Essai sur la Nature du Commerce in Général (Essay on the Nature of Trade in General)

Part I, Chapter XI

Of the Par or Relation between the Value of Land and Labour

It does not appear that Providence has given the Right of the Possession of Land to one Man preferably to another: the most ancient titles are founded on Violence and Conquest. The Lands of Mexico now belong to the Spaniards and those at Jerusalem to the Turks. But howsoever people come to the property and possession of Land we have already observed that it always falls into the hands of a few in proportion to the total inhabitants.

If the Proprietor of a great Estate keeps it in his own hands he will employ Slaves or free men to work upon it. If he has many Slaves he must have Overseers to keep them at work: he must likewise have Slave craftsmen to supply the needs and conveniencies of life for himself and his workers, and must have trades taught to others in order to carry on the work.

In this oeconomy he must allow his Labouring Slaves their subsistence and wherewithal to bring up their Children. The Overseers must allow Advantages proportionable to the confidence and authority which he gives them. The Slaves who have been taught a craft must be maintained without any return during the time of their Apprenticeship and the artisan Slaves and their Overseers who should be competent in the crafts must have a better subsistence than the labouring Slaves, etc. since the loss of an Artisan would be greater than that of a Labourer and more care must be taken of him having regard to the expense of training another to take his place.

On this assumption the labour of an adult Slave of the lowest class is worth at least as much as the quantity of Land which the Proprietor is obliged to allot for his food and necessaries and also to double the Land which serves to breed a Child up till he is of age fit for labour, seeing half the children that are born die before the age of 17, according to the calculations and observations of the celebrated Dr Halley. So that two children must be reared up to keep one of them till working age and it would seem that even this would not be enough to ensure a continuance of Labour since adult Men die at all ages.

It is true that the one half of the Children who die before 17 die faster in the first years after birth than in the following, since a good third of those who are born die in their first year. This seems to diminish the cost of raising a Child to working age, but as the Mothers lose much time in nursing their Children in illness and infancy and the Daughters even when grown up are not the equals of the Males in work and barely earn their living, it seems that to keep one of two Children to manhood or working age as much Land must be employed as for the subsistence of an adult Slave, whether the Proprietor raises them himself in his house or has the children raised there or that the Father brings them up in a House or Hamlet apart. Thus I conclude that the daily labour of the meanest Slave corresponds in value to double the produce of the Land required to maintain him, whether the Proprietor give it him for his subsistence and that of his Family or provides him and his Family subsistence in his own house. It does not admit of exact calculation, and exactitude is not very necessary; it suffices to be near enough to the truth.

If the Proprietor employ the Labour of Vassals or free Peasants he will probably maintain them upon a better foot than Slaves according to the custom of the place he lives in, yet in this case also the Labour of a free Labourer ought to correspond in value to double the produce of Land needed for his maintenance. But it will always be more profitable to the Proprietor to keep Slaves than to keep free Peasants, because when he has brought up a number too large for his requirements he can sell the surplus Slaves as he does his cattle and obtain for them a price proportionable to what he has spent in rearing them to manhood or working age, except in cases of old age or infirmity.

In the same way on may appraise the Labour of slave craftsmen at twice the produce of the Land which they consume. Overseers likewise, allowing for the favours and privileges given to them above those who work under them.

When the Artisans or Labourers have their double portion at their own disposal they employ one part of it for their own upkeep if they are married and the other for their Children. If they are unmarried they set aside a little of their double portion to enable them to marry and to make a little store for housekeeping; but most of them will consume the double portion for their own maintenance.

For example the married Labourer will content himself with Bread, Cheese, Vegetables, etc., will rarely eat meat, will drink little wine or beer, and will have only old and shabby clothes which he will wear as long as he can. The surplus of his double portion he will employ in raising and keeping his children, while the unmarried Labourer will eat meat as often as he can, will treat himself to new cloaths, etc. and employ his double portion on his own requirements. Thus he will consume twice as much personally of the produce of the Land as the married man.

