I hear that middle-men are accused of monopoly. Without question, the
monopoly of authority is, in every instance and in every degree, an
evil; but the monopoly of capital is the contrary. It is a great
benefit, and a benefit particularly to the poor. A tradesman who has but
a hundred pound capital, which (say) he can turn but once a year, cannot
live upon a _profit_ of ten per cent, because he cannot live upon ten
pounds a year; but a man of ten thousand pounds capital can live and
thrive upon five per cent profit in the year, because he has five
hundred pounds a year. The same proportion holds in turning it twice or
thrice. These principles are plain and simple; and it is not our
ignorance, so much as the levity, the envy, and the malignity of our
nature, that hinders us from perceiving and yielding to them: but we are
not to suffer our vices to usurp the place of our judgment.
The balance between consumption and production makes price. The market
settles, and alone can settle, that price. Market is the meeting and
conference of the _consumer_ and _producer_, when they mutually discover
each other's wants. Nobody, I believe, has observed with any reflection
what market is, without being astonished at the truth, the correctness,
the celerity, the general equity, with which the balance of wants is
settled. They who wish the destruction of that balance, and would fain
by arbitrary regulation decree that defective production should not be
compensated by increased price, directly lay their _axe_ to the root of
production itself.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162