View of the Progress of Political Economy in Europe Since the Sixteenth Century, a Course of Lects (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 Excerpt: ...in advocating the policy of prohibiting the exportation of raw materials, and the importation of manufactured goods, observes, "certain raw materials augment prodigiously (in value) under the hand of the workman: a pound of flax, converted into linen, doubles and trebles its price, and if converted into fine lace, multiplies it more than a hundred fold." On the other hand, the economist school maintained, to use the words of M. Turgot in his "Mmoire sur les Importations," that the owner of land possessed alone a real revenue (c'est que le proprietaire de fonds est le seul qui ait un veritable revenue), which consisted of the net produce, this net produce being, according to the Abb6 Baudeau, the surplus of the gross produce, or its value, after the expenses of cultivation have been deducted. According to their classification of all other branches of labour, not immediately employed upon land, under the head of Sterile, the manufacturer earned only wages, inasmuch as the cultivator of the soil advanced to him the raw material or capital. The expenses of cultivation, on the other hand, were twofold, being made up of the wages of the cultivator, and the interest upon the capital which he advanced, which the Abbe in his reply to M. Necker's book upon the corn trade, considers might fairly be calculated at 10 per cent, under the various circumstances of waste, as well as of risk. The surplus produce went to the landlord, who in some cases had shared in advancing capital, for which after the necessary interest had been deducted, the remainder would constitute the net produce. "The produce of the land," writes Mercier de la Riviere, divides itself into gross produce and net produce. As in general, produce can only be obINEQUALITIES OF...