Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/37

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S8
First division of the society into two classes: the one productive, or that of the Cultivators; the second stipendiary, or that of the Artisans.

Here then we have the whole society divided, by a necessity founded on the nature of things, into two classes: equally industrious. But one of these by its labour produces, or rather draws from the land, riches which are continually springing up afresh, and which supply the whole society with its subsistence and with the materials for all its needs. The other, occupied in giving to materials thus produced the preparations and the forms which render them suitable for the use of men, sells its labour to the first class, and receives in exchange its subsistence. The first may be called the productive class, and the second the stipendiary class.

S9
In the first ages the Proprietor cannot have been distinguished from the Cultivator. Up to this point we have not yet distinguished the Husbandman from the Proprietor of the lands; and in fact they were not originally distinct. It is by the labour of those who have been the first to till the fields, and who have enclosed them, in order to secure to themselves the harvest, that all the lands have ceased to be common to all, and that landed properties have been established.