), we meet repeatedly with the assertion that when the price of wheat rises, the price of colonial products and manufactured articles sinks, and vice versa. Thus, in England, the price of the evidences of national debt increases from two to three per cent. in fruitful years above what it is after a bad harvest. (Lauderdale, Inquiry, 93.) The British nation paid for the cotton it needed for their own consumption in 1845 over £19,500,000; in 1847 only £9,500,000. (Banfield, Organization of Industry, 162.)627.Hence J. B. Say has said that the disposable wealth of a people is like a pyramid, with the scale of prices of the various commodities inscribed on its side. The higher a commodity is in this scale of prices, the smaller is the corresponding section of the pyramid. Compare Sir W. Temple, Essay on the Origin and Nature of Government, Works I, 23 ff.628.This fact, in connection with the preceding, explains the well known puzzle, why the remnant of a piece of goods is comparatively cheaper than the whole piece, while a small share in the public debt is dearer than a large one. (Lauderdale, ch. 1.)629.Rhode Island was, it is said, bought from the Indians in 1638 for a pair of spectacles. (B. Franklin, Political ... Pieces, 1707.) According to Chalmers, it was bought for 50 threads of coral, 12 hatchets and 12 overcoats. (Political Annals of the U. States.) Compare Ebeling, II, 108. Holland cloths and opium were exchanged for a long time at Sumatra for gold dust worth ten times their value. (Saalfeld, Geschichte des holl. Kolonialwesens, I, 260.) The Hudson Bay Company realized, it is said, at the beginning of this century, in trading with the Indians, a profit of 2000 per cent. (Anderson, Origin of Commerce, a. 1751.) When Altai was discovered, the natives gave as many sable-skins for a Russian kettle or boiler as could be crammed into it. With 10 rubles in iron it was an easy easy matter to gain 500-660 rubles. Storch, Gemälde des russ., R., II, 16; K. Ritter, Erdkunde, II, 557. Similar cases among the Germans: Tacit., Germ., 5.630.A seller not actually engaged in the business of selling for a livelihood, and who has not purchased or produced with the intention of selling, is apt to consider instead of this the market price, towards the determination of which those actually engaged in trade have coöperated. Somewhat inaccurately, the amount of the cost of production is called by Adam Smith and Ricardo, “natural price,” by J. B. Say, prix naturel, also prix originaire, because the commodity at its first entrance into the world cost so much. Sismondi and Storch call it prix nécessaire, and Lotz, Kostenpreis. P. Cantillon, Nature de Commerce, 33 ff., understands by the prix intrinsique of a commodity, the amount of land and labor, taking the quality of both also into consideration, necessary to its production.631.The cheapest cotton thread is numbered from 60 to 80. The coarser is dearer on account of the quantity of raw material in it, and the finer because of the greater amount of labor in it. (Babbage.) For similar reasons, the Venetian chains cost per braccio, No. 0, the finest, 60 francs; No. 1, 40 francs; Nos. 2 and 3, 20 francs; No. 24, coarsest, 60 francs. (Rau.)632.If a person engaged in production has himself furnished certain of the elements of production; if, for instance, he has worked with his own hands, employed his own capital etc., he is wont to charge as much for these as they would be worth, if he hired himself out or loaned his capital.633.The greater number of political economists consider the cost of production only from the standpoint of the individual engaged in production. Thus Darjes, Erste Gründe, 218 seq.; Ad. Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 6. J. B. Say calls even production an exchange in which the productive services of natural forces, of labor and of capital are parted with in order to obtain products. The estimate put upon the value of these services is the cost of production. For some interesting examples as to how the cost of production, in this sense, is calculated, see Hermann, I ed., 136 ff.634.Jacob translated by Say, 1807, II, 450. Hufeland, N. Grundelgung, I, 309.635.Compare L. Lauderdale, Inquiry, 124, against the Physiocrates. (Riedel, Nat.-Oekonomie, 1838, I, 68.) A country which possesses advantages over other countries, in respect to the cost of production of a commodity, can offer it in the market cheapest. Where, for instance, with the employment of the same amount of capital, a specially large quantity of wheat can be produced, whether it be because of the unusual fertility of the soil, or because of the extensiveness of agriculture (farming over a large area), wheat will, the demand being the same, be specially cheap, whatever the proportion of the three branches of income may have been. If relatively a great number of workmen have been employed in its cultivation, each will receive smaller wages, and vice versa.636.Copper and steel engraving affords an example of the different kinds of wear of fixed capital, and the influence it may have on prices. Canard, Principes, ch. IV, considers that one of the most important elements in the cost of production is the length of time that capital must “stagnate” for the sake of production.637.On this risk depends, for instance, the high price of vanilla (Humboldt, N. Espagne, IV, 10,), sparkling wines and articles of fashion.638.Mangoldt, Lehre vom Unternehmergewinn, 1855, 81 ff. Compare v. Thünen, Der isolirte Staat, II, 1, 80 ff.639.Wool and mutton, brandy and fattened cattle, calves and milk, honey and wax, gas and coke, hens and eggs etc.640.Adam Smith himself remarked that all artificial lowering of the price of skins or wool must necessarily raise the price of the meat, and vice versa. (Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 11, 3.) For a very elaborate theory on this subject, see J. S. Mill, Principles, III, ch. 16, § 1. Thus Australian wool did not rise as much in price as the production of gold there might have led us to suppose, for the reason that mutton rose to an exceedingly high price.641.It is an important and correct remark of Carey's, that the price of a commodity depends much more on the cost of producing its like than on its own cost of production, which already belongs to the past.642.Compare J. S. Mill, III, ch. 3, § 1. A much too high price, caused by speculation, or a much too low one, by depreciation, is regularly followed by an ebb or flow just as much too great. (Tooke, History of Prices, III, 55.) And Law, Trade and Money, 41, remarks that the price of a commodity always tends to coincide with the “first cost.” This fact Adam Smith expresses by saying that the cost of production is the center about which the market price always gravitates. (I, ch. 7.) But here there is still the error lurking, that the producer's profit is a part of the cost of production. Compare Malthus, Definitions, ch. 6.643.The English view, one very characteristic of the people, is that the equilibrium of prices depends on this, that all commodities should have a value equal to that of the labor they have cost. (Compare Aristot., Eth. Nicom., V, 5.) The same doctrine is to be found in its germinal state in Hobbes, Leviathan, 24, 1651, and Rice Vaughan, Discourse of Coin and Coinage, 1675. More exhaustively in Petty, Treatise of Taxes and Contributions, 1679, 24, 31, 67. (Compare Locke, Civil government, II, § 40 ff.; B. Franklin, Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a paper Currency, 1729; Works, ed. Sparks, vol. II.) Adam Smith admits this to be true only of the first beginnings of society, before the origin of property in land and in capital. (Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 5.) Most largely developed in Ricardo, Principles, ch. I, 4, 30. Marx, Zur Kritik der polit. Œkonomie, 1859, 6, endeavors to improve on this by calling all values in exchange “a determinate quantity of thickly curdled working-time,” meaning by work an averaged qualitätslose, social work of production. Per contra, compare Hufeland, N. Grundlegung, I, 134, 156 ff.; and Malthus, Principles, ch. 2, secs. 2, 3, who claims very earnestly that price is not determined by the cost of production, but by the relation existing between demand and supply, the cost of production influencing it only to the extent that it influences this relation. He calls attention to the poor-rates by which the cost of production of labor is raised, but its wages decreased; also to the case of bank notes etc. (Tooke, History of Prices, V, 49 ff; J. S. Mill, Principles, III, ch. 16, 2.) For a very marked case of reaction against Adam Smith and Ricardo, see Macleod, Elements, ch. 2, who, however, is much too one-sided in considering only the amount necessary to the purchaser, and his means. Even Condillac had said: une chose n'a pas une valeur, parcequ'elle coûte, mais elle coûte (du travail ou de