necessary of all, because it is from the ground that our
subsistence is derived; because they furnish the materials for
every ot tantly employ the half, often much more than the half,
of all the nation. The ural population is also more easily
provided for than that of a city population; the progress of this
kind of wealth is more easily followed; and government is more
culpable when it allows agriculture to decay, because it almost
always lies in the power of government to make it flourish.
The annual revenue of land, or the annual crop, is
decomposed, as we observed above, in the following manner. One
part of the f and also for the interest of all the capital
successively employed to improve the soil. This portion alone is
called the net revenue. Another part of the fruits replaces what
has been consumed in executing the labour to which the crop is
due, the seed, and all the cultivator's advances. Economists call
this portion the resumption. Another part remains for a profit to
the person tion and increase of a new kind of wealth, which
was no longer measured by the wants of him who produced it, but
by the wants of all those with whom he might transact exchanges,
- with whom he might carry on commerce; and hence we have named
it com itary man was used to labour for his own wants, and
his consumption was the measure of his production; he fitted out
a place to produce him provisions for a year, for two years
perhaps; but afterwards he did not indefinitely augment it. It
was enough to renew the process, so as to maintain himself in the
same condition; and, if he had time to spare, he laboured at
acquiring some new enjoyment, at satisfying some other fancy.
Society has never done any thing by commerce, except sharing
among al year, two years, or more; each labours, afterwards,
to keep up this nd more work to be done, each, perceiving
that he has already provided for the reproduction of what has
been consumed, studies to awaken new tastes and new fancies which
he may satisfy.
But when a man laboured for himself alone, he never dreamt of
tho ioned to the other; that he would ever work to satisfy an
inclination that he did not feel, or which he valued less than a
want. But when trade was introduced, and each no longer laboured
for himself, but for an unknown person, the different proportions
subsisting between the desire and what could satisfy it, between
the labour and t y certain; they were independent of each
other, and every workman was obliged to regulate his conduct by
guessing on a subject, concerning which the most skilful had
nothing but conjectural information.
The isolated man's knowledge of his own means and his own
wants, required to be replaced by a knowledge of the market, for
which the social man was labouring; of its demands and its
extent.
The number of consumers, their tastes, the extent of their
consumption, and their income, regulate the market for which
every produ f the rest, and each of their variations
accelerates or r by sickness or war, but also by obstacles
which policy may place in the way of their communication, or by
the avarice of new sellers. Their tastes may be changed by
fashion: out by some public calamity.

Index page1 page2 page3 page4 San Francisco tour Villa Lighting