The System of Values of Exchange (Continued) -- Jean Baptiste Sayand his SchoolThis author on the whole has merely endeavoured to systematise,to elucidate, and to popularise, the materials which Adam Smith hadgathered together after an irregular fashion.In that he hasperfectly succeeded, inasmuch as he possessed in a high degree thegift of systematisation and elucidation.Nothing new or original isto be found in his writings, save only that he asserted theproductiveness of mental labours, which Adam Smith denied.Only,this view, which is quite correct according to the theory of theproductive powers, stands opposed to the theory of exchangeablevalues, and hence Smith is clearly more consistent than Say.Mentallabourers produce directly no exchangeable values; nay, more, theydiminish by their consumption the total amount of materialproductions and savings, and hence the total of material wealth.
Moreover, the ground on which Say from his point of view includesmental labourers among the productive class, viz.because they arepaid with exchangeable values, is an utterly baseless one, inasmuchas those values have been already produced before they reach thehands of the mental labourers; their possessor alone is changed,but by that change their amount is not increased.We can only termmental labourers productive if we regard the productive powers ofthe nation, and not the mere possession of exchangeable values, asnational wealth.Say found himself opposed to Smith in thisrespect, exactly as Smith had found himself opposed to thephysiocrats.
In order to include manufacturers among the productive class,Smith had been obliged to enlarge the idea of what constituteswealth; and Say on his part had no other alternative than either toadopt the absurd view that mental labourers are not productive, asit was handed down to him by Adam Smith, or else to enlarge theidea of wealth as Adam Smith had done in opposition to thephysiocrats, namely, to make it comprise productive power; and toargue, national wealth does not consist in the possession ofexchangeable values, but in the possession of power to produce,just as the wealth of a fisherman does not consist in thepossession of fish, but in the ability and the means of continuallycatching fish to satisfy his wants.
It is noteworthy, and, so far as we are aware, not generallyknown, that Jean Baptiste Say had a brother whose plain clearcommon sense led him clearly to perceive the fundamental error ofthe theory of values, and that J.B.Say himself expressed to hisdoubting brother doubts as to the soundness of his own doctrine.
Louis Say wrote from Nantes, that a technical language hadbecome prevalent in political economy which had led to much falsereasoning, and that his brother Jean himself was not free fromit.(1*) According to Louis Say, the wealth of nations does notconsist in material goods and their value in exchange, but in theability continuously to produce such goods.The exchange theory ofSmith and J.B.Say regards wealth from the narrow point of view ofan individual merchant, and this system, which would reform the(so-called) mercantile system, is itself nothing else than arestricted mercantile system.(2*) To these doubts and objections J.
B.Say replied to his brother that 'his (J.B.Say's) method(method?) (viz.the theory of exchangeable values) was certainlynot the best, but that the difficulty was, to find a better.'(3*)What! difficult to find a better? Had not brother Louis, then,found one? No, the real difficulty was that people had not therequisite acuteness to grasp and to follow out the idea which thebrother had (certainly only in general terms) expressed; or rather,perhaps, because it was very distasteful to have to overturn thealready established school, and to have to teach the preciseopposite of the doctrine by which one had acquired celebrity.Theonly original thing in J.B.Say's writings is the form of hissystem, viz.that he defined political economy as the science whichshows how material wealth is produced, distributed, and consumed.
It was by this classification and by his exposition of it that J.
B.Say made his success and also his school, and no wonder: forhere everything lay ready to his hand; he knew how to explain soclearly and intelligibly the special process of production, and theindividual powers engaged in it; he could set forth so lucidly(within the limits of his own narrow circle) the principle of thedivision of labour, and so clearly expound the trade ofindividuals.Every working potter, every huckster could understandhim, and do so the more readily, the less J.B.Say told him thatwas new or unknown.For that in the work of the potter, hands andskill (labour) must be combined with clay (natural material) inorder by means of the potter's wheel, the oven, and fuel (capital),to produce pots (valuable products or values in exchange), had beenwell known long before in every respectable potter's workshop, onlythey had not known how to describe these things in scientificlanguage, and by means of it to generalise upon them.Also therewere probably very few hucksters who did not know before J.B.
Say's time, that by exchange both parties could gain values inexchange, and that if anyone exported 1,000 thalers' worth ofgoods, and got for them 1,500 thalers' worth of other goods fromabroad, he would gain 500 thalers.