General Maxims of the Economic Government of an Agricultural Kingdom

Let the sovereign authority be one, and superior to all the individuals of the society and to all the unjust enterprises of particular interests; for the object of dominion and of obedience is the security of all and the lawful interest of all. The system of counterforces in a government is a fatal opinion, which reveals nothing but discord among the great and the oppression of the small. The division of societies into different orders of citizens, some of whom exercise sovereign authority over the others, destroys the general interest of the nation and brings in the dissension of particular interests between the different classes of citizens: this division would invert the order of government of an agricultural kingdom, which must unite all interests in one capital object, the prosperity of agriculture, which is the source of all the wealth of the State and of that of all the citizens.

Let the nation be instructed in the general laws of the natural order, which constitute the government evidently the most perfect. The study of human jurisprudence is not enough to form statesmen; those who are destined for the offices of administration must be obliged to study the natural order most advantageous to men united in society. It is necessary, besides, that the practical and enlightening knowledge that the nation acquires by experience and reflection be joined to the general science of government; so that the sovereign authority, always enlightened by evidence, may institute the best laws and have them exactly observed, for the security of all and for the attainment of the greatest possible prosperity of the society.

Let the sovereign and the nation never lose sight of the fact that the land is the only source of wealth, and that it is agriculture that multiplies it. For the increase of wealth ensures that of population; men and wealth make agriculture prosper, extend trade, animate industry, and increase and perpetuate wealth. On this abundant source depends the success of every part of the administration of the kingdom.

Let the property of landed estates and of movable wealth be secured to those who are their lawful possessors; for the security of property is the essential foundation of the economic order of society. Without the certainty of property the territory would remain uncultivated. There would be neither proprietors nor farmers to make the expenditure needed to improve it and to cultivate it, if the preservation of the fund and of the products were not secured to those who advance this expenditure. It is the security of permanent possession that calls forth labour and the employment of wealth in the improvement and cultivation of the land and in the enterprises of trade and industry. Only the sovereign power, which secures the property of the subjects, has an original right to a share in the fruits of the earth, the only source of wealth.

Let the tax not be destructive, or disproportionate to the mass of the nation’s revenue; let its increase follow the increase of the revenue; let it be laid immediately on the net product of landed estates, and not on the wages of men, nor on commodities, where it would multiply the costs of collection, injure trade, and destroy every year a part of the nation’s wealth. Nor let it be taken from the wealth of the farmers of landed estates; for the advances of the agriculture of a kingdom must be regarded as a real estate that must be carefully preserved for the production of the tax, of the revenue, and of the subsistence of all the classes of citizens: otherwise the tax degenerates into spoliation and causes a decline that quickly ruins a State.

Let the advances of the cultivators be sufficient to bring forth again every year, by the expenditure on the cultivation of the land, the greatest possible product; for if the advances are not sufficient, the expenses of cultivation are proportionally greater and yield less net product.

Let the whole of the sums of the revenue return into the annual circulation and run through it in its whole extent; let no pecuniary fortunes be formed, or at least let there be a balance between those that are formed and those that return into circulation; for otherwise these pecuniary fortunes would stop the distribution of a part of the nation’s annual revenue, and would hold back the money stock of the kingdom to the prejudice of the return of the advances of cultivation, of the payment of the artisans’ wages, and of the consumption that the different classes of men who exercise lucrative professions ought to make: this interception of the money stock would diminish the reproduction of the revenues and of the tax.

Let economic government occupy itself only with encouraging productive expenditure and the trade in home-grown produce, and let it leave sterile expenditure to take its own course.

Let a nation that has a great territory to cultivate, and the facility of carrying on a great trade in home-grown produce, not extend too far the employment of money and men in manufactures and in the trade in luxuries, to the prejudice of the labours and the expenditure of agriculture; for, before everything, the kingdom must be well peopled with rich cultivators.

Let no part of the sum of the revenues pass abroad without return, in money or in goods.

Let the desertion of inhabitants, who would carry their wealth out of the kingdom, be avoided.

Let the children of rich farmers settle in the countryside, to perpetuate the husbandmen there; for if some vexations make them abandon the countryside and resolve them to retire to the towns, they carry there their fathers’ wealth, which was employed in cultivation. It is not so much men as wealth that must be drawn into the countryside; for the more wealth is employed in cultivation, the fewer men it occupies, the more it prospers, and the more revenue it yields. Such, for example, in the case of grain, is the large-scale cultivation of rich farmers, in comparison with the small-scale cultivation of poor métayers who plough with oxen or with cows.

