JB_017_321.xml

Title: [11 Mar 1804 Polit. Economy]

Description: 11 Mar 1804

Polit. Economy

Ch.2. Leading Features

'.2.I. Wealth. 2. Non Agenda

{Ch. 2

'.2. I Wealth II. Non Agenda

Whatever is sponte actum on the part of individuals, falls thereby into the

class of Non Agenda in the part of Government. {Coercion the insuperable

accompaniment, precedent concomitant or subsequent, of every act of government,

is in itself an evil: to be any thing better than a pure evil, it requires to be

followed by some more than equivalent good.} Spontaneous[?] action excludes it:

action on the part of government supposes it.

Go to Fair Copy - p.3 in the middle

To judge of the utility of any measure of government in this time[?] or any

other for the execution of which money is required, compare the expected benefit

of it with the mischief of the vexation attached to the levying of the sum in

question by the most vexatious tax: For by giving up the projected measure, the

vexatious flowing from that source may be done away.

JB_017_281.xml

Title: [nd [wm 1800] +[?] D Ch. 2.]

Description: nd [wm 1800]

+[?] D

Ch. 2. Leading features

'.4.II. Population

23

89

1

Chap 4.

Of Population

'.4. {II. Population} {4} /II/ Section 1 Sponte Acta with regard to Increase of

Population by Births everything may be left to the spontaneous action of

individuals+. {5} /1[?]/. {Non Agenda} {6. Non Agenda.}

Section 2 Agenda

with regard to increase of population next to nothing is required to be done by

Government; all that Government need do is to prevent decrease by deperition

{The support of Population may be aimed at in either of two ways - 1. preventing

decrease of deperition - 2. - causing encrease.}

{I. Prevention of Decrease. Agenda.}

1. To prevent deperition is to afford Security: security against the extremity

of all mischief, destruction of man's life. The only reason for action, on the

part of government, belongs in this case to another head. {Note See Ch.1.

Defence against external hostility, internal hostility, or calamity.}

Examples of Institutions for preventing deperition.

1. Hospitals for the use of the curable sick and hurt among the Poor.

2. Hospitals for the incurable sick and helpless.

3. Establishments for the occasional maintenance & employment of the

able-bodied among the poor: viz. of such by whom either the one or the other is

unobtainable from the ordinary sources. By their maintenance, population is

preserved: by their employment, wealth may be encreased or not;- crimes of

idleness are prevented.

4. Establishments for the preservation or mitigation of contagious diseases:

establishments, in former times for Inoculation; now for Vaccination. Much may

be done on the part of government, under this head as well as so many others, by

instruction: more or less requires to be done, in proportion as by the ignorance

of the people, operations of this class are excluded from the class of Sponte

Acta, and thence [laced among the Agenda.

Section 3

{Causation of Increase-} Non Agenda because Sponte acta

Institutions on the part of Government, having for their end in view the

causation of increase of population by Births may best be characterized by a

parallel example - Institutions - punishing men for not eating, or for eating

food not sufficiently nourishing:- Institutions paying all mankind for eating

with premiums for those who eat most and oftenest.

[Marginal rubric:] Continue the Section by adding transplanted matter p279 to

286.

+ Montesquieu XXIII.21.

JB_017_309.xml

Title: [[...?] March[?] 1804 Polit. Economy]

Description: [...?] March[?] 1804

Polit. Economy

Sponte acta

{ Ch. 2. Leading Features

' 5. Wealth I. Sponte acta

The national wealth is the sum of the particular masses of the matter of wealth belonging respectively to the several individuals of whom the political community - the nation - is composed. Every atom of that matter added by any such individual to his own stock without being taken from that of any other individual is so much added to the stock of national wealth.

To add to his own particular stock and to add in such period of time more than use or otherwise is taken from it in that same portion of time is with a very few exceptions, is the constant aim and occupation of every individual in every civilized nation. Enjoyment is the offspring of wealth; wealth of labour. What men want from government is - not incitement to labour, but security against disturbance: - security to each for his portion of the matter of wealth, while labouring to acquire it or occupied in enjoying it. For the purpose of encreasing wealth, individuals require neither to be forced to labour nor allured. The want of that which is not to be had without labour, is sufficient force: the assurance of being able to enjoy it is sufficient allurement. Leave men to themselves, each man is occupied either in the acquisition of wealth (the instrument of enjoyment) or in some actual enjoyment which in the eyes of the only competent[?] judge, is of more value. If idleness is to be discouraged, it is not because it is the non-acquisition of wealth, but because it is the source of crimes.

Whoever takes upon him to add to national wealth by coercive and thence vexatious measures stands engaged to make out two propositions: 1. that more wealth will be produced by the coercion than would have been without it: 2. that the comfort flowing from the extra wealth thus produced, is more than equivalent to whatever vexation may be found attached to the measure by which it was produced.}

{If Non agenda have been acta, the doing away of these malá acta may form so many additions to the catalogue of Agenda.}