CHAP. XXVI.
Of the Vibration of the Balance of Wealth between the Subjects of a modern State.
We have frequently mentioned this balance, as an object of great importance to a statesman who is at the head of a luxurious nation; which having lost its foreign trade, has substituted, in the place of it, an extensive inland commerce. This will supply the loss of the former, so far, as equally to provide employment, and, consequently, subsistence, to every one inclined to be industrious; although it must prove quite ineffectual for augmenting the national wealth already acquired.
I shall first explain what I mean by the balance of wealth vibrating between the members of a society, and from that will be seen why I rank this also among the political balances of a modern state.
It has been observed in the beginning of the nineteenth chapter, that the great characteristic of what we call liberty, is the circulation of an adequate equivalent for every service.
By wealth, I understand this circulating adequate equivalent.
The desires of the rich, and the means of gratifying them, make them call for the services of the poor: the necessities of the poor, and their desire of becoming rich, make them chearfully answer the summons; they submit to the hardest labour, and comply with the inclinations of the wealthy, for the sake of an equivalent in money.
This permutation between the two classes, is what we call circulation; and the effects produced by it, upon the political situation of the parties at the precise time of the circulation, and the consequences after it is compleatly effected, explains what is called the balance of wealth.
To render our ideas more correct, let us consider the money on one side, and the prestations, as the civilians call them, or performances of any kind, on the other, as reciprocal equivalents for one another; and then let us examine the nature of those prestations which tend to put these equivalents into circulation; that is to say, what are the things which money can purchase.
These we may divide, with the lawyers, into corporeal and incorporeal. The corporeal may again be divided into consumable and inconsumable; and the incorporeal into personal service, and what the lawyers call jura, rights in or to any thing whatever. I cannot fully explain myself without the help of this distribution.