the revenue of this class was equal to the value of what they produced, it might readily have occurred to the reader that what would naturally be saved out of this revenue must necessarily increase more or less the real wealth of the society. In order, therefore, to make out something like an argument, it was necessary that they should express themselves as they have done; and this argument, even supposing things actually were as it seems to presume them to be, turns out to be a very inconclusive one.
Fourthly, farmers and country laborers can no more augment, without parsimony, the real revenue, the annual produce of the land and labor of their society, than artificers, manufacturers and merchants. The annual produce of the land and labor of any society can be augmented only in two ways; either, first, by some improvement in the productive powers of the useful labor actually maintained within it; or, secondly, by some increase in the quantity of that labor.
The improvement in the productive powers of useful labor depend, first, upon the improvement in the ability of the workman; and, secondly, upon that of the machinery with which he works. But the labor of artificers and manufacturers, as it is capable of being more subdivided, and the labor of each workman reduced to a greater simplicity of operation than that of farmers and country laborers, so it is likewise capable of both these sorts of improvement in a much higher degree.[1] In this respect, therefore, the class of cultivators can have no sort of advantage over that of artificers and manufacturers.
The increase in the quantity of useful labor actually
- ↑ See Book I., chap. i.
