Online Library of Liberty: Commerce and Government Considered in Their Mutual Relationship
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The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Étienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac, Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship [1776] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. 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LIBERTY FUND, INC. 8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300 Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-1684 Online Library of Liberty: Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship Edition Used: Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship, translated by Shelagh Eltis, with an Introduction to His Life and Contribution to Economics by Shelagh Eltis and Walter Eltis (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008). Author: Étienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac Translator: Shelagh Eltis Introduction: Walter Eltis About This Title: This text covers such topics as value, money, agriculture, domestic and foreign trade, war, labor, interest rates, luxuries, and the various government policies that affect these subjects.The theme that unites these disparate subjects is liberty. As Condillac writes near the end of the work, the means to eradicate all the abuses and injustices of government is “to give trade full, complete and permanent freedom.” In their preface to the 1997 edition, Shelagh and Walter Eltis wrote, “English language readers … will find … that the case for competitive market economics has rarely been presented more powerfully.” PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2125 Online Library of Liberty: Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship About Liberty Fund: Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright Information: This book was originally published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 1997, copyright 1997 by Shelagh Eltis and Walter Eltis. Reprinted by permission of Edward Elgar Publishing. Fair Use Statement: This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 3 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2125 Online Library of Liberty: Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship Table Of Contents Preface The Life and Contribution to Economics of the AbbÉ De Condillac 1: Étienne Bonnot, Abbé De Condillac, 1714–1780 2: The Economics of the Abbé De Condillac 3: The Editions of Commerce and Government Annex:: a Note On French Currency, Monetary Values, and Weights and Measures 100 Commerce and Government The Aim of This Work First Part: Elementary Propositions On Commerce, Determined According to the Assumptions Or Principles of Economic Science 1: The Basis of the Value of Things 2: The Basis of the Price of Things 3: Of Price Variations 4: Of Markets Or Places Where Those Who Need to Make Exchanges Congregate 5: What Is Meant By Trade 6: How Trade Increases the Mass of Wealth 7: How Needs, In Multiplying, Give Birth to the Arts, and How the Arts Increase the Mass of Wealth 8: Of Wages 9: Of Wealth From Land and Movable Wealth 10: Through What Types of Labour Wealth Is Produced, Distributed and Preserved 11: The Origin of Towns 12: Of the Right of Ownership 13: Of Metals Considered As Merchandise 14: Of Metals Considered As Coinage 15: That Silver, Used As a Measure of Value, Has Brought Misunderstanding About the Value of Things 16: Of the Circulation of Money 17: Of Exchange 18: Of Lending At Interest 19: Of the Comparative Value of the Metals From Which Coins Are Made 20: Of the True Price of Things 21: Of Monopoly 22: Of the Circulation of Grain 23: Corn Considered As a Measure of Value 24: How Production Regulates Itself According to Consumption 25: Of the Use of Land 26: Of the Employment of Men In a Society Which Has Simple Tastes 27: Of Luxury 28: Of Taxation, the Source of Public Income 29: Of the Respective Wealth of Nations PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 4 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2125 Online Library of Liberty: Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship 30: A Concise Recapitulation of the First Part Second Part: Commerce and Government Considered In Relation to Each Other Following Some Assumptions 1: The Distribution of Wealth, When Trade Enjoys Complete and Permanent Freedom 2: The Circulation of Wealth When Trade Enjoys Complete Freedom 3: The Simple Ways of an Isolated Nation Within Which Trade Enjoys Complete Freedom 4: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Wars 5: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Customs Dues, Tolls 6: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Taxes On Industry 7: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Privileged and Exclusive Companies 8: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Taxes On Consumption 9: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Variation In Coinage 10: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Exploitation of Mines 11: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Every Type of Government Borrowing 12: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Policing of Grain Import and Export 13: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Policing of the Internal Circulation of Grain 14: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Manoeuvres of Monopolists 15: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Obstacles to the Circulation of Grain, When the Government Wishes to Restore to Trade the Freedom It Took From It 16: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Luxury of a Great Capital City 17: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Rivalry of Nations 18: Blows Directed Against Commerce: How Traders’ Speculations Have As Their Outcome the Ruin of Trade 19: Conclusion of the First Two Parts PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 5 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2125 Online Library of Liberty: Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship [Back to Table of Contents] PREFACE We both read Commerce and Government for the first time in 1990, and we were astonished that such a brilliantly written and powerfully argued book had made so little impact, and that it had never been translated into English. We resolved then, six years ago, that we would produce the first English language edition. Commerce and Government was published in the same year as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and their analysis and implications for policy have much in common. It was presented with the comparative brevity and precision of a distinguished philosopher of the French Enlightenment, who was one of the first to base value on utility, an achievement which was recognised after the marginal revolution of the 1870s. Eighteenth-century France was not fertile ground for the demolition of dirigisme, and the advocacy of the universal benefits of competition was resisted everywhere by vested interests. The physiocrats who controlled an economic journal in which the book was reviewed took exception to Condillac’s powerful demonstration that industry and commerce and not merely agriculture contributed to the wealth of France. The reviews were dismissive, the great preferred Colbert, so Commerce and Government made little headway in France, and British political economists of the eighteenth century were unaware of it, so there was no demand for an immediate translation. The abbé Morellet sent a copy to the Earl of Shelburne, the future British Prime Minister, with the accolade that “in every part of it you will find freedom of commerce sustained.” There may have been an occasional nineteenth- or twentieth- century British Prime Minister who could plausibly be expected to wish to read 90,000 words of French political economy in French, but the eighteenth century was another world. After 1990 we pursued detailed research, on Condillac’s life: Chapter 1 (by Shelagh Eltis) is the result; and on the impact of his economics, which is outlined in Chapter 2 (by Walter Eltis). This was preceded by conference papers on his economics in the École Normale Supérieure in St-Cloud, Paris, and in the University of Birmingham, with the subsequent publication of articles on Condillac’s economics in French and English language journals. Condillac’s life is a revelation. He combined the respect and friendship of Voltaire and Rousseau (he is prominent in the Confessions) with the high regard of the King and the Church. He was appointed Director of Studies to Louis XV’s grandson, the Bourbon heir to the throne of Parma, and after the success of that assignment, he was invited to go on to supervise the education of the three royal children who subsequently reigned in France: Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X.