This theory of the English Economists, which has been farther developed by Mill, Malthus, and others, we are sorry to find making its way also on the Continent.
“When a franc’s worth of seed,” says Scialoja, “produces a hundred francs’ worth of corn, this augmentation of value is mainly due to the soil.”
This is to confound Utility with value; He might just as well have said, when water which costs only one sou at ten yards’ distance from the spring, costs ten sous at 100 yards, this augmentation of value is due in part to the intervention of nature.
Florez Estrada.—“Rent is that portion of the agricultural product which remains after all the costs of production have been defrayed.”
Then the proprietor receives something for nothing.
The English Economists all set out by announcing the principle that value comes from labour, and they are guilty of inconsistency when they afterwards attribute value to the inherent powers of the soil.
The French Economists in general make value to consist in utility; but, confounding gratuitous with onerous utility, they have not the less assisted in shaking the foundation of Property.
J. B. Say.—“Land is not the only natural agent which is productive, but it is the only one, or almost the only one, that man has been able to appropriate. The waters of the sea and of our rivers, by their aptitude to impart motion to machines, to afford nourishment to fishes, to float our ships, are likewise possessed of productive power. The wind and the sun’s rays work for us; but happily no one has been able to say, The wind and the sun are mine, and I must be paid for their services.”
M. Say appears from this to lament that any one should be able to say, The land belongs to me, and I must be paid for the service which it renders. Happily, say I, it is no more in the power of the proprietor to charge for the services of the soil than for the services of the sun and the wind.
“The earth,” continues M. Say, “is an admirable chemical workshop, in which are combined and elaborated a multitude of materials and elements which are produced in the shape of grain, fruit, flax, etc. Nature has presented to man, gratuitously, this vast workshop divided into a great number of compartments fitted for various kinds of production. But certain individual members of society have appropriated them, and proclaimed,—This compartment is mine,—that other is mine, and all that is produced in it is my exclusive property. And the astonishing thing is, that this usurped privilege, far from having been fatal to the community, has been found productive of advantage to it.”