l'argent), parcequ'elle a une valeur. (Commerce et Gouvernement, 16.) Ricardo's doctrine is more tenable than appears at first blush. We need only to interline his theory of rent, admit that capital is accumulated labor, subtract all objects constituting a natural monopoly, and not forget that the intrinsic value of labor is one of the causes of the difference of price of different sorts of labor. Ricardo does justice to value in use even en passant. A strange effort by McCulloch to make labor the cause of the non-use of capital. (Principles, III, ch. 6, 2.) McCulloch has not unfrequently exaggerated the half-truths of his doctrines to such an extent as to produce unwittingly a reductio ad absurdum. According to Torrens, before any separation of capitalists from workmen, price depends entirely on the work done, and afterwards on the capital expended, inasmuch as wages, rent etc. are covered by the capital of the person who engages in the enterprise. (Production of Wealth, ch. 1.)644.Ce que l' on appelle chereté, c'est l' unique remède à la chereté. (Dupont de Nemours.) Tenders of division in common, in England, increase and decrease according to the higher or lower price of corn during the preceding year. (Tooke, Thoughts and Details, III, 105 ff.) The cotton famine after 1861 increased the price of flax-yarn in a short time fifty per cent., although the raw material of flax did not rise in price, but only because care was not taken to increase the number of flax-spinners. (Ausland, I, 1865.) However, there were in 1864, 490,000 flax-machine spindles in course of erection. (Report of the Chemnitz Chamber of Commerce, 1864, 101.)645.By the discovery, for instance, of new natural forces, the invention of machines, improved division of labor, improved roads etc. In France, in consequence of technic improvement, a quintal of saltpeter fell from 100 to 9 francs. See a similar instance in Chaptal, De l' Industrie française, II, 64, 70, 434.646.Hermann, Staatsw. Untersuchungen, 212.647.The highest but unattainable ideal of such progress would consist in this, that all products should be obtained without cost. If this ideal were attainable, every one would be infinitely rich and all wealth would be free, like the air and the sunshine. (Compare J. B. Say, Traité, II, 2.) The complete victory of mankind over nature would consist in that all men should be free and all the forces of nature the slaves of man. (Smitthenner.) Carey intimates something similar when he says that, with the advance of civilization the tendency is for men to become more and more valuable and commodities to have less of “value.”648.We might here speak of an aristocratic and democratic principle of the determination of prices. The greater utility of the latter is advocated in the Discourse of Trade, Coyn and Credit, London, 1697. Bacon has a good word to say for the maxim: “Light gains make heavy purses; for light gains come thick, whereas great come now and then.” Similarly, Gurnay in Cliquot de Blervache, Considérations sur le Commerce etc., 1758, 48, 54. As to how Morrison, the celebrated merchant, became rich by adhering to the principles: “to sell cheap as well as to buy cheap,” and “always tell the truth,” see Chadwick, in the Statistical Journal, 1862, 503. Compare the related opinion of Adam Smith's continuator in an ethical direction, Garve, zu Cicero's Pflichten, III, 100. The contrary principle, the cunning of the Judæans, according to Strabo, XVII, 800, was followed by the Dutch East India Company, when it, in 1652, caused the greater number of the vegetable roots on the Moluccas to be destroyed. Saalfeld, Geschichte des holländischen Kolonialwesens, I, 272. Also, when great quantities of roots were destroyed by burning in the East Indies. (Huysers Beschryving der Oostindischen Etablissmenten, 1789, 22.) For a clever argument against such practice, see de la Court, Anwysing der heilsame Gronden, 1663. The principle similar to that of the patent, mentioned in the text, works at the same time democratically and aristocratically, both words understood in their best sense.649.This is true, first of all, in those industries which are intimately connected with one another, or of those which are carried on with scarcely any fixed capital; also in lower stages of civilization, where the lights and shades caused by a highly developed division of labor are not very intense. On the numerous difficulties overlooked by Ricardo in every other case, see Sismondi, N. P., II, ch. 2. The workman thereby loses his former skill, that is his principal capital, and can certainly not wait until he has acquired other and different skill.650.When a lowering of prices is expected, demand is less than consumption: “postponed demand;” whereas, an expectation that the price will rise, produces “anticipated demand.” Tooke, History of Prices, II, 155.651.Thus, for instance, if the workmen were exposed to starvation, or were likely to take their departure; if great stores of raw material were in danger of spoiling; if fixed capital of great value were engaged in one industry and could not be easily transferred to another. The first and third causes are frequently met with in mining, and give rise to the mode of carrying on the operation known as Zubusgruben, that is, a species of working mines upon shares. In England, after the spring of 1862, cotton yarn was not so much dearer than raw cotton, that the loss caused by the decline could be made up. (Ausland, 24 Sept., 1862.)652.Besides, in the time immediately following, the price lowered by too great a supply, may produce a species of desperation among producers, which would lead them, in the hope of covering their losses, to increase the supply still more, until many of them were ruined. Generally, when a time of high prices is followed by a time of low prices, we find an interval during which sellers endeavor to defend themselves against the decline, and during which, as a consequence, scarcely any business is transacted, while high prices are nominally continued. And so vice versa. Tooke, History of Prices, II, 62.653.Thus, for instance, when the change of fashion brought about the disuse of long periwigs in every-day life, their price did not cease to fall until they had entirely disappeared. But, if a person wishes to have one made to-day for a masquerade, for the stage, etc., he would pay as much for it as its former price. On the other hand, the price of whalebone has never been again as high as it was in the time when hooped petticoats were worn.654.The great plague in the time of Edward III. caused during the first year, on account of the decreased consumption, an extraordinary cheapness of provisions. In the following year, however, they became alarmingly dear, because there were few producers, especially among the humble classes. A quarter of wheat cost in 1348, 4s. 2d.; in 1349, 5s. 5d.; in 1350, 8s. 3d.; in 1351, 10s. 2d.; while in 1346 and 1347, its average price was 6s. 8-7/8d. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, I, 232.655.As for instance when new taxes or excises are imposed. Generally when the cost of production has largely increased, purchasers do not wait until a decrease of competition among sellers compels them to exact higher prices, but meet them half way, especially when many greatly desire the commodity, and the increase of the cost is only small. (Rau, Handbuch, I, § 163.)656.Under this rule fall, according to § 33, most products of industry properly so called. “If we lose a market for a year, we generally lose it for all time,” said an experienced manufacturer before the parliamentary hand-loom weavers' committee, 1840-42. Of course the cost of transportation as far as the market must be estimated as part of the cost of production. In consequence of this, as well as of the difference of taxation duties etc., the superiority of one producer to another may be more than overcome. In the case of colonial commodities, which go into the interior of a country from different sea-ports, the territory supplied from each port is determined for the most part by these data. Thus, in Switzerland, for instance, we find the districts supplied by Havre, Genoa and Rotterdam; in Austria, the districts supplied by Hamburg and Triest contiguous, but the boundary line subject to many changes. (Rau, Lehrbuch, I, § 164.) It must be understood that we do not here speak of abnormal expenses made by producers individually, whether in consequence of want of skill or because of accident.657.This is true especially of agricultural production, in which, as a rule, beside the most fertile and most advantageously situated land, the worse must be used. What Whately calls “surplus-profit” appears here in the form of rent, whereas, in other cases, it takes the shape of unusually high wages, or profit on capital. This is very beautifully and systematically developed by Schäffle, N. Œk., II; Aufl., 192 ff.
