Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/85

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S65
Subdivision of the Class of Cultivators into Undertakers or Farmers & mere Wage-earners, whether Servants or Day-labourers. Hence it follows that the Class of Cultivators divides itself, like that of the Manufacturers, into two orders of men, that of the Undertakers or Capitalists who make all the advances, and that of mere wage-earning Workmen. It is evident, also, that it is the capitals alone which enter upon and carry through the great enterprises of Agriculture, which give to the lands an invariable rental value, if I may venture to use the expression, and which assure the Proprietors a revenue which is always constant and as large as possible.

S66
''Fourth employment of capitals, in advances for undertakings in Commerce. Necessity of the interposition of Merchants, properly so-called, between the Producers of the commodity & the Consumers.''

The Undertakers, either in the cultivation of the land or in Manufactures, get back their advances and their profits only from the sale of the fruits of the earth or of the manufactured commodities. It is always the wants and the means of the Consumer that set the price at the sale; but the Consumer does not always need the goods or produce at the moment of harvest or of the finishing of the manufacture; yet the undertakers find it necessary that their