uselessness of a mere purchaser or customer, for enriching a nation or
an individual, applies only to the case of dealers who have already as
much business as their capital admits of, and as rapid a sale for their
commodities as is possible. To such dealers an additional purchaser is
really of no use; for, if they are sure of selling all their commodities
the moment those commodities are on sale, it is of no consequence whether
they sell them to one person or to another. But it is questionable
whether there be any dealers in whose case this hypothesis is exactly
verified; and to the great majority it is not applicable at all. An
additional customer, to most dealers, is equivalent to an increase of
their productive capital. He enables them to convert a portion of their
capital which was lying idle (and which could never have become
productive in their hands until a customer was found) into wages and
instruments of production; and if we suppose that the commodity, unless
bought by him, would not have found a purchaser for a year after, then
all which a capital of that value can enable men to produce during a
year, is clear gain--gain to the dealer, or producer, and to the
labourers whom he will employ, and thus (if no one sustains any
corresponding loss) gain to the nation. The aggregate produce of the
country for the succeeding year is, therefore, increased; not by the
mere exchange, but by calling into activity a portion of the national
capital, which, had it not been for the exchange, would have remained
for some time longer unemployed.

Thus there are actually at all times producers and dealers, of all, or
nearly all classes, whose capital is lying partially idle, because they
have not found the means of fulfilling the condition which the division
of labour renders indispensable to the full employment of capital,--viz.,
that of exchanging their products with each other. If these persons
could find one another out, they could mutually relieve each other from