an abuse of intellectual games. Well then, if only through curiosity, I ask the protectionists to follow my line of argument to the bitter end. It will not take long. Let me go back to my example.
If you agree to suppose for a minute that the average, daily earnings of each Frenchman come to 1 franc, it will ineluctably follow that to produce one orange directly in France will require one day’s work or its equivalent whereas to produce the exchange value of one Portuguese orange only one-tenth of a day’s work is needed, which means nothing other than that the sun does in Lisbon what work does in Paris. Well, is it not obvious that, if I can produce an orange or what amounts to the same thing, the means to buy one, with one-tenth of a day’s work, my position with regard to this production is subject to the same conditions as the Portuguese producer himself, except for the transport costs, which I must incur? It is therefore apparent that freedom balances the direct or indirect conditions of production, as far as they can be balanced, since it leaves only one remaining inevitable difference, that of transport.
I will add that freedom also balances the conditions of enjoyment, satisfaction, and consumption, which are never taken into account and which are nevertheless essential, since in the end consumption is the final aim of all our productive efforts. Through free trade we would enjoy the Portuguese sun just as Portugal herself does and the inhabitants of Le Havre, like those of London and under the same conditions, will have access to the advantages that nature has conferred on Newcastle with respect to its mineral resources.
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V. Gentlemen of the protectionist persuasion, you think me full of paradox! Well, I want to go even further. I say, and I think this quite sincerely, that if two countries are placed in unequal conditions of production, it is the one of the two which is less favored by nature that has the more to gain from free trade. To prove this, I will have to digress a little from the form this article should take. I will nevertheless do this, first of all because this is the nub of the matter and also because it will give me the opportunity of setting out a law of economics of the greatest importance which, when correctly understood, seems to me to be destined to bring back into the fold of science all the sects that these days seek in the land of illusion the social harmony that they have been unable to discover in nature. I wish to speak about the law of consumption, which the majority of economists may be blamed for having too long much neglected.
Consumption is the end, the final purpose of all economic phenomena, in which purpose consequently lies their final, definitive solution.
Nothing favorable or unfavorable can stop permanently at the producer’s door. The advantages that nature and society have heaped on him, like the disadvantages that afflict him, slide over him,7 so to speak, and tend to be unconsciously absorbed by, mingled with, the community, understood from the point of view of consumption. We have here a law that is admirable in its cause and its effects alike, and the man who succeeds in describing it properly will have, I think, the right to say, “I have not spent time on this earth without contributing something to society.”
Any circumstance that encourages production is welcomed joyfully by the producer since its immediate effect is to put him in a position to provide even more services to the community and to demand greater remuneration from it. Any circumstance that hampers production is received with disappointment by the producer since its immediate effect is to limit his services and therefore his remuneration. It was necessary for the immediate gains and losses resulting from fortunate or unfortunate circumstances to be the lot of the producer, so that he would be irresistibly drawn to seeking the former and avoiding the latter.
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In the same way, when a worker succeeds in improving his output, he receives the immediate benefit of this improvement. This was necessary for him to be motivated to work intelligently; it was proper because an effort crowned with success ought to bring its reward with it.
But I hold that these good and bad effects, although permanent in themselves, are not so for producers. If this were so, a principle of gradual and subsequently infinite inequality between men would have been introduced, and this is why these favorable and unfavorable events are soon absorbed into the general fortunes of the human race.
How does this work? I will give a few examples to help it to be understood.
Let us go back to the thirteenth century.8 The men who devoted themselves to the art of copying received for their services payment that was governed by the general level of profits. Among them, there happened to be one who sought and discovered the means to increase the copies of the same book rapidly. He invented printing.
In the first instance, one man became richer and many others grew poorer. At first glance, however marvelous the discovery was, people hesitated as to whether it was not more disastrous than useful. It seemed that it was introducing into the world, just as I said, an element of indefinite inequality. Gutenberg made money with his invention and extended his invention using this money, and did this ad infinitum until he had ruined all other copiers. As for the public, the consumers, they gained little, for Gutenberg took care to decrease the price for his books to no more than was necessary to undercut his rivals.
But the thought that put harmony into the movement of the heavenly bodies was also able to insert it into the internal mechanisms of society. We will see the economic advantages of the invention escape from one individual and become the common and eternal heritage of the masses.
In the event, the procedure ended up by becoming known. Gutenberg was no longer the only printer; others imitated him. Their profits were at first considerable. They were rewarded for being the first to go down the path of imitation, and this was still necessary in order to attract them and so that they could contribute to the great result we were approaching. They earned a great deal, but less than the inventor, since competition had begun to work. The price of books continued to decrease. The profits of the imitators decreased as
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the date of the invention receded, that is to say, as imitation became less meritorious. Soon the new industry reached its normal state, in other words, the pay given to printers was no longer exceptional and, as for scribes in former times, it was governed only by the general level of profitability. Thus production, as such, returned to what it had been at the beginning. The invention was, nevertheless, no less of a boon; the saving in time, work, and effort for a given result, for a determined number of items, was nonetheless achieved. But how does it manifest itself? Through the low price of books. And for whose benefit? For the benefit of consumers, society, and the human race. Printers, who now have no exceptional merit, no longer receive exceptional remuneration. As men and consumers, they are doubtless beneficiaries of the advantages that the invention has bestowed on the community. But that is all. As printers and as producers, they are once again subject to the common conditions governing all producers in the country. Society pays them for their work, and not for the usefulness of the invention. The invention itself has become part of the common heritage and free to the entire human race.
I admit that the wisdom and beauty of these laws have struck me with admiration and respect. I see Saint-Simonist doctrines9 in them: To each according to his capacity, to each capacity according to his work. I see communism in them, that is to say, the tendency for property to become the common heritage of men. But this is a Saint-Simonism and a communism governed by infinite farsightedness, and not in the slightest abandoned to the fragility, passions, and arbitrary rule of men.
What I have said about printing can be said about all the tools of work, from the hammer and nail to the locomotive and electric telegraph. Society benefits from everything through the abundance of the things it consumes, and benefits from these freely, for their effect is to reduce the price of objects; and the entire portion of the price that has been abolished and that represents fully the contribution of the invention in the production process obviously makes the product free to this extent. All that remains to be paid for is the human work, the work done now, and this is paid for regardless of the
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resulting benefit of the invention, at least where it has gone through the cycle I