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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) THE AIM OF THIS WORK - Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship
THE AIM OF THIS WORK - Étienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac, Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship [1776]Edition used:Commerce and Government Considered in their Mutual Relationship, translated by Shelagh Eltis, with an Introduction to His Life and Contribution to Economics by Shelagh Eltis and Walter Eltis (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008).
About Liberty Fund:Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright information:This book was originally published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 1997, copyright 1997 by Shelagh Eltis and Walter Eltis. Reprinted by permission of Edward Elgar Publishing.
Fair use statement:
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- Preface
- The Life and Contribution to Economics of the AbbÉ De Condillac
- 1: Étienne Bonnot, Abbé De Condillac, 1714–1780
- 2: The Economics of the Abbé De Condillac
- 3: The Editions of Commerce and Government
- Annex:: a Note On French Currency, Monetary Values, and Weights and Measures 100
- Commerce and Government
- The Aim of This Work
- First Part: Elementary Propositions On Commerce, Determined According to the Assumptions Or Principles of Economic Science
- 1: The Basis of the Value of Things
- 2: The Basis of the Price of Things
- 3: Of Price Variations
- 4: Of Markets Or Places Where Those Who Need to Make Exchanges Congregate
- 5: What Is Meant By Trade
- 6: How Trade Increases the Mass of Wealth
- 7: How Needs, In Multiplying, Give Birth to the Arts, and How the Arts Increase the Mass of Wealth
- 8: Of Wages
- 9: Of Wealth From Land and Movable Wealth
- 10: Through What Types of Labour Wealth Is Produced, Distributed and Preserved
- 11: The Origin of Towns
- 12: Of the Right of Ownership
- 13: Of Metals Considered As Merchandise
- 14: Of Metals Considered As Coinage
- 15: That Silver, Used As a Measure of Value, Has Brought Misunderstanding About the Value of Things
- 16: Of the Circulation of Money
- 17: Of Exchange
- 18: Of Lending At Interest
- 19: Of the Comparative Value of the Metals From Which Coins Are Made
- 20: Of the True Price of Things
- 21: Of Monopoly
- 22: Of the Circulation of Grain
- 23: Corn Considered As a Measure of Value
- 24: How Production Regulates Itself According to Consumption
- 25: Of the Use of Land
- 26: Of the Employment of Men In a Society Which Has Simple Tastes
- 27: Of Luxury
- 28: Of Taxation, the Source of Public Income
- 29: Of the Respective Wealth of Nations
- 30: A Concise Recapitulation of the First Part
- Second Part: Commerce and Government Considered In Relation to Each Other Following Some Assumptions
- 1: The Distribution of Wealth, When Trade Enjoys Complete and Permanent Freedom
- 2: The Circulation of Wealth When Trade Enjoys Complete Freedom
- 3: The Simple Ways of an Isolated Nation Within Which Trade Enjoys Complete Freedom
- 4: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Wars
- 5: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Customs Dues, Tolls
- 6: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Taxes On Industry
- 7: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Privileged and Exclusive Companies
- 8: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Taxes On Consumption
- 9: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Variation In Coinage
- 10: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Exploitation of Mines
- 11: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Every Type of Government Borrowing
- 12: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Policing of Grain Import and Export
- 13: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Policing of the Internal Circulation of Grain
- 14: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Manoeuvres of Monopolists
- 15: Blows Directed Against Commerce: Obstacles to the Circulation of Grain, When the Government Wishes to Restore to Trade the Freedom It Took From It
- 16: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Luxury of a Great Capital City
- 17: Blows Directed Against Commerce: the Rivalry of Nations
- 18: Blows Directed Against Commerce: How Traders’ Speculations Have As Their Outcome the Ruin of Trade
- 19: Conclusion of the First Two Parts
THE AIM OF THIS WORK
Each science requires a special language, because each science has ideas which are unique to it. It seems that we should begin by forming this language; but we begin by speaking and writing and the language remains to be created. That is the position of Economic Science, the subject of this very work. It is, among other matters, the need which I propose to meet.
This work is in three parts. In the first part, on commerce, I produce basic ideas which I determine according to assumptions, and I develop the principles of economic science. In the second part, I make other assumptions to judge the influence which commerce and government must have on each other. In the third part, I consider them both according to the facts in order to rest as much on experience as on reasoning.
I shall often make very ordinary remarks. But if I had to record them to speak on other matters with more precision, I should not be ashamed to say them. Geniuses who only make new statements, if there are such geniuses, should not write to instruct. The main point is to make oneself clear, and I only wish to produce a useful work.
Footnote added in 1798 : Since the first edition of this work I have shown in my Logic that the art of dealing well with a science comes down to the art of creating its language well. Also, when I said that the language of Economic Science needed to be created, the public, for whom this science was still often no more than an indecipherable code, had no difficulty in believing this: because it thought, justly, that a language that is not understood is a badly constructed language.
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