Вильгельм Рошер
«Принципы политической экономии, том 1»
According to Senior, Outlines, 15, the price-relation of two commodities to each other depends not on the quantities of them which come to market, but on the relative power of the difficulties which stand in the way of an increase in these quantities. If the same producers can pursue the cheaper mode of production which does not suffice to supply the market, as well as the dearer, we have, generally, a price which is the mean between the two costs of production. The same is true in the case of “smuggled” goods which ought to have paid duty. (Hermann, loc. cit., 83, seq.)658.To this section belong the secrets of production which may be taken advantage of either ad libitum or within certain limits. In agriculture, advantages of production can seldom remain secret. Compare, however, the case mentioned in Garnier's translation of Adam Smith, V, 119, and that of the orchards which yielded £1,000 yearly for every 32 acres, and which were a result of the recent introduction of the culture of the cherry in Kent, in the reign of Henry VIII. (Anderson, Origin of Commerce, a, 1540.) There is therefore, a certain odium attached by agricultural producers to keeping secret a means of agricultural improvement.659.Compare Boisguillebert, Traité des Grains, II, ch. 2. John Stuart Mill speaks of an equation: the price of a commodity in a given market is always high enough to produce a demand corresponding to the present supply, or to an expected supply. The price of such commodities only which may not be increased to any desirable extent depends on supply and demand. In the case of all others, on the other hand, demand and supply depend on the price, and this on the cost of production. Supply and demand always tend to an equilibrium which is never really attained where the price is high enough to cover the cost of production (?). (Principles, III, ch. 2, § 4; ch. 3, § 2.) Schäffle's theory of prices is topped by the proposition that all competing sellers and all competing buyers, after an economic fashion, do not wish to sell below individual cost-value, nor to rise above individual value in use, in purchasing. Hence, in a throng of competition of supply the costliest productions step out of the field of competition in a descending cost-value series; and in a throng of competition of demand, the most wearied cravings in an ascending value-in-use series; until the quantities offered in supply and asked for cover each other without loss, and have placed each other in quantitative equilibrium. (N. Œk. Aufl., I, 188 ff.; compare 173, 185.) It is, however, to say the least, an instance of baseless solicitude, when Wade, History of the middle and working Classes, 214, says that one unemployed workman might depress the aggregate wages of labor, almost ad infinitum.660.Hufeland, N. Grundlegung, I, 78; Ricardo, Principles, ch. 31.661.Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail, VIII, ch. 4; Rau, Lehrbuch, I, § 158.662.For a good classification of monopolies, see Senior, Outlines, 103 ff. Menger, Grundsätze, I, 195, shows that no monopolist can arbitrarily determine the extent of the market for his monopoly-product when the price is fixed, nor when the extent of the market is known, the height of the price. Moreover, the price may remain longer above than under the cost of production, for the reason that it is easier to abandon a business than to begin one, and that the fear of loss is more frequently an incentive to action than the hope of gain. Hence the price of corn, when everything else is very dear, is more apt to vary from the average price, than in times when everything is very cheap. For instance, the Munich prices from 1750 to 1800 show that its highest price was 147 per cent. above, and its lowest 47 per cent. below the average of twenty years. (Rau, Lehrbuch, § 162, 182.)663.Chance plays a great part here. Thus, Murillo's Conception which Marshal Soult had offered several times for 150,000 francs, but in vain, was sold in May, 1852, for 586,000 francs. Paul Potter's young bull at the Hague, which cost 625 florins in 1748, was valued before the middle of the nineteenth century at 200,000 florins. (Dethmar.)664.The purchaser resolves to do so because it would, in all probability, cost him more to go to India or Brazil in search of precious stones. Besides after the working of the Brazilian mines in 1728, and again after the French Revolution, the price of diamonds fell greatly; in the one case, from an increase of the supply, in the other from a decrease of the demand. (Ritter, VI, 355, 365.)665.Thus, the Champagne and Johannisberg grapes, when transplanted to the Crimea, lost most of their native taste. On China's practical monopoly of tea culture, and Ceylon's, especially in its southwestern part, of cinnamon, at least so far as the peculiar aroma is concerned, compare Ritter, Erdkunde, VI, 123 ff. The small deer of Angora no sooner leave the little district of Asia Minor to which they belong, than they are in danger of degenerating. (Revue des deux Mondes, May 15, 1850.) Indian birds-nests cost no more than 11 per cent. to gather, dry etc., of the market price. (Crawfurd, East India Archipelago, III, 432 ff.; Hogendorp, Sur l'Ile de Java, 201.)666.Poor material for fuel, poor day-laborer work—dwellings, medical attendance. (Menger, Grundsätze, I, 116.)667.Thus sea fish, oysters etc. were formerly much cheaper during the summer than during the winter, at Ostend and Scheveningen, because during winter they could be sent to a distance. At Billingsgate market, in the mackerel season, fish cost per hundred 48 to 50 shillings at 5 o'clock in the morning, 36 shillings at 10 o'clock, and 24 shillings in the afternoon. (H. Schulze, Nat-Œkonomische Bilder aus England, 1853, 241.) In the Rhine country, the price of fruit does not vary so much as in Saxony, because it is customary there to employ the surplus in the manufacture of cider, of preserves etc., thus making it transportable and durable. Frequently, after a very abundant crop of grapes or olives, under-prices prevail, sometimes on account of a want of vessels, cellar-room etc.; they must, therefore, be sold rapidly.668.Compare Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 7.; Tooke, History of Prices, I, 97. Furs vary very much in price, sometimes 300 per cent. in a year, because, in the case of this entirely natural product, every thing depends on the stores of them, on the temperature etc. (McCulloch, Commerc. Dict., s.v.) On the other hand, the price of coffee usually varies only after periods of a number of years, because new plantations produce only after a lapse of years. (Ibid.) Pigs vary much more than cattle in price, because the former may be made ready for the slaughter house in one-third of the time required for the latter. (Thaer, Rationelle