[279] “One kind of product would seldom be more plentiful than another and goods would seldom be too many if everyone were given complete freedom.” Too much stress has possibly been laid on the phrase “Certain products are superabundant just because others are wanting,” and it has been taken as implying that even partial over-production is an impossibility. A note inserted on the next page helps to clear up the matter and to prevent misunderstanding. “The argument of the chapter,” says he, “is not that partial over-production is impossible, but merely that the production of one thing creates the demand for another.” He certainly seems unfaithful to his own position in the letters he wrote to Malthus, in which he tries to defend his own point of view by saying that “production implies producing goods that are demanded,” and that consequently if there is any excessive production it is not the fault of production as such and cannot be regarded as over-production. In greater conformity with his own views and much nearer the truth is his reply to an article by Sismondi published in 1824 in the Revue encyclopédique under the title Sur la Balance des Consommations avec les Productions (Œuvres diverses, p. 250). His statements vary from one edition to another, and anything more unstable than Say’s views on this question would be difficult to imagine. The formula “Products exchange for products” is so general that it includes everything, but means nothing at all; for what is money, after all, if it is not a product?
[280] Letters to Malthus (Œuvres diverses, p. 466).
[281] Malthus, Principles of Political Economy, Book II, chap. 1, sect. 9.
[282] Sur la Balance des Consommations avec les Productions, p. 252.
[283] Ibid., p. 251.
[284] Dühring, Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Sozialismus, 2nd ed., 1875, p. 165. For the other side of the question one may profitably peruse the interesting study of Say contributed by M. Allix to the Revue d’Économie politique, 1910 (pp. 303-341), and the Revue d’Histoire des Doctrines, 1911, p. 321.
[285] Stanley Jevons (Theory of Political Economy, 3rd ed., 1888) has recognised in too absolute a fashion, perhaps, the superiority of the French economists over Ricardo. “The true doctrine may be more or less clearly traced through the writings of a succession of great French economists, from Condillac, Baudeau, and Le Trosne, through J. B. Say, Destutt de Tracy, Storch, and others, down to Bastiat and Courcelle-Seneuil. The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside, once and for ever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian School.” (Preface, p. xlix.)
[286] “The people must comprehend that they are themselves the cause of their own poverty.” (Malthus, p. 458.) Doubtless this is the reason why M. Halévy, among others, in his book Le Radicalisme philosophique, remarks that Ricardo, Malthus, and their disciples were regarded as the exponents of optimism and quietism. But in what sense were they optimists? Of course they believed that the existing economic order is the best possible, and that it would be impossible to change it for a better. That may be. But we prefer to think of them as “contented pessimists.”
[287] “Every reader of candour must acknowledge that the practical design uppermost in the mind of the writer, with whatever want of judgment it may have been executed, is to improve the condition and increase the happiness of the lower classes of society.” It is with this declaration that Malthus brings his book on population to a close.
[288] Miss Edgeworth, a contemporary of Ricardo, states in her letters that political economy was so much the fashion that distinguished ladies before engaging a governess for their children inquired about her competence to teach political economy.