Why, it is for the very reason that they do make but one that each individual comes to be considered by the science of Political Economy in this double capacity. Our business is not to divide the human race into two classes, but to study man under two very different aspects. If the protectionists were to forbid grammarians to employ the pronouns I and thou, on the pretext that every man is in turn the person speaking and the person spoken to, it would be a sufficient answer to say, that although it be perfectly true that we cannot place all the tongues on one side, and all the ears on the other, since every man has both ears and a tongue, it by no means follows that, with reference to each proposition enunciated, the tongue does not pertain to one man and the ear to another. In the same way, with reference to every service, the man who renders it is quite distinct from the man who receives it. The producer and consumer are always set opposite each other, so much so that they have always a controversy.
The very people who object to our studying mankind under the double aspect of producers and consumers have no difficulty in making this distinction when they address themselves to legislative assemblies. We then find them demanding monopoly or freedom of trade, according as the matter in dispute refers to a commodity which they sell, or a commodity which they purchase.
Without dwelling longer, then, on this preliminary exception taken by the protectionists, let us acknowledge that in the social order the separation of employments causes each man to occupy two situations, sufficiently distinct to render their action and relations worthy of our study.
In general, we devote ourselves to some special trade, profession, or career, and it is not from that particular source that we expect to derive our satisfactions. We render and receive services; we supply and demand values; we make purchases and sales; we work for others, and others work for us; in short, we are producers and consumers.
According as we present ourselves in the market in one or other of these capacities, we carry thither a spirit which is very different, or rather, I should say, very opposite. Suppose, for example, that corn is the subject of the transaction. The same man has very [p325] different views when he goes to market as a purchaser, from what he has when he goes there as a seller. As a purchaser, he desires abundance; as a seller, scarcity. In either case, these desires may be traced to the same source—personal interest; but as to sell or buy, to give or to receive, to supply or to demand, are acts as opposite as possible, they cannot but give rise, and from the same motive, to opposite desires.
Antagonistic desires cannot at one and the same time coincide with the general good.
In another work,[66] I have endeavoured to show that the wishes or desires of men in their capacity of consumers are those which are in harmony with the public interest; and it cannot be otherwise. For seeing that enjoyment is the end and design of labour, and that the labour is determined only by the obstacle to be overcome, it is evident that labour is in this sense an evil, and that everything should tend to diminish it; that enjoyment is a good, and that everything should tend to increase it.
And here presents itself the great, the perpetual, the deplorable illusion which springs from the erroneous definition of value, and from confounding value with utility.
Value being simply a relation, is of as much greater importance to each individual as it is of less importance to society at large.
What renders service to the masses is utility alone; and value is not at all the measure of it.