ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

BOOK I.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

CHAPTER I.

THE MEANING OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE.

§ 1. Definition and Object of Political

Economy.

THE term "political economy," first used by Aristotle in the second book of his Economica, and then by Antoine de Montchrétien, the author of a Traité de l'Économie Politique, published at Rouen in 1615, comes from three Greek words: Oikos, house; nomos, law; and polis, city or state. It denotes, therefore, the law, or laws, which ought to direct the administration of property in the state, that is, in society. Such is, in fact, the object of economic science.

B

Human beings have wants, and, when united in societies, observe customs or laws. To satisfy these wants, they have their intelligence and their arms, which they employ in the production of useful objects. How should they be organised, or, in other terms, what laws should they adopt, in order to attain by their labour to the fullest and most rational satisfaction of their wants? This is the problem of which political economy seeks the solution.

Political economy has to do with legislation. It seeks an ideal the same as moral science, law, or politics. Almost all the economical questions that come under discussion are questions of legislation— such as the reform of the laws relating to custom duties, of the land laws, of the laws on currency, of credit, of banking, companies, factory labour, railways, taxation, &c. The justice of these questions must be solved by the study of equity, their utility by the study of statistical and historical facts.

The father of political economy, Adam Smith, defined it perfectly when he said that it proposed two distinct objects: first, to put the people in the way of procuring for themselves an ample subsistence; and, secondly, to furnish the state with a revenue sufficient for the public service.

The very name of Adam Smith's book, The Wealth of Nations, shows that the object is to determine what is conducive to the production of wealth, and what hinders such production. As has

been well said by Droz: "Political economy is a science whose object is to make comfort as general as possible." Bossuet, again, speaking of politics, said that "their true end is to make life easy and nations happy;" and such is also the aim of political economy.

The doctor ought to know the human body, to diagnose its ailments and prescribe remedies for them, as well as the course of life which will preserve health. This is precisely what the economist has to do for society. He must know minutely the mechanism of the social body, must point out those laws and customs which bring misery upon it, and describe the system most favourable to the creation of comfort by means of labour.

Political economy may therefore be defined as "the science which determines what laws men ought to adopt in order that they may, with the least possible exertion, procure the greatest abundance of things useful for the satisfaction of their wants; may distribute them justly, and consume them rationally."

§ 2. What Political Economy is not.

Political economy is commonly defined as "the science which describes the methods of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth." This definition is altogether inaccurate. The modes of producing wealth are described in industrial manuals or treatises on agriculture; the mode of its distribu

tion is the subject of statistics; the account of its consumption the history of the daily life of the various nations.

Political economy is not an exact science, for it is concerned with the wants of man, which constantly vary, and with his actions, which are free. Neither strict definitions nor methods of mathematical deduction are applicable to it.

Political economy is not a physical science, for it does not deal with commodities considered in themselves, i.e., as material objects, but with the laws that assist the production of these commodities; and these laws are relations of the moral order.

Nor yet is political economy a branch of the natural history of man, for it does not inquire how he arrives at producing what he consumes, but what the institutions are which allow of his doing this to the best advantage.

Again, it is not, as is so often asserted, "the science of labour." Descartes' idea of this latter science is this : " There is a practical science, by means of which, understanding the nature of force and the action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all the bodies which surround us as clearly as we understand the various crafts of our artisans, we might in the same manner put these agents to all the uses for which they are adapted, and so make ourselves masters and owners of nature."

Political

The science of labour is technology. economy has quite another object. It seeks to dis

cover the laws, whether moral, religious, political, civil, or commercial, which are most favourable to the efficiency of labour. It does not teach us how to cultivate the soil, or to work mines, or to make bread. All this is strictly the science of labour.

CHAPTER II.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN POLITICAL ECONOMY AND OTHER MORAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES.

POLITICAL economy is one branch of the group of sciences, the object of which is the study of human societies, and which are known in the present day by the name of Sociology.

§ 1. Connection between Political Economy and Philosophy or Religion.

Political economy, regarding man as pursuing the useful, is subordinate to the sciences which regard man as pursuing the good and the true, that is to say, to religion or philosophy. These discuss what are the nature and destiny of man, and the use individuals or societies make of their time and of their property depends on the idea which they form of man's destiny. The doctrines which see in man nothing but a body, and in life nothing but an existence of a few moments, stolen from nothingness,