The Unproductive Class

¹⁴ The unproductive class is composed of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers.

It is maintained and employed at the expence of:

• the proprietor class,
• the cultivator class.

These two furnish the unproductive class with:

• raw materials,
• the fund of its subsistence,
• the corn and cattle it consumes while employed.

The proprietors and cultivators finally pay:

• The wages of all the unproductive class’ workers.
• The profits of all their employers.

Those workers and their employers are the servants of the proprietors and cultivators. They are servants who work outdoors. Menial servants are servants who work indoors.

Both are equally maintained at the expence of the same masters.

The labour of both is equally unproductive. It adds nothing to the total value of the rude produce. Instead of increasing the total value, it is an expence which must be paid out of it.

¹⁵ The unproductive class is greatly useful to the proprietor class and the cultivator class.

By the industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, the proprietors and cultivators can buy=

• foreign goods, and
• local manufactured goods.

They can buy them with their produce cheaper than if they made those goods themselves or imported them. Through the unproductive class, the cultivators can focus on cultivating instead of manufacturing or trading.

Their undivided attention creates superior produce. Their superior produce would be enough to pay for employing the unproductive classes. The industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers contributes indirectly to increase the produce of the land. It increases labour productivity by leaving it free to confine itself to cultivation. The plough gets easier and better by the labour of the man whose business is most remote from the plough.

¹⁶ It can never be the interest of the proprietors and cultivators to restrain or discourage the industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers.

The more the liberty of this unproductive class, the more the competition will be in all its trades. The proprietor and the cultivators classes can be supplied with cheaper goods.

¹⁷ It can never be the interest of the unproductive class to oppress the other two classes.

The surplus produce of the land maintains and employs the unproductive class. This surplus is what remains after deducting the maintenance of the=

• Cultivators and
• Proprietors

The greater this surplus, the greater the maintenance and employment of the unproductive class. The establishment of perfect justice, liberty, and equality is the very simple secret which most effectively secures the greatest prosperity to all three classes.

¹⁸ Holland and Hamburgh are mercantile states.

Their merchants, artificers, and manufacturers are maintained at the expence of the proprietors and cultivators of land. The only difference is that those proprietors and cultivators are at an inconvenient distance from the merchants, artificers, and manufacturers whom they supply.

Those merchants, artificers, and manufacturers live in other countries under other governments. Such mercantile states, however, are greatly useful to the people of those other countries. They fill up a very important void.

They supply the place of the merchants, artificers, and manufacturers who should be found at home. They cannot be found in their home country due some defect in their policy.

²⁰ It can never be the interest of those landed nations to distress the industry of such mercantile states by imposing high duties.

Such duties render their commodities dearer They sink the real value of the surplus produce of their own land with the high price of imported commodities. They only discourage the increase of that surplus produce. They discourage the improvement and cultivation of their own land. The most effective expedient, on the contrary, is to allow the most perfect freedom of trade to all mercantile nations.

This will:

• raise the value of their own surplus produce,
• encourage its increased value,
• encourage the improvement and cultivation of their own land.

²¹ This perfect freedom of trade is even the most effectual expedient for=

Supplying them with all the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants they wanted at home. Filling up in the most proper and advantageous way that very important void which they felt there.

²² In time, the continual increase of the surplus produce of their land would create more capital than could be employed with ordinary profit.

The surplus capital would naturally turn to employ artificers and manufacturers at home. At home, they would find raw materials and the fund of their subsistence. They might immediately be able to work as cheap as the artificers and manufacturers of mercantile states, even though with less skill. Local manufacturers might be able to sell their goods at home as cheap as the goods of mercantile states. Those foreign goods might be sourced very far away, increasing its price. As their art and skill improved, they would soon be able to sell it cheaper. The artificers and manufacturers of such mercantile states would immediately be rivalled in the market of those landed nations. They will be soon undersold and jostled out of it altogether. The gradual improvements of art and skill would increase the cheapness of the manufactures of those landed nations. In due time, those manufactures will extend their sale to foreign markets. They will gradually jostle out many of the manufacturers of mercantile nations.

²³ In due time, this continual increase of the produce of those landed nations would create more capital than could be employed in agriculture or in manufactures with the ordinary rate of profit.

This surplus capital would naturally turn to foreign trade. It would be employed in exporting its own country’s surplus produce.

The merchants of a landed nation would have an advantage over merchants of mercantile nations in the same way that the artificers and manufacturers of mercantile nations had over those of landed nations.

The merchants of a landed nation will have at home the cargo, stores, and provisions which foreign merchants seek.

With inferior navigation skills, they would be able to sell that cargo as cheap overseas as the merchants of mercantile nations. With equal navigation skills, they would be able to sell it cheaper.

They would soon rival those mercantile nations in foreign trade and jostle them out in due time.