The manufacturer merely gives a new form to the materials extracted from the earth;the higher value of the object,after ithas passed through his hands,only represents the quantity of provisions and other materials used and consumed in itselaboration.Commerce does nothing more than transfer the wealth akeady existing from one hand to another;what thetrading classes gain thereby is acquired at the cost of the nation,and it is desirable that its amount should be as small aspossible.The occupation of the manufacturer and merchant,as well as the liberal professions,and every kind of personalservice,are "useful"indeed,but they are "sterile,"drawing their income,not from any fund which they themselves create,but from the superauous earnings of the agricultlvists.Perfect freedom of trade not only rests,as we have already seen,onthe foundation of natural right,but is also recommended by the consideration that it makes the "produit net,"on which allwealth and general progress depend,as large as possible."Laissez faire,laissez passer"should therefore be the motto ofGovernments.The revenue of the State,which must be derived altogether from this net product,ought to be raised in themost direct and simplest way,namely,by a single impost of the nature of a land tax.(5)The special doctrine relating to the exclusive productiveness of agriculture arose out of a confusion between "value"on theone hand and "matter and energy"on the other.Smith and others have shown that the attempt to fix the character of"sterility"on manufactures and commerce was founded in error.And the proposal of a single impôt territorial falls to theground with the doctrine on which it was based.But such influence as the school exerted depended little,if at all,on thesepeculiar tenets,which indeed some of its members did not hold,The effective result of its teaching was mainly destructive.Itcontinued in a more systematic form the efforts in favour of the freedom of industry already begun in England and France.
The essential historical once of the physiocrats was to discredit radically the methods followed by the EuropeanGovernments in their dealings with industry.For such criticism as theirs there was,indeed,ample room:the policy ofColbert,which could be only temporarily useful,had been abusively extended and intensified;Governmental action hadintruded itself into the minutest details of business,and every process of manufacture and transaction of trade was hamperedby legislative restrictions.It was to be expected that the reformers should,in the spirit of the negative philosophy,exaggerate the vices of established systems;and there can be no doubt that they condemned too absolutely the economicaction of the State,both in principle and in its historic manifestations,and pushed the "laissez faire"doctrine beyond its justlimits.But this was a necessary incident of their connection with the revolutionary movement,of which they really formedone wing.In the course of that movement,the primitive social contract,the sovereignty of the people,and other dogmasnow seen to be untenable,were habitually invoked in the region of politics proper,and had a transitory utility as ready andeffective instruments of warfare.And so also in the economic sphere the doctrines of natural rights of buying and selling,ofthe sufficiency of enlightened selfishness as a guide in mutual dealings,of the certainty that each member of the society willunderstand and follow his true interests,and of the coincidence of those interests with the public welfare,though they willnot bear a dispassionate examination,were temporarily useful as convenient and serviceable weapons for the overthrow ofthe established order.The tendency of the school was undoubtedly to consecrate the spirit of individualism,and the state ofnon-government.But this tendency,which may with justice be severely condemned in economists of the present time,wasthen excusable because inevitable.And,whilst it now impedes the work of reconstruction which is for us the order of theday,it then aided the process of social demolition,which was the necessary,though deplorable,condition of a neworganisation.
