Page:Cournot Theory of Wealth (1838).djvu/156

142 prices of these commodities corresponds to slight differences in consumption, it results from our theory, as from the plain admonitions of common sense, that such an increase causes a real reduction of the social income, even when it nominally increases the value of it. But our theory, which is always in agreement with common sense, shows that a very different verdict must be given concerning any progressive and secular advance which might affect the commodities in question.

83. The same principles bring us to an analysis of what happens when a new commodity, a new exchangeable value rises, so to speak, to the surface of the economic system. A commodity N, which hitherto did not appear in the circulation of wealth, is now created in all its parts, and the quantity annually made or sold is valued at h. Buyers of this commodity therefore direct from the demand for the other commodities A, B, C, etc., a sum h drawn from their incomes; but this sum is returned by the producers of commodity N to the total of the demands for commodities, A, B, C, etc. There is therefore no reason why the former economic system, taken as a whole, should feel any perturbations; it is a simple juxtaposition, so to speak, which occurs; the social income, nominally and actually, is increased by the sum h, which constitutes the income of the producers of the new commodity.

It should be carefully noted under what conditions such a result occurs, for it would be easy to imagine an hypothesis which would lead to very different results. Supposing, for instance, that an exchange occurs between producers of N and M, so that the former, who enjoy an income h arising