Political Economy [12]
to the earth, was returned fivefold in harvest; so likewise, every undertaker of useful labour requires raw materials to work upon, and wages for his workmen, equivalent to the necessaries of life consumed by them in their labour. His operations thus begin with a consumption; and this is followed by a reproduction which should be more abundant, since it must be equivalent to the raw materials worked upon, so the necessaries of life consumed by his workmen in their labour, to the sum by which his machinery and all his fixed capitals have been deteriorated during the production, and lastly to the profit of all concerned in the labour, who have supported its fatigues solely in the hope of gaining by it. The farmer sowed twenty bags of corn to reap a hundred; the manufacturer will make a calculation nearly similar. And as the farmer at harvest must recover not only a compensation for his seed, but likewise for all his labours, so the manufacturer must find in his production, not the raw materials only, but all the wages of his workmen, all the interests and profits of his fixed capital, with all the interests and profits of his circulating capital. In the last place, the farmer may augment his seed every year; but he will not fail to recollect that, since his crops increase in the same necessaries, he is not sure of always finding men to eat them. The manufacturer, in like manner, devoting the savings of each year to increase his re-production, must recollect the necessity of finding purchasers and consumers for the increasing products of his establishment. Since the fund destined for consumption no longer produces any thing, and since each man strives incessantly to preserve and augment his fortune, each will also restrict his consumable fund, and instead of accumulating in his house a quantity of necessaries greatly superior to what he can consume, he will augment his fixed or circulating capital, by all that he does not expend. In the present condition of society, a part of the fund destined for consumption remains in the retail-dealer's hand, awaiting the buyer's confidence; another part destined to be consumed very slowly, as houses, furniture, carriages, horses, continues in the hands of persons whose business it is to sell the use of it, without abandoning the property. A considerable portion of the wealth of opulent nations is constantly thrown back into the fields destined for consumption; but although it still gives profit to its holders, it has ceased to augment the national re-production. The annual distribution of the wealth, annually reproduced, among all the citizens composing the nation, constitutes the national revenue. It consists of all the value, by which the re-production surpasses the consumption that produced it. Thus the farmer, after deducting from his crop a quantity equal to the seed of the foregoing year, finds remaining the part which is to support his family, - a revenue to which they have acquired right by means of their annual labour; the part which is to support his workmen, who have acquired the right to it by the same title; the part with which he is to satisfy the landlord, who has acquired right to this revenue by the original improvement of the soil, now no longer repeated; and lastly, the part with which he is to pay the interest of his debts, or indemnify himself for the employment of his own capital - a revenue to which he has acquired right by the primitive labours which produced his capital. So likewise, the manufacturer finds, in the annual produce of his manufactory, first the raw material employed; secondly, the equivalent of his own wages, and those of his workmen, to which their labour alone gives them right; thirdly, an equivalent for the annual detriment and interest of his fixed capital, to which revenue he or the proprietor has acquired right by a primitive labour; and lastly, an equivalent for the interest of his circulating capital, which has been produced by another primitive labour. It is to be observed that, among those who share the national revenue,