P

The new views, indicated by the article “Political Economy,” in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, published in 1818, and written in English by Sismondi, show that he had already deviated from Adam Smith, in the consequences which he drew from the principles laid down by the Scotch economist. The pleasure of proceeding systematically from deduction to deduction, of erecting a series of metaphysical propositions, with the regularity of a mathematician, could not seduce this observing mind, nor blind this practical philosopher, as to how much experience had falsified the conclusions of the learned. He was occupied with results, “the evils of competition, that war of the years of peace; the excess of production, which ceases to be wealth from the moment when it no longer finds consumers.”

In the two volumes of his Nouveaux Principes, Sismondi gave more development to this first sketch. Since the production of his Richesse commercielle, studying facts instead of books, he now carried to new ground that science in which he has been accused of making retrograde steps. “Strongly moved by the commercial crisis which overthrew the means of life to so many all over Europe, and weighed so heavily on the working class,” he had seen, with a feeling of sorrow, the combined efforts of proprietors, of statesmen, and of writers, aggravate the evil they thought to remedy, and in order to obtain a larger nett product, reduce real product, and change the systems of cultivation, which still spread some comfort and some happiness among the peasants of Switzerland and Italy. “Good persons, full of excellent intentions, caused evil, and lost themselves, sometimes in seeking what might augment population, sometimes what might increase wealth,” whilst both, considered singly, are only abstractions, and all abstraction is deceptive. The true problem to find is the proportion of population and of wealth which will secure most happiness to the human kind in a given space; for the object of economical science ought to be to augment the mass of happiness among man, and to equalize the division of it; that of political science, to ennoble the whole nation, by making morality penetrate every class.

The Nouveaux Principes might be called the book of economical proportions; they aim particularly at demonstrations; that the social question consists in a due balance. “Income must increase with capital, population must not surpass the income on which it ought to live, consumption should increase with population, and reproduction ought to be in proportion both to the capital which produces it, and to the population which consumes it.”

In proving that each of these relations may be disturbed separately, but never with impunity, Sismondi makes it be observed, “that wages are always in proportion to the quantity of labour in demand, which depends on consumption; and this regulates itself, not by production, or by what is wanted, as Ricardo, Say, and their school have pretended, but by income. Each individual buys, in fact, according to his means, and not according to his desires. Systems too often forget that the community is composed only of individuals, and that the public fortune, being only an aggregation of private fortunes, arises, is increased, is distributed, is deteriorated, and destroyed by the same means as that of each individual.”

He had not the pride to flatter himself that he could make the world turn on a new pivot, or discover a “universal panacea.” To find efficacious remedies, he proclaims continually, the sanction of time, and the concurrence of the most enlightened minds are requisite. As M. Michelet says, in an admirable lecture, the most worthy homage that has been paid to the memory of Sismondi:—“His glory is to have pointed out the evils; courage was necessary for that!—to have foretold new crises. But the remedy? That is not an affair of the same man, or the same age. Five hundred years have been required to set us free from political feudalism; will a few years be sufficient to set us free from industrial feudalism?”

Thus, whilst with the accents of entreaty and of anguish, the writings of Sismondi call on the whole of society to help those it crushes, in his practical and in his private life he sought pallia tives, constantly addressed himself to the best feelings of man for man, and rested his hopes and his actions on what is most tender in charity; on that double movement from the heart of him who gives, and from the heart of him who receives.”