An Essay on Economic Theory Quotes

“If the property owners had the desire to increase the population they would encourage peasants to marry young and raise children by promising to provide them with subsistence, devoting the land entirely to that purpose, and they would doubtless increase the population up to the point that the land could support, according to the products allotted for each person, whether those of an acre and a half, or four to five acres.
But if instead, the prince, or the property owners, made them use the land for other purposes than the upkeep of the people...”
― Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory

“(...) all the inhabitants of a state are dependent. They can be divided into two classes, entrepreneurs and hired workers. The entrepreneurs are on unfixed wages while the others are on fixed wages as long as there is work, although their functions and ranks may be very unequal. The general who has his pay, the courtier his pension and the domestic servant who has wages, all fall into this last class. All the others are entrepreneurs, whether they are set up with capital to conduct their enterprise, or are entrepreneurs of their own labor without capital, and they may be regarded as living under uncertainty; even the beggars and the robbers are entrepreneurs of this class. Finally all the inhabitants of a state derive their living and their advantages from the property of the landowners and are dependent.”
― Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory

“(...) The northern people, where the land produces little, have been known to live on so little production that they have sent out colonists and swarms of men to invade the lands of the south, destroy the inhabitants, and appropriate their land...”
― Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory

“In the lower classes of the state, there also are men who, from pride and from reasons similar to those of the nobility, prefer to live in celibacy and to live on the little that they have, rather than settle down in family life. But most of them would gladly set up a family if they could count on supporting their family as they wish. They would consider it an injustice to their children if they brought them up only to fall into a lower class than themselves. Only a few men in a state avoid marriage because of a pure libertine spirit. All the lower classes wish to live and raise children who can live at least like themselves. When laborers and artisans do not marry, it is because they wait until they save enough to enable them to set up a household or to find some young woman who brings a little capital for that purpose. Every day, they see others like themselves who, for lack of such precautions, start a family and fall into the most frightful poverty, being obliged to deprive themselves of their own food in order to nourish their children.”
― Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory

“In the lower classes of the state, there also are men who, from pride and from reasons similar to those of the nobility, prefer to live in celibacy and to live on the little that they have, rather than settle down in family life. But most of them would gladly set up a family if they could count on sup. porting their family as they wish. They would consider it an injustice to their children if they brought them up only to fall into a lower class than themselves. Only a few men in a state avoid marriage because of a pure libertine spirit. All the lower classes wish to live and raise children who can live at least like themselves. When laborers and artisans do not marry, it is because they wait until they save enough to enable them to set up a household or to find some young woman who brings a little capital for that purpose. Every day, they see others like themselves who, for lack of such precautions, start a family and fall into the most frightful poverty, being obliged to deprive themselves of their own food in order to nourish their children.”
― Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory

“If the ladies of Paris enjoy wearing Brussels lace, and if France pays for this lace with Champagne wine, the production of a single acre of flax must be paid for with the production of sixteen thousand acres of vine-yards, if my calculations are correct. This will be more fully explained elsewhere and the figures are shown in the Supplement. Suffice it to say that in this transaction, a great amount of the production of the land is withdrawn from the subsistence of the French, and all the products sent abroad, unless an equally considerable amount of products is brought back in exchange, tend to diminish the number of people in the state.”
― richard cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory

“Just as it is disadvantageous for a state to encourage foreign manufactures, so it is also to encourage foreign navigation. When a state sends its articles and goods abroad, it can obtain the full advantage if it sends them in its own ships. This way, trade supports a large number of sailors, who are as useful to the state as workers. If it leaves ocean transportation to foreign vessels, it strengthens foreign navies and weakens its own.”
― Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory

“(...) if the [native] Americans, who did not make use of iron before the discovery of their continent, had found mines and had known how to use it, there is little doubt that they would have labored to produce it whatever the cost.”
― Richard Cantillon, An Essay on Economic Theory