John Taylor of Caroline

“ What should we say of the household economist, who should keep a train of idle servants, surrender to them all his keys, entrust them with all his money, and buy of them all his necessaries at double prices? Would not his system of economy be the same with that of a nation, which creates a train of idle capitalists by exclusive privileges, surrenders to them all the keys of individual interest, intrusts them with its currency, and buys of them its necessaries at double prices? The similitude fails according to the Committee, because we choose our governments. ”

“ But there is nothing either new or miraculous in the capacity of a system of extravagance, exclusive privileges, and monopolies, to produce national distress. How could it happen that exchanges of property with foreigners should ruin us, but that transfers of property to capitalists should do us no harm? In one case we receive an equivalent estimated by ourselves; in the other, we receive no equivalent at all. Is sudden ruin from a great importation of property more likely to ensue, than ultimate ruin from our progressive policy of transferring property from industry to capitalists? ”

“ We beseech him to deliver us out of a gulf of distress, and plunge ourselves deeper and deeper into it. Are bad political principles infectious like the plague, and can our constitutions afford us only a quarantine against them of forty years, after which we are to use no precautions against their liberty-killing effect, in imitation of the apathy with which the Turks behold that body-killing pestilence?
Such is that species of political economy which pursues the money, the food, and the clothing of individuals. Like money, political economy has two souls. ”

“ Of what value to the people are the means of consumption, if the government can control their use? One is almost a perfect idea of liberty, and the other of despotism. Can any power be more tyrannical than one which prescribes to its slaves what they shall eat, drink, or wear? Yes. A power to transfer from industry that portion of its profits by which the most agreeable gratifications can only be purchased, to the augmentation of another's capital. Before the last union, the means of consumption, and the liberty of applying those means, resided in the people of the States. ”

“ When the fat-sow monopoly, confesses that she has swilled wealth, until her corpulency had become distressing, it would be like murder to pour more down her throat, and run the risk of bursting her. What should we think of a physician who should propose to make the nose larger than the whole body, by converting the aliment of the other members to its growth? Would he be a bad model of the politicians who have bloated up a capitalist interest to a pecuniary plethora, by starving down the other members of the body politick, to a pecuniary famine? ”

“ It is a bird of passage, and when it cannot find food in one country, it flees to another. If we purchase this fugitive at the expense of establishing privileges, monopolies, and heavy taxation, the necromancer, Commerce, waves its wand, and presto, it is gone; but the Tyranny incurred to obtain it, hangs upon our necks for ever. Let us not give a valuable estate, of which we have been so proud, for a slave who will infallibly run way. Suppose a balance of trade should bring us ten millions annually in hard money, and even that we could retain it for ever. ”

“ Such is the policy which has arrayed class against class in Europe, and marshaled all its nations into domestic combinations, envenomed against each other by an ardour to get or to keep the patronage of their governments. These patrons make their clients pay the enormous fees they covet. As no government can patronize one class but at the expense of others, partialities to its clients beget mutual fears, hopes, and hatreds, and bring grist to those who grind them for toll. Even brothers, whom nature makes friends, are converted into enemies by parental partialities. ”

“ Our new system of political economy is proposed as a permanent policy. The stay-laws pretend to the benevolent intention of benefiting the poor, and relieving the distressed. Our system of compulsory political economy proposes to give bounties to the rich at the expense of the poor, to be exacted by their own consciences in the valuation of their own wares. The stay-laws are honest in theory, but fraudulent in operation. The compulsory system of political economy is foul in theory, and less fair in its operation between capitalists and consumers, than stay-laws between debtor and creditor. ”

“ It is the cement of the holy alliance between frauds, abuses, and oppressions of every complexion, and of every degree of malignity to human happiness. The cruelty of restoring their own to the people, and of preferring the happiness of a multitude to the luxury of a few, causes the crocodile power, to shed affected tears of compassion, and is used for alluring unwary victims to their ruin. Chaptal uses England as a scare-crow to frighten France, not out of, but into the policy, which he says is a violation of the laws of nature. ”

“ Will the partialities of a government between different classes promote the harmony and happiness of society? Is not their discord the universal consequence of the fraudulent power assumed by governments, of allotting to classes and individuals indigence or wealth, according to their own pleasure? Has not the English parliament been fatigued for centuries with eternal petitions, remonstrances, and lamentations from the artificial combinations it has created, or the natural classes it has favoured or oppressed, soliciting partialities, and deploring their pernicious effects? ”

“ Is this chasm so wide and deep, that the national distress cannot be discerned in its bottom?
The disciples of the capacity of currency for transferring property, are more ardent and skilful than those who are contented with its utility in exchanging it, because the cultivation of that capacity is their trade, in which they become perfect by practice; and because mankind have ever thought it very pleasant to get rich without industry. Hence a school appears in every country for teaching nations that taxation, stocks, and exclusive privileges, are the best guardians of their prosperity. ”

“ This never-ceasing fluctuation is the basis of commerce, the invigorator of industry, and the equalizer of comforts. It is also the appraiser of money, and bills of exchange are used to execute its valuations. As money itself has no fixed value, the exchange of this emblem of commodities rises or falls, as the value of the substances it represents locally fluctuates. The shadow will go in spite of laws, wherever it can acquire most substance. A balance of money may be against a nation, and yet a balance of trade in its favour. ”

