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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

productive hands, without an evident loss to the person whothus perverts it from its proper destination.

The prodigal perverts it in this manner. By not confininghis expense within his income, he encroaches upon his capital.Like him who perverts the revenues of some pious foundationto profane purposes, he pays the wages of idleness with thosefunds which the frugality of his forefathers had, as it were,consecrated to the maintenance of industry. By diminishingthe funds destined for the employment of productive labourhe necessarily diminishes, so far as it depends upon him, thequantity of that labour which adds a value to the subjectupon which it is bestowed, and, consequently, the value ofthe annual produce of the land and labour of the whole coun-try, the real wealth and revenue of its inhabitants. If theprodigality of some were not compensated by the frugality ofothers, the conduct of every prodigal, by feeding the idle withthe bread of the industrious, tends not only to beggar himself,but to impoverish his country.

Though the expense of the prodigal should be altogetherin home-made, and no part of it in foreign commodities, itseffect upon the productive funds of the society would still bethe same. Every year there would still be a certain quantityof food and clothing, which ought to have maintained pro-ductive, employed in maintaining unproductive hands.Every year, therefore, there would still be some diminutionin what would otherwise have been the value of the annualproduce of the land and labour of the country.

This expense, it may be said indeed, not being in foreigngoods, and not occasioning any exportation of gold and sil-ver, the same quantity of money would remain in the countryas before. But if the quantity of food and clothing, whichwere thus consumed by unproductive, had been distributedamong productive hands, they would have re-produced, to-gether with a profit, the full value of their consumption. Thesame quantity of money would in this case equally have re-mained in the country, and there would besides have been are-production of an equal value of consumable goods. Therewould have been two values instead of one.

The same quantity of money, besides, cannot long remainin any country in which the value of the annual produce di-minishes. The sole use of money is to circulate consumablegoods. By means of it, provisions, materials, and finishedwork, are bought and sold, and distributed to their proper