Landwirthschaft, IV, 374.)669.Thus the rent of farms, where a numerous proletarian population will live exclusively from agriculture, depends on scarcely anything but the number of people and the extent of the land. (J. S. Mill, Principles, III, ch. 2.) In retail trade, where personal want comes in question, prices are much more subject to be modified by small circumstances, than in wholesale trade, where both parties are only intent on “doing business.” (J. S. Mill, III, ch. 1, § 5. Tooke, II, 72 f.)670.Hucksters, butchers, dealers in corn, inn-keepers etc. A remarkable case where Parisian dealers in hare-skins attempted to ruin the new fashion in silk hats by distributing a great number of them among the rabble, at mock-prices. (Hermann, 1st ed., 91.) The author witnessed a similar but unsuccessful attempt in Berlin in 1838-39, by the tailors against the so-called Macintosh coat. On the conspiracy of the English dealers in second-hand goods against auctions, see Athæneum, Dec. 5, 1863. It is one of McCulloch's characteristic exaggerations, that he says that conspiracies to raise the price of a commodity by artificial means, are broken just as soon as they begin to obtain their object by the interest of the individual members to profit by the advanced prices. (Edition of Adam Smith, Edinb., 1863, p. 59.)671.J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 4.672.Monopolies universally prohibited: L. un. C. De Monopol. (IV, 59.) Police-order of the Empire, 1548, tit. 18.673.Privileges which the purchaser voluntarily accords to the seller are wont to be useful to both parties. (Hermann, loc. cit. 155, 158.)674.Besides, guilds, castes, corporations etc. may, when the vent diminishes, produce under-prices as readily as they may monopoly-prices when the vent is very good. (See Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 7.)675.Thus, for instance, the traveler who wanted to cross a stream, would find himself delivered over to the tender mercies of the ferry-man, without protection of any kind against his demands. But repeated impositions in the matter of prices would have for effect to bring a point into disrepute as a place of crossing, and would induce the public to seek another. Similarly in the case of hackney-coachmen and carriers in large cities, and in that of innkeepers, at hotels and postal termini etc.676.Fixed prices by governmental authority were soonest attempted after bad harvests, but, indeed, with a strange ignorance of the natural grounds of the increase in price of bread-stuffs. Thus in the time of Charlemagne. (Capitul. a, 805; Baluz, I, 423.) Similarly in the case of other articles of universal necessity, when oppressively but necessarily dear. (See § 175.) During the last centuries of the middle ages, with their multitude of actual monopolies, and at the beginning of the modern era, fixed prices became more and more general. The earliest instance in the history of England of a fixed price for bread was in 1202 (v. Raumer, Hohenstaufen, V, 372), and in 1266, 51 Henry III. The earliest in Prussia was in 1393. (Voigt, Geschichte von Preussen, II, 659.) Many instances of fixed prices in the Rhine provinces of Austria in 1530. In Mylius, Corp. Const. March, V, 2, 587 ff., we find an ordinance of 1653 fixing prices in Berlin, and including 72 industries. There is a very complicated system of fixed prices in the police ordinance of the electorate of Saxony of 1612, and in the decree concerning the coin of 1822. As to how, in Saxony in 1578, an attempt was made to ascertain the cost of the production of shoes by shoemakers, see Joh. Falke, Gesch. des Kurf. August in volkswirthschaft. Beziehung, 1868, 252. There was an enormous extension of governmental fixing of prices under Philip II.; one of the principal causes why Castile was so far behind Aragon economically. (Townsend, Journey through Spain, II, 221.) Sometimes these measures were adopted to prevent distress-prices; as in Hochheim, in favor of the vintners. (Becher, Polit. Discurs, II, 1652.) The predilection especially of German authorities for the fixing of prices by governmental power, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is very remarkable. Thus Luther, vom Kaufhandel und Wucher, 1524; Calvin, Leben Calvins, by Henry, II, Beilage, 3, 23; Bornitz, De Rerum Sufficientia, 1625, 246; Seckendorff, Teutscher Fürstenstaat, 5th ed., 1776, 210; Becher, II, 1823 ff.; Horneck, Oesterrich über Alles, wenn es will, 1684, 123; Leibniz ed. Dutens, VI, I, 250; Thomasius, Göttl. Rechtsgelahrtheit, 1709, 209; even Frederick the Great, Mylius, N. Corp. Const. March, I, 190. Similarly, Mariana, De Rege et Regis Institutione, III, c. 9. Compare, however, III, c. 8, and Bacon, Serm., 15; Historia Henrici, 1037, 1040. On the other hand, Child, 1690, and North, 1691, reprove all such measures. Roscher, Zur Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre, 65, 90 f. Earlier yet, Salmasius, who would allow the free fori ratio to govern. (De Usuris, 1638, 583.) For a very rigorous price-tariff in the old Indian laws, by which, inter alia, the price of provisions was to be fixed anew every fourteen days, see Menu, Laws, VIII, ch. 401 ff.677.Where trade is free, the filet de boeuf, for instance, is worth four times as much as the flesh of the ox's neck or throat; but prices fixed by a government can scarcely take cognizance of the difference. How easily might not a fixed price for beer, for instance, be evaded by diluting that beverage with water, or fixed prices for inn-keepers by dealing out portions smaller in quantity or of an inferior quality. Moreover, as early a writer as De la Court, Polit. Discoursen, 1662, c. 4, remarks that the establishment of fixed prices by governmental authority raises the average price of all commodities rather than lowers it, for the reason that the few who are sellers by trade can do more to influence the authorities than the many buyers, whose interests are divided among numberless different commodities.678.Schäffle, Nat.