M. Say’s principle was this—“Value is founded on Utility.”
If we had here to do with utility as connected with human services, I should not contest this principle. At most I could only observe that it is superfluous, as being self-evident. It is very clear, as matter of fact, that no one consents to remunerate a service, unless right or wrong, he judges it to be useful. The word service includes the idea of utility—so much so that it is nothing else than a literal reproduction of the Latin word uti; in French, servir.
But, unfortunately, it is not in this sense that Say understands it. He discovers the principle of value not only in human services, rendered by means of material things, but in the useful qualities put by nature into the things themselves. In this way he places himself once more under the yoke of materiality, and is very far, we are obliged to confess, from clearing away the mist in which the English Economists had enveloped the question of Property.
Before discussing Say’s principle on its own merits, I must explain its logical bearing, in order to avoid the reproach of landing myself and the reader in an idle discussion.
We cannot doubt that the Utility of which Say speaks is that which resides in material objects. If corn, timber, coal, broad cloth, have value, it is because these products possess qualities which render them proper for our use, fit to satisfy the want we experience of food, fuel, and clothing.
Hence, as nature has created Utility, it is inferred that she has created also Value—a fatal confusion of ideas, out of which the enemies of property have forged a terrible weapon.
Take a commodity, corn for example. I purchase it at the Halle au Blé for sixteen francs. A great portion of these sixteen francs is distributed—in infinite ramifications, and an inextricable complication of advances and reimbursements—among all the men, [p162] here or abroad, who have co-operated in furnishing this corn. Part goes to the labourer, the sower, the reaper, the thrasher, the carter,—part to the blacksmith and plough-wright, who have prepared the agricultural implements. Thus far all are agreed, whether Economists or Communists.
But I perceive that four out of the sixteen francs go to the proprietor of the soil, and I have a good right to ask if that man, like the others, has rendered me a Service to entitle him incontestably, like them, to remuneration.
According to the doctrine which the present work aspires to establish, the answer is categorical. It consists of a peremptory yes. The proprietor has rendered me a service. What is it? This, that he has by himself, or his ancestor, cleared and enclosed the field—he has cleared it of weeds and stagnant water—he has enriched and thickened the vegetable mould—he has built a house and a homestead. All this presupposes much labour executed by him in person; or, what comes to the same thing, by others whom he has paid. These are services, certainly, which, according to the just law of reciprocity, must be reimbursed to him. Now, this proprietor has never been remunerated, at least to the full extent. He cannot be so by the first man who comes to buy from him a bag of corn. What is the arrangement, then, that takes place? Assuredly the most ingenious, the most legitimate, the most equitable arrangement which it is possible to imagine. It consists in this—That whoever wishes to purchase a sack of corn shall pay, besides the services of the various labourers whom we have enumerated, a small portion of the services rendered by the proprietor. In other words, the Value of the proprietor’s services is spread over all the sacks of corn which are produced by this field.
Now, it may be asked if the supposed remuneration of four francs be too great or too small. I answer that Political Economy has nothing to do with that. That science establishes that the value of the services rendered by the landed proprietor are regulated by exactly the same laws as the value of other services, and that is enough.