If any thing necessary or useful is found wanting, if any thing provided is lost or misapplied, if any servant, any animal, is supernumerary or useless, if any one sick or infirm is neglected, we immediately perceive a want of oeconomy. The object of it, in a private family, is therefore to provide for the nourishment, the other wants, and the employment of every individual. In the first place, for the master, who is the head, and who directs the whole; next for the children, who interest him above all other things; and last for the servants, who being useful to the head, and essential to the well-being of the family, have therefore a title to become an object of the master’s care and concern.
The whole oeconomy must be directed by the head, who is both lord and steward of the family. It is however necessary, that these two offices be not confounded with one another. As lord, he establishes the laws of his oeconomy; as steward, he puts them in execution. As lord, he may restrain and give his commands to all within the house as he thinks proper; as steward, he must conduct with gentleness and address, and is bound by his own regulations. The better the oeconomist, the more uniformity is perceived in all his actions, and the less liberties are taken to depart from stated rules. He is no ways master to break through the laws of his oeconomy, although in every respect he may keep each individual within the house, in the most exact subordination to his commands. Oeconomy and government, even in a private family, present therefore two different ideas, and have also two different objects.
What oeconomy is in a family, political oeconomy is in a state: with these essential differences however, that in a state there are no servants, all are children: that a family may be formed when and how a man pleases, and he may establish what plan of oeconomy he thinks fit; but states are found formed, and the oeconomy of these depends upon a thousand circumstances. The statesman (this is a general term to signify the head, according to the form of government) is neither master to establish what oeconomy he pleases, or in the exercise of his sublime authority to overturn at will the established laws of it, let him be the most despotic monarch upon earth.
The great art therefore of political oeconomy is, first to adapt the different operations of it to the spirit, manners, habits, and customs of the people, and afterwards to model these circumstances so, as to be able to introduce a set of new and more useful institutions.
The principal object of this science is to secure a certain fund of subsistence for all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which may render it precarious; to provide every thing necessary for supplying the wants of the society, and to employ the inhabitants (supposing them to be freemen) in such a manner as naturally to create reciprocal relations and dependencies between them, so as to make their several interests lead them to supply one another with their reciprocal wants.
If one considers the variety which is found in different countries, in the distribution of property, subordination of classes, genius of people, proceeding from the variety of forms of government, laws, and manners, one may conclude, that the political oeconomy in each must necessarily be different, and that principles, however universally true, may become quite ineffectual in practice, without a sufficient preparation of the spirit of a people.
It is the business of a statesman to judge of the expediency of different schemes of oeconomy, and by degrees to model the minds of his subjects so as to induce them, from the allurement of private interest, to concur in the execution of his plan.
The speculative person, who removed from the practice, extracts the principles of this science from observation and reflection, should divest himself, as far as possible, of every prejudice, in favour of established opinions, however reasonable, when examined relatively to particular nations: he must do his utmost to become a citizen of the world, comparing customs, examining minutely institutions which appear alike, when in different countries they are found to produce different effects: he should examine the cause of such differences with the utmost diligence and attention. It is from such inquiries that the true principles are discovered.
He who takes up the pen upon this subject, keeping in his eye the customs of his own or any other country, will fall more naturally into a description of one particular system of it, than into an examination of the principles of the science in general: he will applaud such institutions as he finds rightly administred at home; he will condemn those which are administred with abuse; but, without comparing different methods of executing the same plan in different countries, he will not easily distinguish the disadvantages[disadvantages] which are essential to the institution, from those which proceed from the abuse. For this reason a land tax excites the indignation of a Frenchman, an excise that of an Englishman. One who looks into the execution of both, in each country, and in every branch of management, will discover the real effects of these impositions, and be able to distinguish what proceeds from abuse, from what is essential to the burden.
Nothing is more effectual towards preparing the spirit of a people to receive a good plan of oeconomy, than a proper representation of it. On the other hand, nothing is better calculated to keep the statesman, who is at the head of affairs, in awe.