“Wealth, then, is in proportion to labour.
“But labour is in an inverse ratio to the liberality of Nature:
“Ergo, wealth is inversely as the liberality of Nature.”
Right or wrong, many economical laws owe their origin to this singular reasoning. Such laws cannot be otherwise than subversive of every sound principle in relation to the development and distribution of wealth; and this it is which justifies me in preparing beforehand, by the explanation of truths very trivial in appearance, for the refutation of the deplorable errors and prejudices under which society is now labouring.
Let us analyze the co-operation of Nature of which I have spoken. Nature places two things at our disposal—materials and forces.
Most of the material objects which contribute to the satisfaction of our wants and desires are brought into the state of utility which renders them fit for our use only by the intervention of labour, by the application of the human faculties. But the elements, the atoms, if you will, of which these objects are composed, are the gifts, I will add the gratuitous gifts, of Nature. This observation is of the very highest importance, and will, I believe, throw a new light upon the theory of wealth.
The reader will have the goodness to bear in mind that I am inquiring at present in a general way into the moral and physical constitution of man, his wants, his faculties, his relations with Nature—apart from the consideration of Exchange, which I shall enter upon in the next chapter. We shall then see in what respect, and in what manner, social transactions modify the phenomena. [p089]
It is very evident, that if man in an isolated state must, so to speak, purchase the greater part of his satisfactions by an exertion, by an effort, it is rigorously exact to say that prior to the intervention of any such exertion, any such effort, the materials which he finds at his disposal are the gratuitous gifts of Nature. After the first effort on his part, however slight it may be, they cease to be gratuitous; and if the language of Political Economy had been always exact, it would have been to material objects in this state, and before human labour had been bestowed upon them, that the term raw materials (matières premières) would have been exclusively applied.
I repeat that this gratuitous quality of the gifts of Nature, anterior to the intervention of labour, is of the very highest importance. I said in my second chapter that Political Economy was the theory of value; I add now, and by anticipation, that things begin to possess value only when it is given to them by labour. I intend to demonstrate afterwards that everything which is gratuitous for man in an isolated state is gratuitous for man in his social condition, and that the gratuitous gifts of Nature, whatever be their UTILITY, have no value. I say that a man who receives a benefit from Nature, directly and without any effort on his part, cannot be considered as rendering himself an onerous service, and, consequently, that he cannot render to another any service with reference to things which are common to all. Now, where there are no services rendered and received there is no value.
All that I have said of materials is equally applicable to the forces which Nature places at our disposal. Gravitation, the elasticity of air, the power of the winds, the laws of equilibrium, vegetable life, animal life, are so many forces which we learn to turn to account. The pains and intelligence which we bestow in this way always admit of remuneration, for we are not bound to devote our efforts to the advantage of others gratuitously. But these natural forces, in themselves, and apart from all intellectual or bodily exertion, are gratuitous gifts of Providence, and in this respect they remain destitute of value through all the complications of human transactions. This is the leading idea of the present work.