Say) that science which teaches how riches, or exchangeable values,are produced, distributed, and consumed.This is undoubtedly notthe science which teaches how the productive powers are awakenedand developed, and how they become depressed and destroyed.
M'Culloch calls it explicitly 'the science of values,' and recentEnglish writers ' the science of exchange.'
Examples from private economy will best illustrate thedifference between the theory of productive powers and the theoryof values.
Let us suppose the case of two fathers of families, both beinglanded proprietors, each of whom saves yearly 1,000 thalers and hasfive sons.The one puts out his savings at interest, and keeps hissons at common hard work, while the other employs his savings ineducating two of his sons as skilful and intelligent landowners,and in enabling the other three to learn a trade after theirrespective tastes; the former acts according to the theory ofvalues, the latter according to the theory of productive powers.
The first at his death may prove much richer than the second inmere exchangeable value, but it is quite otherwise as respectsproductive powers.The estate of the latter is divided into twoparts, and every part will by the aid of improved management yieldas much total produce as the whole did before; while the remainingthree sons have by their talents obtained abundant means ofmaintenance.The landed property of the former will be divided intofive parts, and every part will be worked in as bad a manner as thewhole was heretofore.In the latter family a mass of differentmental forces and talents is awakened and cultivated, which willincrease from generation to generation, every succeeding generationpossessing more power of obtaining material wealth than thepreceding one, while in the former family stupidity and povertymust increase with the diminution of the shares in the landedproperty.So the slaveholder increases by slave-breeding the sum ofhis values of exchange, but he ruins the productive forces offuture generations.All expenditure in the instruction of youth,the promotion of justice, defence of nations, &c.is a consumptionof present values for the behoof of the productive powers.Thegreatest portion of the consumption of a nation is used for theeducation of the future generation, for promotion and nourishmentof the future national productive powers.
The Christian religion, monogamy, abolition of slavery and ofvassalage, hereditability of the throne, invention of printing, ofthe press, of the postal system, of money weights and measures, ofthe calendar, of watches, of police, 'the introduction of theprinciple of freehold property, of means of transport, are richsources of productive power.To be convinced of this, we need onlycompare the condition of the European states with that of theAsiatic ones.In order duly to estimate the influence which libertyof thought and conscience has on the productive forces of nations,we need only read the history of England and then that of Spain.
The publicity of the administration of justice, trial by jury,parliamentary legislation, public control of State administration,self-administration of the commonalties and municipalities, libertyof the press, liberty of association for useful purposes, impart tothe citizens of constitutional states, as also to their publicfunctionaries, a degree of energy and power which can hardly beproduced by other means.We can scarcely conceive of any law or anypublic legal decision which would not exercise a greater or smallerinfluence on the increase or decrease of the productive power ofthe nation.(2*) If we consider merely bodily labour as the cause ofwealth, how can we then explain why modern nations are incomparablyricher, more populous, more powerful, and prosperous than thenations of ancient times? The ancient nations employed (inproportion to the whole population) infinitely more hands, the workwas much harder, each individual possessed much more land, and yetthe masses were much worse fed and clothed than is the case inmodern nations.In order to explain these phenomena, we must referto the progress which has been made in the course of the lastthousand years in sciences and arts, domestic and publicregulations, cultivation of the mind and capabilities ofproduction.The present state of the nations is the result of theaccumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements,perfections, and exertions of all generations which have livedbefore us; they form the mental capital of the present human race,and every separate nation is productive only in the proportion inwhich it has known how to appropriate these attainments of formergenerations and to increase them by its own acquirements, in whichthe natural capabilities of its territory, its extent andgeographical position, its population and political power, havebeen able to develop as completely and symmetrically as possibleall sources of wealth within its boundaries, and to extend itsmoral, intellectual, commercial, and political influence over lessadvanced nations and especially over the affairs of the world.