-Œkonomie, II, 384 f.679.Banfield, Organization of Industry, 120. “Where the economic life of a people is still undeveloped, and the production of one enterprise is not from the first based on the estimated consumption of another, the circulation of goods brings with it great profits and great losses; whereas, profits and losses grow smaller, but at the same time more uniform and regular, in proportion as the circulation of goods increases in rapidity and regularity.” (Stein, Lehrbuch, 212.)680.In Belgium, during the last forty years, the price of wheat has become more constant every year, while the price of rye has become more variable; for the reason that rye has gradually ceased to be an article of popular consumption, and therefore to be an important article in trade, and is consumed almost entirely and directly by its producers. (Horn, Statist. Gemälde von B., 1853, 185.) Rodbertus rightly conjectures that the price of wheat was much more variable in ancient times than it is with us. (Hildebrand's Jahrb., 1870, I, 36.) That it was so may be inferred from the surprisingly large family supplies which were laid in, as appears from Digest, XXXIII, De Penu legato.681.In Würtemberg even officials etc. buy their own wine almost always directly from the vintner. This causes prices there to be exceedingly variable, frequently from hour to hour. (v. Reden, Statist. Zeitschrift, Nov. 1847, 1008.) How greatly the mere presence of a regular market has contributed to make prices more constant, may be seen in the suburbs of Hamburg, where fish offered for sale on the street are sold in the evening for one-third of the price asked for them in the morning. Besides, purchases made with a view to speculation may increase the variations of price, if the speculation is unskillfully conducted, especially when a low rate of interest, and of the profit of the person engaged in it, has produced a blind race among the speculators. Here the price of a commodity rises, not from any natural cause, but because it once rose before, and vice versa. (Senior, Outlines, 17 ff.; Hermann, 90 ff.)682.That fixed prices suppose that men are engaged in the production of the commodity in question, as their calling in life, see Garve, Zu Cicero's Pflichten, III, 64 ff. Chess-like commerce of colporteurs, and in caravans etc. Concerning the dreadful higgling of the Bedouins, see Wellsted, Reise in Arabien, Rödiger's translation, I, 147; and the still worse bantering in Cashmere, where the merchant, in the first place, always denies that he possesses the desired commodity, then begins to search for it, in order to discover what value the purchaser puts upon it etc. (K. Ritter, Erdkunde, III, 475.) On the practices in Indian fairs, see Th. Skinner, Excursion in India, 1832, I, ch. 6; on the bazaars in Asia, Andree, Globus XII, 7, 211. Herberstein says of the Russians in the sixteenth century: mercantur fallacissime et dolosissime nec paucis verbis ... mercatores nonnunquam non uno tantum aut altera mense suspensos detinent, verum ad extremam desperationem perducere solent. Hence the great variations in prices and commodities. (Rerum Moscov. Commentt., ed. Starczewski, 39 f.) Similarly also, in 1674, according to Kilburger: Büsching's Magazin, III, 249. But, on the contrary, it is said of the Plescovers, educated by intercourse with the Hanse; tanta integritas ... in contractibus, ut uno tantum verbo res ipsas indicarent omni verbositate in fraudem emptoris omissa. (Herberstein, 52.) In the England of the present day, the custom of marking each piece of goods with its price is very general. Concerning the rapidity and the paucity of words with which prices are settled in that country, where business men do not even salute their customers, nor customers the business man, see C. G. Simon, Observations recueillies en Angleterre, 1835, I, 129 f. The Athenian laws (?), that fixed prices should be asked, and that sellers should not sit down that that they might sell more rapidly, points to something similar. (Athen., VI, 226 f. Plato, De Legg., XI, 916 f.) Athenian law prohibiting mendacity in the markets. (See Demosth., Lept., 459.)683.Thus the German book-trade has fixed prices. Many merchants never make an offer to their educated customers who are wont to do so with peasants etc.; because they are aware that the latter purchase only after they have compelled the seller to come down greatly from his first proposed price. Among the Quakers it has been a rule from the beginning, never to ask more for their wares than they were determined to accept. (Hume, History of England, ch. 62.)684.Sir William Temple, Observations upon the Netherlands, Works I, 134, compares honor in trade to discipline in an army. Similarly, Law, Trade and Money, 209 f. Ferguson, History of Civil Society, III, 4. Where the seller is not obliged to make known the existence of certain defects in his wares to the purchaser before sale, there is always scope for fraud. Compare Digest De Edict. aedilit., XXI, I. On the meaning of the German legal maxims: Hand muss Hand wahren, and Ein Wort, ein Mann, see Eisenhart, Deutsches Recht in Sprüchwörtern, 311 f., 319 f.
It is a principle in matters of business, that the person who through malice or carelessness recommends a man of whose probity there is already some doubt, should bear the damage caused by his recommendation. (Martens, Grundriss des Handelsrechtes, 24 ff.) Many attempts at dishonesty are prevented by laws which in important contracts, especially in sales of land etc., require the presence of witnesses, and this particularly in the lower stages of civilization. (Meier and Schömann, Attischer Process, 522; Roman, Emancipatio; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, 608 f.), or even a public proclamation before the assembled community, at least written documents invested with all legal formalities as practiced among civilized peoples. On Greek laws of this nature, see especially, Theophrast., in Stobaeus, Sermon., XLIV, 22. Very remarkable in Sparta. Schol. Aristophan., Aves, 1284.685.Compare Lotz, Revision, I, 255 ff. In England the price of wheat scarcely ever varied more than from 1 to 2. In Ireland the price of potatoes varied from 1 to 6. (McCulloch, Comm. Dict., v. Potatoes.) Compare Engel, Jahrbuch für Sachsen, I, 491 ff. The custom of asking enormous prices with the expectation of being beaten down, is usual in Italy and carried to a frightful extent, and related to the bad custom prevalent there of begging a little after-payment to every little gratuity or drink-money which has been received.686.Storch, Handbuch, I, 311. J. B. Say, Traité I, ch. 16. As to how commerce, when fully developed, is wont to be more moral than when only half developed, see Garve, loc. cit., and Versuche IV, 149 ff. How fortunate for the public economy of nations that the prices of corn especially have been growing more steady all the time since the middle ages. See Roscher, Ueber Kornhandel, 56, 61.687.Trade by barter was very general in several states of the American Union about the close of the eighteenth century. In Vermont, for instance, it was usual for a doctor to exchange his medicines against a horse, and for the printer to buy corn, butter etc. with a newspaper. (Ebeling, Geschichte und Erdbeschreibung, II, 537.) In Maryland, the Assembly fixed by law the relative proportions at which tobacco, pork, corn and wheat should be exchanged the one against the other. (Ebeling, V, 435 ff. Douglas, Summary of the British Settlements in N. America, 1670, V, 2, 359.) Even as late as 1815, children were wont to run the streets of Corrientes, crying: “Salt for candles, tobacco for bread etc.” It