Note 214-8 — Chapter I

The necessity of an equilibrium between production and consumption was pretty clear to many of the older political economists. Thus, for instance, Petty calls the coarse absence of the feeling of higher wants among the Irish the chief cause of their idleness and poverty. Similarly Temple, Observations on the N. Provinces, ch. 6, in which Ireland and Holland are compared in this relation. North, Discourses upon Trade, 14 seq.; Potscr. Roscher, Zur Geschichte der english. Volswirthschaftslehre, 83, 91, 127 ff. Becher, polit. Discurs., 1668, 17 ff., was of opinion that the principal cause keeping the three great estates together, the very soul of their connection, was consumption. Hence the peasant lived from the tradesman, and the tradesman from the merchant. (Boisguillebert, Détail de la France, I, 4, II, 9, 21.) According to Berkeley, Querist, No. 20, 107, the awakening of wants is the most probable way to lead a people to industry. And so Hume, loc. cit., Forbonnais, Eléments du Commerce, I, 364. The Physiocrates were in favor of active consumption. Thus Quesnay, Maximes générales, 21 seq.; Letrosne, De l'Interêt social, I, 12. La reproduction et la consommation sont réciproquement[TN 43] la mesure l'une de l'autre. Some of them considered consumption even as the chief thing (Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, ch. 1), which could never be too great. Further, Verri, Meditazioni, I, 1-4. Büsch, Geldumlauf, III, 11 ff.

The moderns have frequently inequitably neglected the doctrine of consumption. Thus it appears to be a very characteristic fact that in Adam Smith's great book, there is no division bearing the title "consumption," and in the Basel edition of 1801, that word does not occur in the index. Droz says that in reading the works of certain of his followers, one might think that products were not made for the sake of man, but man for their sake. But, on the other hand, there came a strong reaction with Lauderdale, Inquiry, ch. 5; Sismondi, N. Principes, L., II, passim; Ganilh, Dictionnaire Analytique, 93 ff., 159 ff.; but especially, and with important scientific discoveries, Malthus, Principles, B. II. St. Chamans, Nouvel Essai sur la Richesse des Nations, 1824, is an exaggerated caricature[TN 44] of the theory of consumption. For instance, he resolves the income of individuals into foreign demand or the demand of strangers (29); considers the first condition of public credit to lie in the making of outlay (32); and even calls entirely idle consumers productive, for the reason that they elevate by their demand a utilité possible, to the dignity of a utilité réelle (286 ff.) The view advocated by Mirabeau, and referred to above, again represented by E. Solly, Considerations on Political Economy, 1814, and by Weishaupt, Ueb. die Staatsausgaben und Auflagen, 1819. And so according to Carey, Principles, ch. 35, § 6, the real difficulty does not lie in production, but in finding a purchaser for the products. But he overlooks the fact here that only the possessor of other products can appear as a purchaser. From another side, most socialists think almost exclusively of the wants of men, and scarcely consider it worth their while to pay any attention to the means of satisfying them.