I do not here take into account the expense of the Wife. I suppose that her Labour barely suffices to pay for her own living, and when one sees a large number of little Children in one of these poor families I suppose that charitable persons contribute somewhat to their maintenance, otherwise the Parents must deprive themselves of some of their necessaries to provide a living for their Children.

For the better understanding of this it is to be observed that a poor Labourer may maintain himself, at the lowest computation, upon the produce of an Acre and a half of Land if he lives on bread and vegetables, wears hempen garments, wooden shoes, etc., while if he can allow himself wine, meat, woollen cloaths, etc. he may without drunkenness or gluttony or excess of any kind consume the produce of 4 to 10 acres of Land of ordinary goodness, such as most of the Land in Europe taking part with another. I have caused some figures to be drawn up which will be found in the Supplement, to determine the amount of Land of which one man can consume the produce under each head of Food, Clothing, and other necessaries of life in a single year, according to the mode of living in Europe where the Peasants of divers countries are often nourished and maintained very differently.

For this reason I have not determined to how much Land the Labour of the meanest Peasant corresponds in Value when I laid down that it is worth double the produce of the Land which serves to maintain him: because this varies according to the mode of living in different countries. In some southern Provinces of France the Peasant keeps himself on the produce of one acre and a half of Land and the value of his Labour may be reckoned equal to the product of Three Acres. But in the County of Middlesex the Peasant usually spends the produce of 5 to 8 acres of Land and his Labour may be valued at twice as much as this.

In the country of the Iroquois where the inhabitants do not plough the Land and live entirely by Hunting, the meanest Hunter may consume the produce of 50 Acres of Land since it probably requires so much to support the animals he eats in one year, especially as these Savages have not the industry to grow grass by cutting down the trees but leave everything to nature. The Labour of this Hunter may then be reckoned equal in value to the product of 100 acres of Land. In the southern Provinces of China the Land yields Rice up to three crops in one year and a hundred times as much as is sown, owing to the great care which they have of Agriculture and the fertility of the soil which is never fallow. The Peasants who work there almost naked live only on Rice and drink only Rice water, and it appears that one Acre will support there more than 10 Peasants. It is not surprising, therefore, that the population is prodigious in number. In any case it seems from these examples that Nature is altogether indifferent whether the Earth produce grass, trees, or grain, or maintains a large or small number of Vegetables, Animals, or Men.

Farmers in Europe seem to correspond to Overseers of labouring Slaves in other Countries, and the Master Tradesmen who employ several Journeymen to the Overseers of Artisan Slaves. These Masters know pretty well how much work a journeyman Artisan can do in a day in each Craft, and often pay them in proportion to the work they do, so that the Journeymen work for their own interest as hard as they can without further inspection.

As the Farmers and Masters of Crafts in Europe are all Undertakers working at a risk, some get rich and gain more than a double subsistence, others are ruined and become bankrupt, as will be explained more in detail in treating of Undertakers; but the majority support themselves and their Families from day to day, and their Labour or Superintendence may be valued at about thrice the produce of the Land which serves for their maintenance.

Evidently these Farmers and Master Craftsmen, if they superintend the Labour of 10 Labourers or Journeymen, would be equally capable of superintending the Labour of 20, according to the size of their Farms or the number of their customers, and this renders uncertain the value of their Labour or Superintendence.

By these examples and others which might be added in the same sense, it is seen that the value of the day’s work has a relation to the produce of the soil, and that the intrinsic value of any thing may be measured by the quantity of Land used in its production and the quantity of labour which enters into it, in other words by the quantity of Land of which the produce is allotted to those who have worked upon it; and as all the Land belongs to the Prince and the Landowners all things which have this intrinsic value have it only at their expense.

The Money or Coin which finds the proportion of Values in exchange is the most certain measure for judging of the Par between Land and labour and the relation of one to the other in different Countries where this Par varies according to the greater or less produce of the Land allotted to those who labour.

If, for example, one man earn an ounce of silver every day by his work, and another in the same place earn only half an ounce, one can conclude that the first has as much again of the produce of the Land to dispose of as the second.