Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/90

Rh by the Undertakers in each of these different classes of labours, must return to them every year with a steady profit; that is, the capital to be again invested and advanced anew in the continuation of the same enterprises, and the profit to provide for the more or less comfortable subsistence of the Undertakers. It is this advance and this continual return of capitals which constitute what one must call the circulation of money; that useful and fruitful circulation which gives life to all the labours of the society, which maintains movement and life in the body politic, and which is with great reason compared to the circulation of blood in the animal body. For if, by any disorder, be it what it may, in the sequence of expenditures on the part of the different classes of society, the Undertakers cease to get back their advances with the profit they have a right to expect from them, it is evident that they will be obliged to reduce their undertakings; that the amount of labour, the amount of consumption of the fruits of the earth, the amount of production and the amount of revenue will be reduced in like measure; that poverty will take the place of wealth, and that the common Workmen, ceasing to find employment, will fall into the extremest destitution.

S69
All economic undertakings, particularly those of manufacture and commerce, could not fail to be extremely limited before the introduction of gold & silver in commerce.