Wilhelm Roscher

“ From this time forward, the usual seeking of prices for a level requires that our commodity should, like all others which suppose an equal sacrifice of the means of production, claim an equal value in exchange. If from any peculiar causes, the production of this commodity is not at all possible, or if it is capable of no great extension, its price, which would under the circumstances, be limited only by the purchasing power of the buyer, might attain the utmost extreme reached in prices under the spur of vanity or of the mere love of the commodity itself. ”

“ From the moment that Political Economy ceases to be considered a new science, it finds a long series of ancestors behind it, since it is compelled to investigate a past to which so many bonds unite it. This duty may increase its difficulties, but, at the same time, it singularly adds to the attractions of a study which, instead of presenting us only with the arid deductions of dogmatism, comes to us with all the freshness and all the color of life. ”

“ The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480 Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. ”

“ This shows us how firm and unshaken are those reforms which have begun by taking hold of the minds of men, the precise spirit of which had penetrated into the souls of whole nations before they had manifested themselves in facts.
Law and Economy constitute a part of the life of nations in the same way that language and customs do. The power of history in no way contradicts the supremacy of reason. ”

“ Henceforth, there is no security for the stability of the world but in the contentment of minds. There is no rest for mankind, unless men will understand the conditions of their destiny; unless, instead of running,
“Toujours insatiable et jamais assouvis,” after the intoxicating cup of material enjoyment—for wants not governed by the intellect and the heart are infinite in number, and the gratification of one gives birth to another—they submit to the law of sacrifice, and give play to the noblest faculty with which the Creator has endowed us, moral empire over self. ”

“ If the productiveness of an employment of the factors of production be made to depend on whether it is attended by a material result, no one will deny that the labor of the plowman, for instance, is productive; and no one, of Adam Smith's school, at least, that that of the clerk, who orders the raw material for the owner of the manufactory, is. They have participated indirectly in the production. But, has not the servant of the state, who protects the property of its citizens, or the physician, who preserves the health of the producer, an equally mediate but indispensable share in it? ”

“ Adam Müller is a writer who deserves recognition for his advocacy of national economy, and of the state as a whole, paramount to individuals, and even generations. He gives war the credit of causing the scientific knowledge of the state to cast deeper roots, and of enlightening individuals in the most forcible way, that they are parts of one great whole. (Elemente der Staatskunst, 1809, I, 7, 113) . He calls public economy, as a whole, the product of all products. What, he inquires, is the use of all wealth, if it does not guarantee itself? ”

“ With an advance in a people's public economy, we find an increased rapidity of circulation connected, both as cause and effect. Every improvement, every thing which shortens the process of production, must facilitate and accelerate the circulation of commodities. And so, the perfecting of the means of transport of commodities, of the media of exchange and of credit, an increase in the number of middlemen who make it their business to purchase in order to sell again. On the other hand, the more rapid the circulation of wealth, the more can it promote production. ”

“ Science has preceded art.
In the foremost rank of the studies just referred to is philosophy, which initiates us into the knowledge of human nature, the basis of right, and which translates its legitimate aspirations into a language which we can understand; history, that prophetess of the truth, as one of the ancients called it, which places before us the faithful picture of times past, not by simply putting together a skeleton of facts, but by following the living progress of events and the organic development of institutions. ”

“ We shall meet on this road, hard of ascent, not only peace of soul, but goods, more real and more numerous, than those with which the allurements of error would dazzle our eyes. The greatest obstacles to be overcome are not material ones, but moral difficulties. As Franklin says, in substance, he that tells you you can succeed, in any way but by labor and economy, is a quack. ”

“ Doubtless, it is not in their modern forms that the elements of politico-economical science are to be found, in the past. But when we succeed in reuniting the scattered and broken parts; when we have made our way into the customs, decrees, ordinances, capitularies, laws and regulations of those times; when, so to speak, we come, unaware, upon the life of nations, in the most ingenuous and confidential documents which reflect it most faithfully because most simply, we may well be astonished at the results obtained. ”

“ This liberty has no need of Political Economy to shine with the luster of evidence; nothing can prevail against it. We can prove that it is as fecund as it is respectable; but if the science of wealth should endeavor to demonstrate the contrary, the primordial bases of society, liberty, property and the family would not be less sacred nor less necessary, for they are the right of humanity. ”

“ The more universal division of labor makes commercial intercourse more necessary to every one, at the same time that it makes it more of a habit to him; and hence exchange ceases more and more to be a matter of caprice or chance. The better means of transportation and communication render it easier, in every way, for supply and demand to meet. With the advance of general enlightenment and education, an acquaintance with commodities also becomes more general, and every purchaser is on a better way to be able to estimate the cost of production which the seller has to bear. ”

“ It teaches moderation instead of exciting covetousness, nor does it come in conflict with the sublime words of Saint Augustine: “The family of men, living by faith, use the goods of the earth as strangers here, not to be captivated by them or turned away by them from the goal to which they tend, which is God, but to find in them a support which, far from aggravating, lightens the burthen of this perishable body which weighs down the soul.” ”

“ Victor Cousin, a very competent authority on the subject, has said that the history of philosophy is the torch of philosophy itself. The remarkable works which have enriched it in this direction are well known. History, on its side, is enlightened by philosophy. Thus, it teaches us not to despise facts, but at the same time not to be slaves to precedent. It does equal justice to the incredulous and to the fanatic, to too supple practitioners and to intractable theorizers. ”

“ But where the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride on the one side and envy on the other rage! and especially in the foci of industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. ”

“ Liberty is not license. It refuses to bend under the yoke, [pg 038] but it submits to rule. The mission of authority is not to constrain, but to counsel; not to command, but to help accomplish; not to absorb individual activity, but to develop it. It does not pretend to raise a convenient indifference on the part of government, nor the indolent withdrawal of all protective influence to the dignity of a principle. ”

“ But how little can unassisted nature do to satisfy human wants! How much less to produce goods possessed of value in exchange! A virgin forest, for instance, sold in its natural state, has, indeed, value in exchange, but only because it is taken into account that it can be cleared, and that there are means of transportation already existing.301 The greater part of the forces of nature are latent to nomads and nations of hunters. When labor develops, they are set free to assist it.302 It is very seldom that any thing can be produced without capital. ”

“ The more confidence increases, the more are even the smallest driblets of capital awakened from their slumbers, and made active and productive. It is only by means of credit that the help of foreign capital can be obtained for home production. Indeed, credit, considered as an exchange of probable future goods against actually existing goods, is one of the principal functions of the temporal solidarity of the economy of nations. ”

“ Petty shows very clearly that national wealth does not consist exclusively nor mainly in money. Every country, he says, needs a certain quantity of money to carry on trade. It would be a waste to increase the former, the latter remaining the same. But the precious metals, by reason of their durability and universally recognized value, possess the character of wealth in a higher degree than other commodities.
On the whole, the use of money in a nation is like the use of fat in the individual. ”

“ Man ceases to be an inert element, and manifests himself as a sensible being, and the sublime thought of Pascal: “Humanity is like one man who lives and learns always,” is verified by the result. The wish to violently abdicate the past, it would be vain and rash to attempt to realize. The lessons it transmits to us are as instructive as the picture it unrolls before our eyes is attractive. We have no longer but to see and hear, to be cured of the most generous impatience with what is, and to retreat from the most perilous attempts. ”

“ In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up. ”