was commerce with England that first led to trade by money in the United States. (Robertson, Letters on South America, 1843, I, 52.) Similarly in Rhokand until the end of the eighteenth century, where the cities, as a consequence, presented the appearance of a fair the whole year round. In the beginning of this century, the khan introduced the use of copper money made from Persian cannons; and much later yet, there were scarcely a million rubles in money to a million men. (Ritter, Erdkunde, VII, 753.) Basil Hall found the uncivilized inhabitants of the Loo-Choo Islands ignorant of the use of money. (Voyage of Discovery, 1818.) Concerning trade by barter in the Homeric age, see the Iliad, VII, 472 ff. A supposed law of Lycurgus prohibited the use of money in purchases, and allowed barter only. (Justin., III, 2.) According to Pausan., III, 12, only barter existed in India (?) in his time.688.The person who has been used to paying for four pounds of meat with twenty pounds of bread, and is asked to give twenty pounds of bread in exchange for some other article, must of course have some unit of measure in his mind to serve as a means of comparison between the value of that article and that of four pounds of meat. In Denmark, during the rule of the aristocracy, there were fixed prices sanctioned by the tradition of long usage, in accordance with which the prices of all commodities were estimated in relation to a ton of barley or rye—a natural consequence, apparently, of the want of a common measure to govern in the greater number of transactions. Bergsoe, Archiv der Polit. Œk., IV, 314; Graugan's Icelandic Code contains a remarkable fixed price of this nature in the supplement to the Kaupa-Balkr or Commercial Code, I, p. 500. Similarly among the ancient Persians. Reynier, Economie publique des Perses, 308.689.That is, (200x(200-1))/2. Compare Rau in Storch, Handbuch, III, 253. The “at least” has reference to the fact, that in barter, the many different kinds of most commodities has to be borne in mind. (Knies, Geld und Credit, I, 218.)690.This transportation of values supposes an equality of values of the money in two places, while the transportation of goods supposes different values of the same kind of goods in both places. (Knies, Geld und Credit, I, 218.)691.While the words pecunia, danaro, dinero, and argent, are all derived from unessential qualities, the German word for money, Geld, corresponds with the essential quality of money, since it denotes that which is of value everywhere (gilt). On the other hand, nummus and νόμισμα from νόμος, (Bœckh. Metrolog. Unters., 310.), moneta (the English, money), are from the temple of Juno Moneta, in which the Roman coins were for a long time stamped. In old German, the word for money, Geld, means everything that is paid by any one. (Grimm, D. Rechtsalterth., 382.) The present meaning of the word is to be met with in a very old document of 1327. (Arnold, z. Geschichte des Eigenthums in den deutschen Städten, 89.)692.Неверные определения денег можно разделить на два класса: те, которые передают идею о том, что это нечто большее, чем товар, и те, которые подразумевают, что это нечто меньшее.
Это был пункт, который оспаривался даже среди греков. Было много тех, кто утверждал, что богатство состоит исключительно в обладании большим количеством денег; как мы находим, например, в псевдоплатоновском диалоге «Эриксий»; в то время как другие настаивали, что деньги — это нечто чисто воображаемое (λῆρος) и создание исключительно человеческих законов (Аристотель, «Политика», I, 3, 16, Schn.). Νόμισμα σύμβολον τῆς ἀλλαγῆς ἔνεκα (Монета — символ ради обмена) (Платон, «Государство», II, 371). Анахарсис сравнивает деньги со счетными жетонами (Плутарх, «De Profectt in Virtute»). Сам Аристотель подписывался под вторым мнением, хотя ясно видел, что только полезные и ходовые вещи (χρείαν εὐμεταχείριστον πρὸς τὸ ζῆν) могут использоваться в качестве денег (Политика, I, 3, 14 и сл.; «Никомахова этика», V, 5, 6; «Риторика», II, 16). Ксенофонт приписывал деньгам свойства, которыми не обладал ни один другой товар; особенно когда он говорил, что их никогда не может быть слишком много и что их цена никогда не может упасть («De Vectt. Ath.», 4). Лучшее древнее объяснение природы денег принадлежит юрисконсульту Павлу (L. I.; Дигесты, XVIII, 1); и оно вполне заслуживает длинного комментария, посвященного ему П. Нери («Osservazioni etc.», в Custodi, P.A., VI, 324 и сл.).
Среди современников Меланхтон («Corp. Ref.», XVI, 498) и Себ. Франк («Chronik», 760) рассматривают деньги как простой символ. С другой стороны, переоценка, в которой драгоценные металлы удерживались приверженцами меркантилистской системы, была обязана, без сомнения, их весьма превосходной полезности в качестве денег; ибо мы очень часто находим, что приверженцы этой школы настаивают на том, что драгоценные металлы должны обращаться (см. § 9 и § 210). Фон Шрёдер («Fürstl. Schatz- und Rentkammer», III f.) рассматривает новые медные монеты как увеличение национального богатства, но не другую медь, которая является лишь коммерческим товаром. Он часто называет деньги «pendulum commercii» (маятником торговли) и выражает идеи относительно них, столь же восторженные, сколь и неясные (стр. 86). Хорнек в своей работе «Oesterreich über Alles wenn es will» (1864) называет золото и серебро «нашей лучшей кровью, самым костным мозгом нашей силы» и «двумя самыми незаменимыми универсальными инструментами человеческой деятельности и существования» (стр. 188). Томас Ман («England's Treasure by forraign Trade», 1664, гл. 2) считает наличные деньги и ресурсы синонимами во всех отношениях. Только, говорит он (гл. 4), иногда целесообразно позволять своим деньгам оставаться в иностранных государствах, а дома использовать векселя, банки и т. д. в качестве замены. Ф. Джи («Trade and Commerce of Gr. Britain», издание 1738 г.) сетует на «упрямую глупость тех, кто считает деньги товаром, подобным любому другому». Одно из самых распространенных требований приверженцев меркантилистской системы заключается в том, чтобы отечественные золотые и серебряные рудники разрабатывались при любых жертвах, поскольку деньги, затраченные на их разработку, продолжают оставаться в стране, а вновь отчеканенный драгоценный металл является чистой прибылью. Ср. Шрёдер, loc. cit. 109 и сл., 181; Хорнек, loc. cit. 173; Броггиа, «Della Monete», 1743, гл. 33; фон Юсти, «Staatswirthschaft», 1755, I, 246; Форбонне, «Finances de France», 1758, I, 148; Ульоа, «Noticias Americanas», 1772, гл. 12. Мы редко встречаем правильный взгляд на этот предмет в XVII веке. Сюлли, о котором Генрих IV сказал, что он никогда не находил ничего, что обладало бы красотой, если оно стоило вдвое дороже своей реальной стоимости, временами придерживался его («Economies royales», LXXIII). Так же как и фон Зекендорф («Teutscher Fürstenstaat», 1655, 5-е изд.).
