“ In every prosperous community something more is produced than goes to the immediate support of the producer. ”
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). copy citation
| Author | Edmund Burke |
|---|---|
| Source | Reflections on the Revolution in France |
| Topic | support community |
| Date | 1790 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15679/15679-h/15679-h.htm#REFLECTIONS |
Context
“For the present I postpone all consideration of the supposed public profit of the sale, which, however, I conceive to be perfectly delusive. I shall here only consider it as a transfer of property. On the policy of that transfer I shall trouble you with a few thoughts.
In every prosperous community something more is produced than goes to the immediate support of the producer. This surplus forms the income of the landed capitalist. It will be spent by a proprietor who does not labor. But this idleness is itself the spring of labor, this repose the spur to industry. The only concern for the state is, that the capital taken in rent from the land should be returned again to the industry from whence it came, and that its expenditure should be with the least possible detriment to the morals of those who expend it and to those of the people to whom it is returned.”
source
