Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/78

Rh equivalent of a sum of value equal to this revenue multiplied a certain number of times, it follows that any sum whatever of values is the equivalent of an estate of land producing a revenue equal to a definite fraction of that sum: it is absolutely indifferent whether this sum of values or this capital consists in a mass of metal or anything else, since the money represents every kind of value, just as every kind of value represents money. The Possessor of a capital can then, in the first place, employ it in the purchase of lands; but he has also other resources.

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Another employment of money, in the advances of manufacturing and industrial enterprises

I have already remarked that all labours, whether for agriculture or for industry, require advances. And I have shown how the earth, by the fruits and herbs which it produces of itself for the nourishment of men and animals, and by the trees whereof men have formed their first tools, had furnished the first advances of cultivation, and even of the first hand-made articles that each man might fashion for his own use. For example, it is the earth which has furnished the stone, the clay, and the wood, wherewith the first houses were built; and, before the separation of professions, when the same man that cultivated the earth provided by his labour for his other needs, he required no other advances: but when a large part of the Society had