[61] L. c., p. 169.
[62] “The business of every country ought to be conducted on a national capital.” John Gray, “The Social System,” etc., p. 171.
[63] “The land to be transformed into national property.” L. c., p. 298.
[64] See e. g. W. Thompson: “An Inquiry into the Distribution of Wealth, etc.,” London, 1827. Bray, “Labour’s Wrongs and Labour’s Remedy,” Leeds, 1839.
[65] Alfred Darimont’s “De la Reforme des banques,” Paris, 1856, may be considered as a compendium of this melodramatic theory of money.
[66] “Di due sorte è la moneta, ideale e reale; e a dui diversi usi è adoperata, a valutare le cose e a comperarle. Per valutare è buona la moneta ideale, cosi come la reale e forse anche più. L’altro uso della moneta è di comperare quelle cose istesse, ch’ella apprezza ... i prezzi e i contratti si valutano in moneta ideale e si eseguiscono in moneta reale.” Galiani, l. c., p. 112 sq. (“Money is of two kinds, ideal and real; and is adapted to two different uses: to determine the value of things and to buy them. For the purpose of valuation ideal money is as good as real and perhaps even better. The other use of money is to buy the same things which it appraises ... prices and contracts are determined in ideal money and are executed in real money.”)
[67] This, of course, does not prevent the market price of commodities to be above or below their value. However, this consideration is foreign to simple circulation and belongs to quite another sphere to be considered later, when we shall investigate the relation between value and market price.
[68] How deeply some beautiful souls are wounded by the merely superficial aspect of the antagonism which asserts itself in buying and selling, may be seen from the following abstract from M. Isaac Pereire’s: “Leçons sur l’industrie et les finances,” Paris, 1832. The fact that the same Isaac in his capacity of inventor and dictator of the “Credit mobilier” has acquired the reputation of the wolf of the Paris Bourse shows what lurks behind the sentimental criticism of economics. Says Mr. Pereire at the time an apostle of St. Simons: “C’est parceque tous les individus sont isolés, séparés les uns des autres, soit dans leur travaux, soit pour la consommation, qu’il y a echange entre eux des produits de leur industrie respective. De la necessité de l’échange est derivée la necessité de determiner la valeur relative des objets. Les idées de la valeur et de l’échange sont donc intimement liées, et toutes deux dans leur forme actuelle exprime l’individualisme et l’antagonisme.... Il n’y a lieu a fixer la valeur des produits que parcequ’il y a vente at achat, en d’autres termes, antagonisme entre les divers membres de la societé. Il n’y a lieu à s’occuper du prix, de valeur que là oú il y avait vente et echat, c’est à dire, oú chaque individu était obligé de lutter, pour se procurer les object nécessaires a l’entretien de son existence” (l. c., p. 2, 3 passim). (“Since individuals are isolated and separated from one another both in their labors and in consumption, exchange takes place between them in the products of their respective industries. From the necessity of exchange arises the necessity of determining the relative value of things. The ideas of value and exchange are thus intimately connected and both express in their actual form individualism and antagonism.... The determination of values of products takes place only because there are sales and purchases, or, to put it differently, because there is an antagonism between different members of society. One has to occupy himself with price and value only where there is sale and purchase, that is to say, where every individual is obliged to struggle to procure for himself the objects necessary for the maintenance of his existence.”)
[69] “L’argent n’est que le moyen et l’acheminement, au lieu que les denrées utiles à la vie sont la fin et le but.” (“Money is but the ways and means, while the things useful in life are the end and object.”) Boisguillebert: “Le Détail de la France,” 1697, in Eugene Daires ‘“Economistes financiers du XVIIIieme siècle, vol. I., Paris, 1843, p. 210.
[70] In November, 1807, William Spence published a pamphlet in England under the title: “Britain Independent of Commerce.” The principle set forth in this pamphlet was further elaborated by William Cobbet in his “Political Register” under the virulent title, “Perish Commerce.” To this James Mill replied in 1808 in his “Defence of Commerce” which contains the passage quoted above from his “Elements of Political Economy” (p. 190-193, Transl.). In his controversy with Sismondi and Malthus on commercial crises, J. B. Say appropriated this clever device, and as it would be difficult to point out with what new idea this comical “prince de la science” had enriched political economy, his continental admirers have trumpeted him as the man who had unearthed the treasure of the metaphysical balance of purchases and sales; as a matter of fact, his merits consisted rather of the impartiality with which he equally misunderstood his contemporaries, Malthus, Sismondi and Ricardo.