[412] Ibid., pp. 263, 264.
[413] Nouveaux Principes, vol. i, p. 153.
[414] Ibid., p. 235. This problem of the net and gross produce occupied Sismondi’s attention for a long time. We find a suggestion of it in his first work, Le Tableau de l’Agriculture toscane (Geneva, 1801), and though he does not definitely take the side of the gross produce, he shows some leanings that way. “Why is the gain of a single rich farmer considered more profitable for a State than the miserable earnings of several thousand workers and peasants?” The book, however, is a treatise on practical agriculture, and includes only a few economic dicta. It is here that we have his beautiful description of his farm at Val Chiuso (p. 219).
[415] It is true that Sismondi wished to get rid of the practice of producing corn for a market, so as to free the nation’s food from the fluctuations of that market. Neither is he over-enthusiastic in his praise of the gross produce. He recognises that the gradual growth of the gross produce might, in its way, be the consequence of a state of suffering if population were to progress too rapidly (Nouveaux Principes, vol. i, p. 153). This shows what a hesitating mind we are dealing with.
[416] Ibid., p. 368.
[417] Nouveaux Principes, vol. i, p. 361.
[418] Elsewhere he remarks: “The petty merchants, the small manufacturers, disappear, and a great entrepreneur replaces hundreds of them whose total wealth was never equal to his. Taken altogether, however, they consumed more than he does. His costly luxury gives much less encouragement to industry than the honest ease of the hundred homes which it has replaced.” (Ibid., p. 327). The theory is more than doubtful. What we want to know is whether the demand will remain the same in amount, not whether there will be no change in its character—a contingency that need not result in a general crisis, but simply in a passing inconvenience.
[419] Sismondi applies the same principles to a consideration of a fall in the rate of interest as he does to the growth of production or the increase of machinery. “An increase of capital is desirable only when its employment can be increased at the same time. But whenever the rate of interest is lowered it is a certain sign that the employment of capital has proportionally diminished as compared with the amount available; and this fall in the rate, which is always advantageous to some people, is disadvantageous to others—some will have to be content with smaller incomes and others with none at all.” (Nouveaux Principes, vol. i, p. 393.)
[420] Compare the Saint-Simonian review, Le Producteur, vol. iv, pp. 887-888.
[421] Nouveaux Lundis, vol. vi, p. 81.