Note 740 — Chapter I · : THE OPTIMISTS

Say had already recognised the claims of immaterial wealth alongside of material, and he had employed the term “services” in describing them. In this way he considered that the professor, the doctor and the actor had claims to be regarded as producers. Dunoyer, while accepting his conclusion, criticises his way of putting it. He recognises no distinction between material and immaterial wealth. There is nothing but utility. “It is true that taste, education, etc., are immaterial, but so is everything that man produces.” But he is entirely wrong when he says that a good teacher is a producer of enlightened men and a doctor a producer of healthy persons. We are at a loss to explain why at one moment he refuses to recognise the material element in production, while at another he grossly exaggerates the material results of purely intellectual labour.