Malthus thinks that farm-rent has its source in the power possessed by land of producing more than is necessary to supply the wants of the men who cultivate it.I would ask Malthus why successful labor should entitle the idle to a portion of the products?
But the worthy Malthus is mistaken in regard to the fact.Yes;land has the power of producing more than is needed by those who cultivate it, if by CULTIVATORS is meant tenants only.The tailor also makes more clothes than he wears, and the cabinet-maker more furniture than he uses.But, since the various professions imply and sustain one another, not only the farmer, but the followers of all arts and trades--even to the doctor and the school-teacher--are, and ought to be, regarded as CULTIVATORS OF THE LAND.Malthus bases farm-rent upon the principle of commerce.Now, the fundamental law of commerce being equivalence of the products exchanged, any thing which destroys this equivalence violates the law.There is an error in the estimate which needs to be corrected.
Buchanan--a commentator on Smith--regarded farm-rent as the result of a monopoly, and maintained that labor alone is productive.Consequently, he thought that, without this monopoly, products would rise in price; and he found no basis for farm-rent save in the civil law.This opinion is a corollary of that which makes the civil law the basis of property.But why has the civil law--which ought to be the written expression of justice--authorized this monopoly? Whoever says monopoly, necessarily excludes justice.Now, to say that farm-rent is a monopoly sanctioned by the law, is to say that injustice is based on justice,--a contradiction in terms.
Say answers Buchanan, that the proprietor is not a monopolist, because a monopolist "is one who does not increase the utility of the merchandise which passes through his hands."How much does the proprietor increase the utility of his tenant's products? Has he ploughed, sowed, reaped, mowed, winnowed, weeded? These are the processes by which the tenant and his employees increase the utility of the material which they consume for the purpose of reproduction.
"The landed proprietor increases the utility of products by means of his implement, the land.This implement receives in one state, and returns in another the materials of which wheat is composed.The action of the land is a chemical process, which so modifies the material that it multiplies it by destroying it.
The soil is then a producer of utility; and when it
asks its pay in the form of profit, or farm rent, for its proprietor, it at the same time gives something to the consumer in exchange for the amount which the consumer pays it.It gives him a produced utility; and it is the production of this utility which warrants us in calling land productive, as well as labor."Let us clear up this matter.
The blacksmith who manufactures for the farmer implements of husbandry, the wheelwright who makes him a cart, the mason who builds his barn, the carpenter, the basket-maker, &c.,--all of whom contribute to agricultural production by the tools which they provide,--are producers of utility; consequently, they are entitled to a part of the products.
"Undoubtedly," says Say; "but the land also is an implement whose service must be paid for, then...."I admit that the land is an implement; but who made it? Did the proprietor? Did he--by the efficacious virtue of the right of property, by this MORAL QUALITY infused into the soil--endow it with vigor and fertility? Exactly there lies the monopoly of the proprietor; in the fact that, though he did not make the implement, he asks pay for its use.When the Creator shall present himself and claim farm-rent, we will consider the matter with him; or even when the proprietor--his pretended representative--shall exhibit his power-of-attorney.
"The proprietor's service," adds Say, "is easy, I admit."It is a frank confession.
"But we cannot disregard it.Without property, one farmer would contend with another for the possession of a field without a proprietor, and the field would remain uncultivated...."Then the proprietor's business is to reconcile farmers by robbing them.O logic! O justice! O the marvellous wisdom of economists! The proprietor, if they are right, is like Perrin-Dandin who, when summoned by two travellers to settle a dispute about an oyster, opened it, gobbled it, and said to them:--"The Court awards you each a shell."
Could any thing worse be said of property?
Will Say tell us why the same farmers, who, if there were no proprietors, would contend with each other for possession of the soil, do not contend to-day with the proprietors for this possession? Obviously, because they think them legitimate possessors, and because their respect for even an imaginary right exceeds their avarice.I proved, in Chapter II., that possession is sufficient, without property, to maintain social order.Would it be more difficult, then, to reconcile possessors without masters than tenants controlled by proprietors? Would laboring men, who respect--much to their own detriment--the pretended rights of the idler, violate the natural rights of the producer and the manufacturer? What! if the husbandman forfeited his right to the land as soon as he ceased to occupy it, would he become more covetous? And would the impossibility of demanding increase, of taxing another's labor, be a source of quarrels and law-suits? The economists use singular logic.But we are not yet through.Admit that the proprietor is the legitimate master of the land.
"The land is an instrument of production," they say.That is true.But when, changing the noun into an adjective, they alter the phrase, thus, "The land is a productive instrument," they make a wicked blunder.
