Why do the savages of the new world,whose precarious subsistence depends upon the chance of the chase,refuse to build villages,and enclose and cultivate land?It is because this sort of life requires too assiduous and too painful a labor.They are wrong;bad calculators,for the privations they endure are much worse than the shackles of a well understood social life would impose upon them.But if this social life were a galley,in which by rowing with all their might for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four,they only obtained a morsel of bread insufficient for their support;they would then indeed be excusable for not preferring a social life.Now everything which renders the situation of a producer --of a man essential to society --worse,tends to destroy the principle of existence of the social body,to approximate a civilised people to barbarians,to bring on an order of things in which less is produced and less consumed,to destroy civilisation,which is more florishing in proportion as more is produced and more consumed.
You remark in many places,that man is naturally indolent;and it is to know him but little "to suppose that he would always consume all that he is capable of producing,(page 503)".Indeed you are right;nor do I hold a different opinion when I say that the utility of productions is no longer worth the productive services at the price one is obliged to pay for them.
You yourself seem to have admitted this truth,when you said in another place,(page 842,)"a tax may put an end to the production of a commodity,if no person can consent to put upon this commodity a price equivalent to the fresh difficulties of its production."And this internal vice,{to have cost more in producing than the.thing is worth),is transmitted with the commodity to the end of the world.--It is every where too dear to be wort,h what it cost,because every .where we are obliged to pay for it by productive services equal to those it has cost.
A consideration which is not to be despised either,is that the costs of production are not only increased by the multiplied taxes,and by the high price of every thins,but also by the customs which are the result of a vicious political system.If the progress of luxury and large emoluments;the facility of obtaining illegitimate profits,by favor in contracts or financial operations,compel the manufacturer,the merchant,or the real producer,in order to preserve his rank in society,to seek for profits disproportionate to the services he renders to the production,then these other abuses tend to increase by other causes,the charges of production,and consequently the price of productions beyond their real utility..The consumption of them is the more circumscribed;in order to obtain them we are obliged to give more productive services towards the creation of another production,and to go into larger expences of production.Judge,Sir,by this,of the evil that is done by encouraging useless expences,and multiplying unproductive consumers.
What proves to how great an extent the costs of production are a real obstacle to the sale of productions,is the rapid sale of an article which an expeditious means of production puts at a low price.It is then obtained by every one with less labor and less charges of production of any sort.
When in consequence of the continental system we were obliged to pay five francs for a pound of sugar,applied either to the production of the sugar itself or to any other commodity which was exchanged for the sugar.France could only purchase fourteen millions of pounds.(29)Now sugar is cheap we consume eighty millions of pounds yearly,which is nearly three pounds each person.At Cuba,where sugar is still cheaper,upwards of thirty pounds are consumed by each free person.(30)Let is then admit a truth which stares us full in the face;that to levy excessive taxes,with or without the participation of a national representation,or with a derisive representation,it matters little,is increasing the charges of production,without increasing the utility of the production,and without adding any thing to be satisfaction of a consumer in the use of them;is putting a fine upon production,upon the existence of Society .
And as amongst producers some are better enabled than others,to throw upon their co-producers the burthen of circumstances,they affect some classes more than others.A capitalist oftentimes can withdraw his capital from one branch to employ it in another;or he may send it abroad.The enterpriser in a branch of industry has often fortune sufficient to suspend and the enterpriser are masters of their situations,the laborer is continually obliged to work at any price,even when the production no longer affords him wherewith to live.It is thus,Sir,that the excessive expences of production reduce many classes of certain nations,to consume no more than what is indispensably necessary to their existence,and the lower orders to perish for want.Now is not this,according to your own idea,(31)of all others the most desperate and barbarous means of reducing the number of mankind?(32)Here,perhaps,the strongest objection presents itself,because it is supported by a striking example.In the United States hindrances to production are less numerous and the taxes light,and there,as elsewhere,commodities abound but commerce wants vent.-"The difficulties,"you say (33)"cannot be attributed to the culture of bad land,nor to the hindrance so industry,nor the enormity of the taxes,wherefore,for the increase of wealth something more is necessary than the power of production."Alas!
Would you believe it,Sir?In my opinion it is that very power of production,at least at the present,which is wanting to the United States,to enable the Americans advantageously to dispose of the superabundant productions of their commerce.