Let each man be free to cultivate in his field such produce as his interest, his means, and the nature of the soil suggest to him, so as to draw from it the greatest product possible. Monopoly in the cultivation of landed estates must not be favoured, for it is prejudicial to the general revenue of the nation. The prejudice that leads people to favour the abundance of commodities of first necessity in preference to other produce, to the prejudice of the market value of the one or the other, is inspired by short views, which do not reach as far as the effects of reciprocal foreign trade, which provides for everything and decides the price of the commodities that each nation can cultivate with the most profit. After the working wealth of cultivation, it is the revenues and the tax that are the wealth of first necessity in a State, for defending the subjects against dearth and against the enemy, and for upholding the glory and the power of the monarch and the prosperity of the nation.

Let the multiplication of livestock be encouraged; for it is the livestock that furnishes the land with the manure that procures rich harvests.

Let the lands employed in the cultivation of grain be united, as far as possible, into large farms worked by rich husbandmen; for there is less expense for the upkeep and repair of buildings, and proportionally much less cost and much more net product, in large enterprises of agriculture than in small ones. A multitude of small farmers is prejudicial to population. The most secure population, the most available for the different occupations and the different labours that divide men into different classes, is the population maintained by the net product. Every saving made with profit in labours that can be carried out by means of animals, machines, rivers, etc., redounds to the advantage of population and of the State, because more net product procures more gain to men for other services or other labours.

Let the foreign trade in home-grown produce not be hindered; for as the sale is, so is the reproduction.

Let the outlets and the transport of produce and of manufactured goods be facilitated, by the repair of roads and by the navigation of canals, rivers and the sea; for the more is saved on the costs of trade, the more the revenue of the territory is increased.

Let the price of commodities and goods in the kingdom not be lowered; for then the reciprocal trade with the foreigner would become disadvantageous to the nation. As the market value is, so is the revenue. Abundance without value is not wealth. Dearth with dearness is poverty. Abundance with dearness is opulence.

Let it not be believed that cheapness of commodities is profitable to the common people; for the low price of commodities lowers the wages of the people, diminishes their comfort, procures them less work and fewer lucrative occupations, and annihilates the revenue of the nation.

Let the comfort of the lowest classes of citizens not be diminished; for they could not then contribute enough to the consumption of the commodities that can be consumed only in the country, which would make the reproduction and the revenue of the nation diminish.

Let the proprietors, and those who exercise lucrative professions, not give themselves up to sterile savings, which would cut off from circulation and distribution a portion of their revenues or of their gains.

Let luxury of ornament not be encouraged to the prejudice of the expenditure on the working and improvement of agriculture, and of expenditure on the consumption of subsistence, which keeps up the good price and the sale of home-grown produce and the reproduction of the nation’s revenues.

Let the nation suffer no loss in its reciprocal trade with the foreigner, even though this trade should be profitable to the merchants, who would gain at their fellow citizens’ expense on the sale of the goods it brought back. For then the increase of these merchants’ fortunes would make a cut in the circulation of the revenues, prejudicial to distribution and reproduction.

Let no one be deceived by an apparent advantage in reciprocal trade with the foreigner, judging simply by the balance of the sums in money, without examining the greater or smaller profit that results from the goods themselves that have been sold and those that have been bought. For the loss is often on the side of the nation that receives a surplus in money; and this loss falls to the prejudice of the distribution and reproduction of the revenues.

Let entire freedom of trade be maintained; for the surest, the most exact, the most profitable regulation of internal and external trade for the nation and the State consists in the full freedom of competition.

Let less attention be paid to the increase of population than to the growth of revenues; for the greater comfort that great revenues procure is preferable to the more pressing needs of subsistence that a population exceeding the revenues requires; and there are more resources for the needs of the State when the people are in comfort, and also more means of making agriculture prosper.

Let the government be less occupied with the care of saving than with the operations necessary for the prosperity of the kingdom; for very great expenditure may cease to be excessive through the increase of wealth. But abuses must not be confused with mere expenditure; for abuses could swallow up all the wealth of the nation and of the sovereign.

Let the administration of the finances, whether in the collection of taxes or in the expenditure of the government, not give occasion to pecuniary fortunes that steal a part of the revenues from circulation, distribution and reproduction.

Let resources for the extraordinary needs of a State be hoped for only from the prosperity of the nation, and not from the credit of financiers; for pecuniary fortunes are clandestine wealth, which knows neither king nor country.

Let the State avoid loans that form financial annuities, that burden it with devouring debts, and that give occasion to a trade or traffic in finance, through the medium of negotiable paper, in which discount increases sterile pecuniary fortunes more and more. These fortunes separate finance from agriculture, and deprive the countryside of the wealth needed for the improvement of landed estates and for the working of the cultivation of the land.