OF COMMERCIAL WEALTH.
By labour man drew his first wealth from the earth, but scarcely had he satisfied his primitive wants, when desire made him conceive other enjoyments, not to be obtained without the aid of his fellows. Exchanges began. They extended to whatever had any value, to whatever could produce any; they comprised mutual services and labour, no less than the fruit of labour; and gave room to the form ation and increase of a new kind of wealth, which was no longer measured by the wants of him who produced it, but by the wants of all those with whom he might transact vx changes,—with whom he might carry on commerce; and hence we have named it commercial wealth.
The solitary man was used to labour for his own wants, and his consumption was the measure of his production; he fitted out a place to produce him provisions for a year, for two years perhaps; but afterwards he did not indefinite ly augment it. It was enough to renew the process, so as to maintain himself in the same condition; and, if he had time to spare, he laboured at acquiring some new enjoy ment, at satisfying some other fancy. Society has never done any thing by commerce, except sharing among all its members what the isolated man would have prepared sole ly for himself. Each labours, in like manner, to provide for all, during a year, two years, or more; each labours, afterwards, to keep up this provision, according as con sumption destroys a part of it ; and since the division of labour and the improvement of arts allow more and more work to be done, each, perceiving that he has already pro vided for the reproduction of what has been consumed, studies to awaken new tastes and new fancies which he may satisfy.
But when a man laboured for himself alone, he never dreamt of those fancies, till he had provided for his wants; his time was his revenue; his time formed also his whole means of production. There was no room to fear, that the one would not be exactly proportioned to the other; that he would ever work to satisfy an inclination that he did not feel, or which he valued less than a want. But when
trade was introduced, and each no longer laboured for himself, but for an unknown pet-son, the different propor tions subsisting between the desire and what could satisfy it, between the labour and the revenue, between produc tion and consumption, were no longer equally certain ; they were independent of each other, and every workman was obliged to regulate his conduct by guessing on a sub ject, concerning which the most skilful had nothing but conjectural information.
The isolated man's knowledge of his own means and his Own wants, required to be replaced by a knowledge of 'the market, fur which the social man was labouring; of its de mands and its extent.
The number of consumers, their tastes, the extent of their consumption, and their income, regulate the market for which every producer labours. Each of these four ele ments is variable, independently of the rest, and each of their variations accelerates or retards the sale. The num ber of consumers may decrease, not only by sickness or war, but also by obstacles which policy may place in the way of their communication, or by the avarice of new sellers. Their tastes may be changed by fashion : an extraordinary consumption of one kind of merchandize, brought about by some public calamity; may have reduced them to be frugal in all the rest ; and finally, their income may di minish without a diminution of their number, and with the same wants, the same means of satisfying them may no longer exist. Such revolutions in the market are difficult to know with precision, difficult to calculate; and their ob scurity is greater for each individual producer, because he but imperfectly knows the number and means of his rivals, the merchants, who arc to sell in competition with him. But one single observation serves him, instead of all others: he compares his price with that of the buyer, and this comparison, according to the profit or loss ‘vhicll it offers him, is a warning to increase or diminish his production, for the following year.