Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/115

88 chants and of all those engaged in trade; and one will realise that, in the totality of the riches, landed and moveable, of a nation, the specie makes a very small part. But as all these riches and money are continually exchangeable, they all represent money, and money represents them all.

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The amount of capitals on loan cannot be included in this total without being reckoned twice over.

We must not include in our calculation of the riches of the nation the amount of capitals which are placed on loan; for these capitals can only have been lent to proprietors of lands, or to undertakers who make use of them in their business, since it is only these two kinds of people that can answer for a capital and pay the interest: a sum of money lent to people who had neither estate nor industry would be a dead capital and not an active one. If the proprietor of an estate of four hundred thousand francs borrows a hundred upon it, his land is charged with a rent which diminishes his revenue in like proportion; and if he sold his property, out of the four thousand francs he would receive, a hundred would belong to the creditor. The capital of the lender would occupy, then, in the calculation of existing wealth the same place as an equal part of the value of the land. The land is always worth four hundred thousand francs: when the proprietor has borrowed a hundred thousand francs, this does not make five hundred