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74

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

CHAPTER IV.

ON EXCHANGE.

THE strength and safety of our conclusions in Political Economy are derived from the simplicity and certainty of the forces at work. No man has ever denied the great facts that lie at the basis of exchange. That men are possessed of desires, that efforts are necessary in order to meet these, and that satisfactions are the result, are propositions universally admitted. From these simple truths spring all the laws of our science, and all the economical harmonies of society. Let me remind my readers that, while the desires and satisfactions are experienced by one and the same person, and from their very nature cannot be communicated to another, this is not at all true of efforts. Efforts are exchangeable. One man may and does put forth the effort necessary for the satisfaction of another man's desire. But since the effort is not for himself but for another, and since to put forth efforts is not naturally agreeable to man, and never becomes so, except in connection with the satisfaction to which they minister, he will demand for his effort some corresponding effort made for him. This is a simple fact. No man will work for you for nothing. If you think he ought to, there is no law against your trying to induce him to do so.

How now does it happen that society is one vast hive of buyers and sellers, every man bringing something to the market and carrying something off? We speak of the commercial classes, but all classes are commercial. Everybody exchanges. You do something for me, and I will do something for you, is the fundamental law of society. From this results the division of employments, and all the various professions. Every man brings his own product and exchanges with society as best he may. The farmer brings his produce- and exchanges. The mechanic brings the product of his skilled labor- and exchanges. The laborer brings his strength, and the teacher his knowledge, and they are ready to do service for a consideration. The merchant, the physician, the lawyer, the clergyman, the editor, the lecturer, the singer, the actor, and so on to the end of the list, are all in position to render services to society, and justly expect to receive an equivalent service in return. Indeed, when we look out upon society, the most striking thing we observe about it is, that these exchanges are going on, in a thousand directions at once, determining all employment and professions, reaching everywhere and permeating everything, and all this the more rapidly and perfectly as knowledge and civilization advance. Since, therefore, as a matter of fact, men do constantly put forth onerous efforts to satisfy other men's desires, in order to receive back from them the results of corresponding efforts in return; since this mutual exchange of services is everywhere present in society, not in the market-places only, but in every department of life, there must be in this exchange some

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ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

great GAIN. We now inquire particularly what this gain is. What is the motive that leads men universally to exchange?

The answer to these questions will bring us to the gratifying conclusion that the laws of exchange are based on nothing less solid than the will, of God. The desires of men are not only various in kind and indefinite in degree, but also tend to increase in variety and extent by the progress of knowledge and freedom. To the gratification of almost all these desires, however, there are obstacles interposed, some of which are physical and some moral; and these obstacles are so great in all directions, that the powers of the individual man are utterly incompetent to surmount them. They mock at his weakness, and throw him back upon his destitution. Without association with his fellow-men, there is no creature so helpless, so unable to reach his true end, as is man; and therefore it is, that the impulse to association is one of the strongest of our natural impulses. Men come together, as it were by instinct, into society; and, associating themselves together in a society, it is very soon discovered, not only that there are various desires in the different members of the community which are now readily met by coöperation and mutual exchange, but also that there are very different powers in the different individuals in relation to those obstacles which are to be surmounted. There is a vast diversity in natural gifts. One man has physical strength, with no mechanical ingenuity; another combines with a feeble body a wonderful knack for contrivance; a third has a philosophical turn, liking to examine into the laws

of nature; and a fourth has a bent and genius for traffic. Now, then, Nature speaks in this diversity of gifts in as loud a voice as she can utter, in favor of such a degree of association and exchange as shall allow a free development of these varying capacities, while they work upon the obstacles to the gratification of men's wants which are appropriately opposite to them. Mr. Carey is right in his principle that the degree of individuality depends on the degree of association, each advancing hand in hand with the other; but he seems to me to be wrong while he lacks confidence in the natural forces at work tending to the highest degree of association and consequently to the highest degree of individuality. There is no social force stronger than interest, and interest is driving society continually to exchange, and to a wider and wider application of the principles of exchange, that is to say, to a higher and higher degree of association, which allows of course a continually freer development of individuality. When interest fails as a motive power, at least in this department, it is vain to appeal or to trust to an inferior and factitious motor.

It is interest that leads men to exchange. It is because a given effort put forth for another, in view of a return, realizes more of satisfaction than when put forth directly for one's self, that exchange ever takes place. Why does it realize more? BECAUSE

THERE IS DIVERSITY OF ADVANTAGE BETWEEN DIFFERENT MEN AND BETWEEN DIFFERENT NATIONS, IN

DIFFERENT RESPECTS. All exchange depends on diversity of relative advantage; and diversity of relative advantage exists by God's appointment among

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individual men, and among the nations. Reserving this national diversity for a later discussion, it is very clear that a diversity of advantage in different things displays itself as between the individuals of every community large and small. There is no village in which one man has not an advantage over his neighbors in the making of coats, another in the shoeing of horses, another in the curing diseases, another in the keeping a school; while each of those neighbors may have an advantage over each of these in some other art or avocation. This diversity of advantage in various directions depends, in every advanced state of society, partly upon diversity of original gifts, partly upon concentration of personal effort upon the one set of obstacles that lie in the path of a single branch of business, and partly upon the use, and familiarity in the use, of the gratuitous forces of nature which lend their aid towards overcoming these obstacles. As the result of one or two or all of these, one man comes to have a legitimate advantage over others in his own branch of business, whatever it is; and the others come to have a legitimate advantage over him in their own branches of business, whatever they are; and if he has desires which their efforts can satisfy, and they desires which his efforts can satisfy, nothing more is necessary to a profitable exchange between them than this relative advantage at different points. The tailor and blacksmith can profitably exchange their respective efforts just as soon as each has a relative superiority to the other in his own trade, provided of course each has a desire for the product of the other; and the greater the relative superiority of each to the other,

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