Polit. Econ. Analysis

20 June 1801

[Col 1]

According to these topics the same articles be ranged in different orders.

I. Subject matter of operation.

Original—Land

1. Uncovered with water.

2. Covered with water.(All Sea, [...?], Rivers and Lakes.

II. Operator or Agent

Principal/Orignal—Man—by Labour

2. Subordinate

1. Animate—Cattle

2. Inanimate—Machines

Topics

Ends in view or Uses to which encrease of wealth is subservient.

1 Subsistence

2. Enjoyment

3. Security or defence.

*II. Subject Matters

I. Natural state

1. Mineral

2. Vegetable

3. Animal

II. Improved state

1. Unmixt, as above.

2. Compunded or mixt without alteration.

3. Modified by fabrication.

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III. Principal Operations

1. Discovery

2. Extraction[?]

3. Production or Naturalization[?]

4. Improvement

5. Preservation

6. Employment or Use

7. Land conveyance

8. Exchange

IIII. Agents

1. Individuals

2. Government

V. Means of action or influence on the part of Government

1. Encouragement

2. Discouragement

1. Unoptional—prohibition

2. Optional—Taxation To Col V

[Col 5]

Topics continued from Col I

VI. Taxation

an operation not formative/conducive to but obstructive of encrease of wealth, yet every where employ’d through necessity for the purpose of defence.

Will/inclination[?]/ to the encrease of wealth can not be wanting on the part of any individual: tho’ in some instances it is overpowered by the will to spend it, yet in the most unfrugal community the spendthrifts are in but small proportion.

But in the struggle for encreasing wealth each to his utmost it will happen that one man shall give encrease to his wealth in such manner as shall occasion a more than equivalent decrease on the part of others:—here then comes the demand for the interposition of the law.

[Col. 2]

Quantity of wealth is absolute or relative—Relative involves population, of which separately.

Wealth is the produce of /labour and/ land and labour—of labour operating upon land itself or the produce of it.

Note.

Encreasing the quantity of land will not encrease the quantity of wealth, unless it encreases either the quantity of labour or the effect of it.

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Every means employed for the encrease of wealth may therefore be resolved into encrease of 1. the quantity of labour. 2. the effect of it.

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Wealth itself is of no value but as an instrument of either 1. Subsistence. 2. Security or defence. 3. Enjoyment. The value of a given mass of wealth to be measured must be measured with reference to these several objects.

[Col. 3]

Subsistence affords an exact measure of the value of a mass of wealth—With reference to Subsistence, the value of a mass of the means of subsistence, is as the number of individuals it will subsist for a certain time.

With reference to Security, the value of a mass of wealth adapted to that purpose does not admitt of any such measure—It is still, however, the joint ratio of the quantity of the labour employ’d in the production of it—and the effect of it.

All instruments of Subsistence are instruments of enjoyment: but there are instruments of enjoyment which are not instruments of subsistence.

[Col. 4]

Enjoyments distinguished according to their Seat or Inlet are

1. Sensual

2. Mental

3. Mixt

Sensual enjoyments, by the principle of association are rendered mental also, and by that means mixt.

The enjoyment derived from objects in any degree sensual depends upon—

1.The state of the sense or organ to which the object is applied.

2. The nature of the object or instrument by which, when applied to the organ, the enjoyment is produced.

On the part of the object—the mass of enjoyments is encreased by every addition to the variety of the collection of instruments of enjoyment taken together—by novelty on the part of any one.

[Col. 6]

Materials of wealth considered as employd for the purpose of encreasing the quantity or value of a mass of wealth are called Capital.

The national wealth is the aggregate of the wealth of individuals.

Wealth and Capital is real or pecuniary.

Pecuniary capital is money employd in the way of exchange in purchasing the labour, [...?] materials or land of which real capital is composed.

Capital or wealth acts no otherwise than as far as it acts on labour.

It encreases wealth no otherwise than as far as it encreases either the quantity or the effect of labour.

[Col. 7]

II. Subject Matters

—with reference to the mode of their subserviency to use.

1. Ground.

2. Materials to be improved.

3. Instruments

4. Receptacles

5. Productions in a state for use.

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Receptacles

1. Stationary, viz: Buildings.

2. Moveable or /Ambulatory/occasional. viz:

1. Carriages

2. Navigable vessels.

Receptacles are

1. Particular; such as such as vessels, chests, boxes &c.

2. General—or buildings in which the particular vessels are contained.

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Proportional-quantity-stocking principle

Example

Guns in one shop

Shot in another

Powder in a third.

[Col. 8]

Means of encrease, their Comparative Importance.

1. articles of Subsistence

2. Defence—the denand for which varies with the danger.

3. Enjoyment, not contributing to subsistence.

__________

Productive Capital is composed of

1. Land with its improvements.

2. The aggregate mass of articles of subservient use )( immediate use.

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Opulence degree of (relative) is as the sum of labourer’s incomes to d o of all incomes

as between nation and nation, the real value of labourer’s wages being supposed the same in each.

Ceteris paribus a populous country will be the cheaper by a saving on the aggregate expence of conveyance.

[Col. 9]

Materials

Rude Produce, Application of Labour thereto

I. Extraction

1. Separation from the natural source—Land or Water.

1. Minerals—Discovery, digging, [...?], extracting, smelting.

2. Vegetables

1. Discovery

1. Felling Timber

2. Cutting herbs

3. Gathering fruits

3. Animals Housing[?]

Water

4. Fishing

1. catching

2. Curing.

II. Conveyance.

__________

Finance

Where a tax acts purely as a prohibition, that prohibition or diminution of consumption is only relative: so much as it takers from the consumption of the article tax[ed], so much it adds to the consumption of other articles: except so far as the aggregate of taxes takes from the aggregate of consumption of articles of enjoyment, to add to that of the articles of defence for which the [...?] is raised.

[Col. 10]

Unproductive taxes

I. Indirect income tax by encrease of money.

II. All measures encreasing the quantity of unprofitable labour; and thence diminishing the effect of profitable labour. viz.

1. Prohibition of export of money, thence unprofitable labour to collect the money by stealth, [...?] and find means to evade the tax.

2. Prohibition or [...?] direct trade between country and country: thence unprofitable labour &c. attendant on circuitous trade.

Finance

In proportion to the disadvantageousness of the terms on which money is borrowed it adds to [...?] though at the expence of intermediate comfort.