[106] Baudeau (p. 770) points out the error of confusing the gross revenue with the net revenue. Allowance should be made for the cost of collecting the revenue, etc.
[107] “If unfortunately it be true that three-tenths of the annual product is not sufficient to cover the ordinary expenditure, there is only one natural and reasonable conclusion to be drawn from this, namely, curtail the expenditure.” (Dupont de Nemours, p. 775.)
“The tax must never be assessed in accordance with individual caprice. The amount is determined by the natural order.” (Dupont, Sur l’Origin d’un Science nouvelle.) Neither should the State, in their opinion, exceed the limit, because it would mean having recourse to borrowing, which would simply mean increased deferred taxation.
[108] See M. Garçon’s instructive brochure, Un Prince allemand physiocrate, for a résumé of the Margrave’s correspondence.
[109] We find the word in one of Dupont’s letters to Say, but that is much later.
[110] Henry George dedicated his volume entitled Protection or Free Trade to them because he considered that they were his masters. But his tribute loses its point somewhat when we remember that he admits that he had never read them.
[111] Listen to Mercier de la Rivière: “We must admire the way in which one man becomes an instrument for the happiness of others, and the manner in which this happiness seems to communicate itself to the whole. Speaking literally, of course I do not know whether there will not be a few unhappy people even in this State, but their numbers will be so few and the happy ones will be so numerous that we need not be much concerned about helping them. All our interests and wills will be linked to the interest and will of the sovereign, forming for our common good a harmony which can only be regarded as the work of a kind Providence that wills that the land shall be full of happy men.” This enchanting picture only applies to future society, when the “natural order” will be established. The optimism of the Physiocrats is very much like the anarchists’.
[112] Very little seems to have been known about Cantillon for more than a century after his death. But, like all the rediscovered founders of the science, he has received considerable attention for some years past. His influence upon the Physiocrats has perhaps been exaggerated. Mirabeau’s earliest book, L’Ami des Hommes, which appeared just twelve months after Cantillon’s work, is undoubtedly inspired by Cantillon. No discussion of his work is included in the text because it was felt that it might interfere with the plan of the work as already mapped out. There are several articles in various reviews which deal with Cantillon’s work, the earliest being that contributed by Stanley Jevons to the Contemporary Review in 1881.
[113] Valeurs et Monnaies, which dates from 1769, and again in his Réflexions. Quesnay’s conception of value may be gleaned from his article entitled Hommes, which remained unpublished for a long time, and has only recently appeared in the Revue d’Histoire des Doctrines économiques et sociales, vol. i, No. 1.
[114] He dilates at considerable length on the distinction between estimative value (what would now be called subjective value) and appreciative (or social) value. The first depends upon the amount of time and trouble we are willing to sacrifice in order to acquire it. In this connection the notion of labour-value appears. As to appreciative value, it differs from the preceding only in being an “average estimative value.”