How
can wealth that is not measured by labor be VALUABLE? And if it
is labor that creates wealth and legitimates property, how
explain the consumption of the idler? Where is the honesty in a
system of distribution in which a product is worth, according to
the person, now more, now less, than it costs.
Say's ideas led to an agrarian law; therefore, the conservative
party hastened to protest against them. "The original source of
wealth," M. Rossi had said, "is labor. In proclaiming this great
principle, the industrial school has placed in evidence not only
an economic principle, but that social fact which, in the hands
of a skilful historian, becomes the surest guide in following the
human race in its marchings and haltings upon the face of the
earth."
Why, after having uttered these profound words in his lectures,
has M. Rossi thought it his duty to retract them afterwards in a
review, and to compromise gratuitously his dignity as a
philosopher and an economist?
"Say that wealth is the result of labor alone; affirm that labor
is always the measure of value, the regulator of prices; yet, to
escape one way or another the objections which these doctrines
call forth on all hands, some incomplete, others absolute, you
will be obliged to generalize the idea of labor, and to
substitute for analysis an utterly erroneous synthesis.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214