В соответствии с обычным ходом человеческого развития преувеличения меркантилистской системы привели к реакции, характеризующейся преувеличением в противоположном направлении. Даже Даванцати («Sulle Monete», 1588) возводит стоимость денег к человеческой конвенции и отказывается искать ее в природе. Натуральный теленок, считает он, «più nobile» (благороднее), чем золотой; хотя в другом месте он выражает свое восхищение драгоценными металлами, называет их «cagioni seconde della vita beata» (вторичными причинами блаженной жизни) и восхваляет их, потому что они доставляют нам «tutt'essi beni» (все эти блага) (20, 21, Cust.). Монтанари (ум. 1687) доказывает на примере использования кожаных денег и т. д., что авторитет государства — это единственная сила, которая придает деньгам их характер денег («Della Moneta», 35). Давенант (ум. 1714) доводит свою склонность называть деньги «слугой торговли, мерилом торговли» до того, что сравнивает их с билетом или жетоном («Works», I, 355, 444). Как бы сильно сам Лоу ни выступал против конвенциональной теории («Trade and Money», гл. I; «Sur l' Usage des Monnaies», 1720, стр. 1), его ученик Дюто в своих «Réflexions polit. sur le Commerce et les Finances» (1738, 905, изд. Daire) противопоставляет не только бумажные деньги, но и золото и серебро как представительное богатство реальному богатству. Беркли («Querist», 1735) учит, что реальное понятие денег — это не понятие «товара, стандарта, меры, залога, но [№ 23] билета или жетона, дающего право на власть и приспособленного для записи и передачи такой власти» (441, 475). Даже если названия «ливр», «шиллинг» и т. д. остаются, а металл отбрасывается, каждый предмет все равно может быть подсчитан и продан, промышленность поощрена, а ход торговли сохранен (стр. 440). Согласно Монтескье («О духе законов», XXI, 22), золото и серебро — это «richesse de fiction ou de signe» (фиктивное или знаковое богатство). Ср. «Персидские письма», II, 18. Бенджамин Франклин также утверждает, что стоимость золота, например, является преимущественно кредитной стоимостью («Remarks relative to the American Paper-Money», 1765, «Works», II, изд. Sparks). Форбонне («Finances de France», I, 86 f.) называет деньги просто средством для введения в обращение товаров, которые одни изначально имеют стоимость. Следовательно, само по себе безразлично, дает ли человек за определенное количество монеты один талер или десять. В «Eléments de Commerce» (I, 11, II, 67 и сл.) он проводит различие между «richesses naturelles» (сырье), «artificielles» (промышленные товары) и «richesses de convention» (деньги). Фон Шлёцер («Anfangsgründe», 1805, 100, 138) называет деньги чем-то воображаемым; а Томас Смит («Essay on the Theory of Money and Exchange», 1807) утверждает, что настоящие деньги — это лишь идеальная мера стоимости, представителями которой, в свою очередь, являются монеты. Ср., однако, «Edinb. Review», октябрь 1808 г. Оппенгейм («Die Natur des Geldes», 1855) признает, что в начале торговли деньги обладали характером товара; но говорит, что как только услуги обращения денежного товара возобладали над его услугами в потреблении, он потерял всякое значение для последней цели, и что все зависящие от этого отношения прекратились. В настоящее время, утверждает он, деньги являются лишь представителем товаров, но не товаром самим по себе. См., с другой стороны, критический анализ Рошера в «Literarisches Centralblatt», декабрь 1855 г.
Истинная доктрина была обоснована в классической форме Николаем Орезмским (ум. 1382). См. его «Tractatus de Origine et Jure nec non et Mutationibus Monetarum», заново отредактированный Волоским: Париж, 1864. См. эссе Рошера в «Comptes rendus of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques», т. 62, 435 и сл. На основе последнего у нас есть Габриэль Биль (ум. 1495), «De Monetarum Potestate simul et Utilitate», 1542, и Г. Агрикола, «De Re metallica», 1556, I, 4 и сл. Эта истинная доктрина была акклиматизирована раньше всего в Англии и Голландии, еще до того, как меркантилистская система вторглась в них. Ср. Гоббс, «Левиафан», 24, в котором «concoctio bonorum» (созидание благ) описывается посредством денег, и полную и ясную главу 12 Сальмазия «De Usuris» (1638), который, среди прочего, показывает, как Мидас, превращавший все в хлеб, умер от жажды. Петти очень ясно показывает, что национальное богатство не состоит исключительно или главным образом из денег. Каждая страна, говорит он, нуждается в определенном количестве денег для ведения торговли. Было бы расточительством увеличивать первые, если вторые остаются прежними. Но драгоценные металлы, в силу своей долговечности и общепризнанной ценности, обладают характером богатства в более высокой степени, чем другие товары.
В целом использование денег в нации подобно использованию жира в организме индивида («Quantulumcunque concerning Money», 1682). Ср. Рошер, «Zur Geschichte der eng. Volkswirthschaftslehre», 80 f. Даванцати и Гоббс сравнивали их с кровью, как это недавно сделал Шмиттеннер («Staatswissenschaften», 1839, I, 459). Норт называет деньги товаром, которого может быть как избыток, так и недостаток («Discourse on Trade», предисловие и послесловие). Ср. Локк, «Considerations on the Lowering of Interest», 1691, «Works» II, 13 и сл., 19. Галиани (1750, «Della Moneta», IV) занимает весьма удачное среднее место между алхимиками и философствующими презирателями золота. См. далее Кенэ, изд. Daire, 64, 75 и сл. Тюрго («Sur la Formation des Richesses», § 30 и сл.) имел много ясных взглядов на этот предмет. Верри («Meditazioni», 1771, II, 1) называет деньги универсально ходовым товаром. Выражения «мера стоимости», «залог», «представитель всех товаров» могли бы быть верны и для всех других товаров. Нельзя, однако, отрицать, что большинство современных политических экономистов не приняли достаточно во внимание особенности, которые отличают деньги от всех других товаров, что очевидно из доктрины торгового баланса, преобладавшей во времена Юма и Адама Смита. В этой степени, следовательно, полумеркантилистская реакция, инициированная Ганилем («Théorie de l'Economie politique», 1822, II, 380 и сл., 426), Сен-Шаманом («N. Essai sur la Richesse des Nations», 1824, гл. 3) и Колтоном («Public Economy for the United States», 1849, 203 и сл.), которые подчеркивают разницу между «деньгами как предметом» и «деньгами как инструментом торговли», была не совсем необоснованной. Адам Мюллер преувеличивает верную мысль и заставляет ее выродиться в своего рода мистическую шутку, когда называет деньгами каждого индивида в государстве и каждый товар, который обладает меновой стоимостью или социальным характером.
Высшая цель государства — развивать этот денежный характер все больше и больше («Elemente der Staatskunst», II, 194, 199). Государственный деятель, говорит он, должен быть деньгами (III, 206). Весьма ценная монография на эту тему — «De la Monnaie» М. Шевалье (1850), составляющая третий том его «Cours d'Economie politique». Книс («Geld und Credit», I, 1873) здесь наиболее основателен и остер, особенно в разделении четкими линиями демаркации пяти различных функций денег: мера стоимости (путем надлежащего деления на части: мера цены), инструмент обмена, средство транспортировки ценностей и средство накопления и сохранения ценностей.
