Thus it is that you are daily forced to repeat:
"Principles can never be universal. What is well in an individual, a family, commune, or province, is ill in a nation. What is good in detail—for instance: purchase rather than production, where purchase is more advantageous—is bad in a society. The political economy of individuals is not that of nations;" and other such stuff, ejusdem farinæ.
And all this for what? To prove to us, that we consumers, we are your property! that we belong to you, soul and body! that you have an exclusive right on our stomachs and our limbs! that it is your right to feed and dress us at your own price, however great your ignorance, your rapacity, or the inferiority of your work.
Truly, then, your system is one not founded upon practice; it is one of abstraction—of extortion.
XIV.
CONFLICTING PRINCIPLES.
There is one thing which embarrasses me not a little; and it is this:
Sincere men, taking upon the subject of political economy the point of view of producers, have arrived at this double formula:
"A government should dispose of consumers subject to its laws in favor of home industry."