Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/94

Rh

S72
False ideas as to lending upon interest.

The price of the loan is by no means founded, as might be imagined, on the profit the borrower hopes to make with the capital of which he purchases the use. This price is determined, like the price of all merchandise, by the chaffering of seller and buyer, by the balance of the offer with the demand. People borrow with every kind of purpose and with every sort of motive. This one borrows to undertake an enterprise which will make his fortune, this other to purchase an estate: another to pay a gaming debt; another to make up for the loss of his revenue of which some accident has deprived him; and another to keep himself alive until he can get something by his labour; but all these motives which influence the borrower are quite indifferent to the lender. He cares about two things only, the interest he is to receive, and the safety of his capital. He does not trouble himself about the use the borrower will make of it, any more than a Merchant concerns himself with the use a purchaser will make of the commodities he sells him.