What an imbroglio is
political economy!
[9] In France, the sale of tobacco is a government monopoly.--
Translator.
There is, then, in the monetization of gold and silver something
that the economists have given no account of; namely, the
consecration of the law of proportionality, the first act in the
constitution of values. Humanity does all things by infinitely
small degrees: after comprehending the fact that all products of
labor must be submitted to a proportional measure which makes all
of them equally exchangeable, it begins by giving this attribute
of absolute exchangeability to a special product, which shall
become the type and model of all others. In the same way, to
lift its members to liberty and equality, it begins by creating
kings. The people have a confused idea of this providential
progress when, in their dreams of fortune and in their legends,
they speak continually of gold and royalty; and the philosophers
only do homage to universal reason when, in their so-called moral
homilies and their socialistic utopias, they thunder with equal
violence against gold and tyranny.
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