The Closed Commercial State

Fifth Chapter: How this balance of industry is to be secured against the uncertainty of agriculture

Fifth Chapter How this balance of industry is to be secured against the uncertainty of agriculture The system being set forth, as we have seen, counts on the fact that the quantity of the articles of consumption and manufacture entering into public commerce, as well as the ratio of these quantities to one another, will remain forever the same, periodically canceling one another out [und von Zeit zu Zeit durch einander aufgehe]. With regard to manufactured goods, this can indeed be counted on, insofar as their quantity depends on the workers who are employed. This is not so with regard to articles of consumption, however, since the yield from agriculture does not remain the same from year to year. Moreover, manufacture, since it receives its raw materials from agriculture, will also be disturbed by irregularity in the extraction of produce. Were the fertility of one year to exceed the calculation, this would be just as disruptive to the balance as another year’s crop failure. We shall, however, direct our gaze solely toward the former occurrence, since, starting from this, we will be led automatically to a means to guard against the latter. The producer should extract as much produce as is needed to provide nourishment for the nonproducers and, beyond this, raw materials for the manufacturer. He can be quite sure he will be able to sell such a quantity. Yet he won’t be able to sell more than this. The merchant, unable to find a buyer for it, cannot take it from him. Nor could the manufacturer accept it. He has no equivalent he could give in return, since his work only takes account of his customary needs. There is no way to bring the surplus of extracted produce into public commerce. [76] Now, indeed, the needs of the producer also only take into account what he usually sells. As long as he can sell this amount, he will receive the sustenance he deserves and has no need of the surplus allotted to him {429} through unaccounted fertility. This surplus can be regarded as if it simply 117 118 First Book did not exist. It could be eliminated not merely from the calculation, but could actually be eliminated from nature itself, and this would nowhere [an keinem Ende] cause any harm. On the one hand, however, it seems unfair to deprive the producer of a profit that he gained not by cheating his fellow citizens, but that nature’s favor allotted to him. On the other hand though, and most importantly: How could the crop failure of a year in which the yield remains below the calculation be covered and endured [übertragen], if not through the excessive fertility of another year?7 It follows that the necessary yield of the extraction of produce and the ratio of this to the other goods must be estimated not according to one single year, but according to a series of years long enough for abundance to make up for the crop failure. Not: one year provides so much produce. But rather: say that five years provide so much produce, of this the average for one year will be so much, and this last quantity of goods should enter into commerce. The size of the remaining estates will be calculated in accordance with this last quantity, regardless of the current year’s actual yield. Only the state has the ability to balance the yield of one year against the other in this way. The most natural way of going about this is as follows. Whoever has cultivated more than the amount set for him will report it to the state. The state will not reimburse him for the surplus on the spot with an equivalent payment, since this would result in an increase in circulation together with all its disadvantages. Rather, it will only credit this surplus to him, providing him, if need be, with a certificate for the sake of his security. Now perhaps in this same year there will be a shortage in other regions of the country. In this case, those goods that one has estimated will be needed for yearly consumption will be delivered to the merchants in these regions, and these, in turn, will pay these out to those producers who, according to the calculation, should have themselves cultivated and delivered these goods. The state now writes up these goods on its account as a credit owed by the producers, and if {430} they didn’t...