In agricultural States, therefore, all surplus agricultural produceis not material capital.By means of manufactures it first becomescommercial capital by being warehoused, and then by being sold tothe manufacturers it is turned into manufacturing capital.What maybe unutilised stock in the hand of the agriculturist, becomesproductive capital in the hand of the manufacturer, and vice vers?
Production renders consumption possible, and the desire toconsume incites to production.The mere agricultural nation is inits consumption dependent on foreign conditions, and if these arenot favourable to it, that production dies out which would havearisen in consequence of the desire to consume.But in that nationwhich combines manufactures with agriculture in its territory, thereciprocal inducement continually exists, and therefore, also,there will be continuous increase of production and with itaugmentation of capital on both sides.
As the agricultural-manufacturing nation is (for the reasonswhich we have already given) always incomparably richer in materialcapital than the mere agricultural nation (which is evident at aglance), so in the former the rate of interest is always muchlower, and larger capital and more favourable conditions are at thedisposal of men of enterprise, than in the purely agriculturalnation.It follows that the former can always victoriously competewith the newly formed manufactories in the agricultural nation;that the agricultural nation remains continually in debt to themanufacturing nation, and that in the markets of the formercontinual fluctuations in the prices of produce and manufacturedgoods and in the value of money take place, whereby theaccumulation of material wealth in the purely agricultural nationis no less endangered than its morality and its habits of economy.