influence,in different degrees,on the demand for different productions,always favors,when liberty exists,the production of that which is most necessary,because,being the most in demand,it immediately becomes the article which yields the greatest profit to enterprisers.
I have said,that for the purpose of better showing how industry.capital,and land,act in productive operations,I would personify them,and mark the services they render.But this is not a mere fiction:they are facts.
Industry is represented by the industrious of all classes,capital by the capitalists,and land by the proprietors .It is these three classes of persons who sell the productive action of their commodity,and who affix the price to it.
My mode of expressing myself may be censured;but then it will be necessary to produce a better,for it cannot be denied that things take place as I have asserted.I have described the facts.The mode of description may be censured;but don't let any one flatter himself that he can controvert the facts;there they are,and will defend themselves.
Let us now resume your accusation --You say,Sir,that many commodities are bought with labor;and I go further than you do,I say that they must all be so bought;extending this expression,labor,to the service rendered by capital and land,(6)I say that they cannot be bought in any other way;that it is invariably by such services that use and value are given to things;and that ultimately two things present themselves to us,one of consuming ourselves the utility and consequently the value we have produced,the other to employ it in purchasing the utility and value produced by others;that in both eases we purchase commodities with productive services,and that the greater portion of productive service we employ,the more we can buy.