“ An absence of similitude precludes the possibility of imitation. A free nation is not like an European government, nor an European government like a free nation. The wealth and splendour of a government, is seldom or never the wealth and splendour of a nation. Even our government cannot be likened to the British government, because it has not the foreign possessions, the tributes of which enable the British government to persevere in its system of extravagance, bounties, exclusive privileges, and oppressive taxation. ”

“ Each of the artificial occupations embrace only a minority in every State. Supposing that cotton planters and other cultivators of local products, ought by law to be made profitable to a majority of States, ought not the capitalists to be made profitable to a majority of the people according to the same principle? Is it not infinitely more grossly violated by making these cotton planters profitable to an inconsiderable number of capitalists, than it would be by leaving them at liberty to make the most of their product by a freedom of exchange. ”

“ A waste of our republican principles certainly involves a waste of our money. Have the monopolies, extravagance, and exclusive privileges of European governments, saved the money of the people? No, but it is said, that the loss, both of liberty and money, caused by the political economy which minutely regulates the interest of individuals in Europe, proceeds from the badness of the governments, and that ours, being a good one, it can guard abuses against abuse, and make tyrannical principles the saviours of civil liberty. ”

“ Do either the principles which recommend a division of labour, or soils, or climates, or habits, suggest the policy of making each State a jack of all trades? Is not Georgia a market for manufactures, and Rhode-Island a market for cotton, in consequence of the division of labour? If this division is highly beneficial to mankind throughout the civilized world, ought it to be impaired by making one species of labour tributary to another? ”

“ It is a political loom driven by the steam of avarice, manufacturing tapestry for some and dowlas for others. Governments shoot the shuttle to weave golden garlands for themselves; and if the distribution of the two manufactures is complained of, they assert their patriotism by protestations, and their confederates exclaim, "a government of our own choice, like kings, can do no wrong." Though the capitals of exclusive privileges are no fictions, but woeful realities to those from whom they are drawn, let us use the terms, real and fictitious, to illustrate a necessary distinction. ”

“ Capitalists are undoubtedly more local, and will be guided by an interest more exclusive, than that national interest subservient to the natural divisions of labour. How then can the general good be advanced by sacrificing the interest of this vast majority to the purpose of enriching a very small minority; by inflicting a deep wound upon all the natural divisions of labour, for the purpose of bestowing a monopoly, operating upon and impoverishing the whole of them, to create a local and exclusive class of capitalists? ”

“ Should we be a cent the richer for it? Would it not depreciate like local paper money, the moment it exceeded the demand for employment? If we could find the undiscovered secret of prohibiting its exportation, and deprive it of its emigrating character, the accumulation of specie by a constant pecuniary balance of trade, would only produce the same effects as an accumulation of local paper money by the operation of the press, and only invest us with the blessings of depreciation. We should grow numerically richer, as a miser would by converting dollars into cents. ”

“ Suppose our household economist had employed a train of servants, but upon the suggestion of another train desirous of getting into their places, that they were deranging his affairs, he should displace them and employ the friendly informers. If the new servants should embarrass his affairs more than the old did, would he say to them, "well done, ye good and faithful servants?" In all these views, household economy is no bad mirror for reflecting that species of political economy, managed by successive parties, as an engine for transferring property. ”

“ Would not our adoption of the same policy, be a tacit accession to this nefarious conspiracy? If our republican party, consumed by the rays of power, has died a natural death, may we not still hope that a new phenix will arise from its ashes, and again excite the admiration of the world by the beautiful plumage of frugality and equal laws, for increasing individual happiness; instead of towering above the people, in the European turban composed of exclusive privileges, extravagance, oppressive taxation, and an overflowing treasury. ”

“ If no tyranny can be more complete and more tormenting, than one which dictates to individuals in all their comforts and enjoyments; which prohibits some and enhances the price of others to enrich capitalists; the argument that we ought to establish this tyrannical species of political economy, because other nations have done so, is precisely of the same value, as the argument for introducing monarchy, aristocracy, or any other species of oppression, because other nations have established them. ”

“ If it pollutes a State government, will Congress be purified by an absolute power over property, and by patronizing itself with high wages and protracted sessions? Our distresses answer the question with melancholy veracity. Must not legislatures pull the mote out of their own eyes, before they can introduce a general system of frugality? No policy can be worse than that of bribing representatives by high wages, to entail lasting evils upon their country ”

“ As the protecting duty system is designed to make agricultural States profitable to capitalist factories, it must of course make all agricultural individuals, wherever situated, profitable also to them. How can this avowed object be reconciled with the pretence, that this system will be profitable to agriculturists? Can States and individuals both pay a tribute to factory monopolists, and also exact from them a greater tribute? Does not profit and loss require two parties? ”

“ A policy for transferring property by exclusive privileges, pensions, bounties, monopolies and extravagance, constitutes the essence of the British monopoly, and is sustained by a conspiracy between the government and those who are enriched by it, for fleecing the people. This policy is the most efficacious system of tyranny, practicable over civilized nations. It is able to subject the rights of man, if men have any rights, to ambition and avarice. It can as easily deprive nations of the right of self-government as it can rob individuals of their property. ”