Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/240

230 ON LUXURY, IDLENESS, AND INDUSTRY: From a Letter to Benjamin Vaughan, Eſq. written in 1784.

T is wonderful how prepoſterouſly the affairs of this world are managed. Naturally one would imagine, that the intereſt of a few individuals ſhould give way to general intereſt; but individuals manage their affairs with ſo much more application, induſtry, and addreſs, than the public do theirs, that general intereſt moſt commonly gives way to particular. We aſſemble parliaments and councils, to have the benefit of their collected wiſdom; but we neceſſarily have, at the ſame time, the inconvenience of their collected paſſions, prejudices, and private intereſts. By the help of theſe, artful men overpower their wiſdom, and dupe its poſſeſſors: and if we may judge by the acts, arrets, and edicts, all the world over, for regulating commerce, an aſſembly of great men is the greateſt fool upon earth.

I have not yet, indeed, thought of a remedy for luxury. I am not ſure that in a great ſtate it is capable of a remedy; nor that the evil is in itſelf always ſo great as it is repreſented. Suppoſe we include in the definition of luxury all unneceſſary expence, and then let us conſider whether laws to prevent ſuch expence are poſſible to be executed in a great country, and whether,