The alimentary substance contained in potatoes does not cost us very
dear, because a great deal of it is attainable with little work. We
pay more for wheat, because, to produce it, Nature requires more labor
from man. It is evident that if Nature did for the latter what she
does for the former, their prices would tend to the same level. It is
impossible that the producer of wheat should permanently gain more
than the producer of potatoes. The law of competition cannot allow it.

Again, if by a happy miracle the fertility of all arable lands were to
be increased, it would not be the agriculturist, but the consumer, who
would profit by this phenomenon; for the result of it would be
abundance and cheapness. There would be less labor incorporated into
an acre of grain, and the agriculturist would be therefore obliged to
exchange it for less labor incorporated into some other article. If,
on the contrary, the fertility of the soil were suddenly to
deteriorate, the share of nature in production would be less, that of
labor greater, and the result would be higher prices.

I am right then in saying that it is in consumption, in mankind, that
at length all political phenomena find their solution. As long as we
fail to follow their effects to this point, and look only at
_immediate_ effects, which act but upon individual men or classes of
men _as producers_, we know nothing more of political economy than the
quack does of medicine, when instead of following the effects of a
prescription in its action upon the whole system, he satisfies himself
with knowing how it affects the palate and the throat.

The tropical regions are very favorable to the production of sugar and
coffee; that is to say, Nature does most of the business and leaves
but little for labor to accomplish. But who reaps the advantage of