693.Книс показывает, как придание деньгам статуса законного платежного средства государством, хотя и имеет лишь второстепенное значение, отнюдь не является неактуальным делом, поскольку лица должны тогда иметь их, даже если они не нуждаются в них для целей использования или обмена, чтобы погасить свои обязательства и т. д. («Tübinger Zeitschrift», 1858, 272).
Во всех этих случаях бартерная экономика (Naturalwirthschaft) сталкивается со все большими трудностями по мере развития цивилизации. Как, например, можно было бы погасить 50 дней ежегодной барщины или труда достижением единовременного выполнения 1000 дней барщины или труда? Богатому человеку деньги нужны главным образом как средство платежа, бедному — как средство обмена. Потребность народа в средствах платежа гораздо более подвержена расширению или сокращению, чем потребность в средствах обмена, особенно из-за вмешательства прав требования вместо денег (Книс, loc. cit., 200 и сл.). Равит («Beitr. z. Lehre vom Gelde») подчеркивает эту особенность денег слишком сильно, на манер юриста. Но он совершенно прав, принимая исключение rei vindicatio (виндикации) против добросовестного владельца как необходимое для завершения идеи денег.
694.Sismondi, N.P., I, 131, very rightly remarks that this has made practice as much easier as it has theory more difficult.695.Law, Trade and Money, 19. Hence, before the invention of money, scarcely anything but the things most indispensable to existence were produced. Were there no money, there would be very few scholars, artists etc.; for the classes who produce most of the things indispensable to existence make but few demands for them. Büsch, Geldumlauf, I, 11 ff., 36, II, 54.696.Turgot, Formation et Distribution, § 48 ff. Commodities which perish rapidly could be produced by persons devoting themselves to their production as a business only after the invention of small coin. (Lueder, N. Œk., 1820, 283.)697.Compare Knies, Geld und Credit, I, 219.698.Compare Schmitthenner, loc. cit., I, 457. One of the principal advantages of money consists in this, that every producer can discover what there is an over-supply or under-supply of in the nation, by means of the relation of the price in money of his products to the cost of producing them, estimated in money, (v. Thünen, Isolirte Staat, II, 2, 235.)699.Hence it is that so many socialists attack money. Th. More assures us that with the simple abolition of money, vice and misery would, for the most part, disappear of themselves. Hence in his Utopia, criminals are bound in golden chains and the chamber-pots are made of gold and silver in order to make these metals contemptible. (Ed. 1555, ff., 197 ff.) Similar views among the over-cultured Romans. (Compare §§ 79, 204.) Auri sacra fames. Virgil, Æneid, III, 56. Pliny, too, would recall the days of trade by barter. (H. N., XXXIII, 3.) Even in Boisguillebert, Factum de la France, ch. 4, we find, together with many correct views on the nature of money, passionate declamation against it because of its darker side. Argent criminel. (Détail de la France, 7. Dissertation sur la Nature des Richesses etc.) More recently this darker side has been dwelt upon by F. Möser, Patriot. Phant., I, 28; Ortes, Economia nazionale, II, 17, and the would-be restorer of the middle ages, Ad. Müller. While the latter writer lauds the feudal system as a “sublime fusion of person and thing” (Elemente I, 221), the present system of wages, because it is a system of compensation, he blames, and prefers the feudal for the opposite reason (?). “The only merit which the state recognizes in our day is one of service.” (III, 259.) Kosegarten, Geschichtliche systematische, Uebersicht der N. Oek., 1856, 146 ff., is no friend to the economic system to which money gives a distinctive character. Per contra, compare Bastiat, Maudit Argent, 1849.700.Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, 1763, ch. 2, adds as the third great invention the tableau économique of the Physiocrates. For a comparison of money and language, see Hamann, Werke, II, 135 ff., 509. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere, finds it characteristic of the race, that wine, writing with letters, and money, all owe their origin to the monotheistic stem of the Semitic people.701.Where every man becomes a merchant, and the society itself a commercial society. Ad. Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 4.702.Just as descriptive is the German word billig (equitable) for cheap. Here it is plain that language takes sides with the possessor of money!703.Контраст между бартерной экономикой и денежной экономикой имеет огромное и фундаментальное значение. Он повторяется с такой регулярностью в истории каждой высокоразвитой нации, что политические экономисты, одаренные восприятием исторического, не могли его не заметить. Так, Аристотель, например, устанавливает с величайшей тщательностью и точностью разницу между οἰκονομικὴ и χρηματιστικὴ, то есть между естественной экономикой и искусственной экономикой, соответствующую разнице между потребительной стоимостью и меновой стоимостью (Политика, I, 3, Schn.). Аналогично Д. Юм, который позволяет периоду роскоши, культуры, промышленности, торговли и мануфактур, свободы и денежного обращения предшествовать периоду, в котором чувство потребностей не пробуждено, в котором преобладают грубость и праздность, в котором преследуется только сельское хозяйство, а денежная экономика и свобода приходят в упадок и преобладает торговля путем бартера («Discourses», passim, особенно «On Interest» и «On Money»). Подобный контраст мы часто находим как одну из его фундаментальных мыслей у Дж. Стюарта.
О том, как обычно осуществляется переход от бартерной экономики к денежной, см. Ф. Г. Гофман, «Lehre vom Gelde», 1838, 176 и сл. В Тироле еще в 1820 году большая часть чисто механической работы, такой как работа кузнеца, плотника и прачки, была чисто феодальной обязанностью. С другой стороны, оплата деньгами была правилом в начале XIV века (Ф. Бейдерман, «Technische Bildung in Oesterreich», 3). Тем не менее, еще долгое время после этого функции меры стоимости выполнялись земельными участками, а функции инструмента обмена — скотом и натуральными продуктами (Арнольд, «Gesch. des Eigenth.», 207). Во Франции денежная экономика, т. е. торговля деньгами, приобрела значение раньше (Нич, «Ministerialität und Bürgerthum im 11. und 12. Jahr.», 143). Даже во времена Марии Стюарт шотландцы оценивали земельную ренту в «котлах с провизией» (Морисон, «Itinerary», 1617, III, 155). В древней Италии, в течение первых трех веков Рима, за исключением греческих колоний, существовала только торговля путем бартера. Моммзен («Римская история», I, 293) показывает, что старейшие ассы не были деньгами в высшем смысле этого слова, а принадлежали скорее к стадии бартерной экономики. С другой стороны, мы находим во времена классических юристов, как бы рабство ни ограничивало сферу действия денег, принцип: «pecuniæ nomine non solum numerata pecunia, sed omnes res, tam soli quam mobiles, et tam corpora quam jura continentur» («под именем денег понимаются не только наличные деньги, но и все вещи, как земельные, так и движимые, и как телесные, так и права») (L. 222, Дигесты L. 16; ср. 4, 5, 178). Аналогично у Цицерона, «Top. 6», «De Invent.», II, 21, «De Legg.», II, 19, 21; III, 3. Ср. Дионисий Галикарнасский, «N.R.», IV, 15.