exchange for his goods. There is nothing which impresses a person of
reflection with a stronger sense of the shallowness of the political
reasonings of the last two centuries, than the general reception so long
given to a doctrine which, if it proves anything, proves that the more
you take from the pockets of the people to spend on your own pleasures,
the richer they grow; that the man who steals money out of a shop,
provided he expends it all again at the same shop, is a benefactor to
the tradesman whom he robs, and that the same operation, repeated
sufficiently often, would make the tradesman's fortune.

In opposition to these palpable absurdities, it was triumphantly
established by political economists, that consumption never needs
encouragement. All which is produced is already consumed, either for the
purpose of reproduction or of enjoyment. The person who saves his income
is no less a consumer than he who spends it: he consumes it in a
different way; it supplies food and clothing to be consumed, tools and
materials to be used, by productive labourers. Consumption, therefore,
already takes place to the greatest extent which the amount of
production admits of; but, of the two kinds of consumption, reproductive
and unproductive, the former alone adds to the national wealth, the
latter impairs it. What is consumed for mere enjoyment, is gone; what is
consumed for reproduction, leaves commodities of equal value, commonly
with the addition of a profit. The usual effect of the attempts of
government to encourage consumption, is merely to prevent saving; that
is, to promote unproductive consumption at the expense of reproductive,
and diminish the national wealth by the very means which were intended
to increase it.

What a country wants to make it richer, is never consumption, but
production. Where there is the latter, we may be sure that there is no