ABSTRACT
The misery of the savage hunter, who dies so frequently of hunger, is not equal to that of millions of families, whom a manufacturer sometimes dismisses; because at least there remains to the former all the energy, and all the intelligence, which he has put to proof during all his life. The causes of diminution in the demand for labour often belong to polity, properly so called, rather than to political economy. There is, perhaps, none more efficacious than the loss or diminution of liberty. Animals are substituted for men in almost all the details of agriculture; and machines are substituted for men in all the operations of manufactures. So long as a nation finds within its reach a market sufficiently extensive to secure for all its productions a prompt and advantageous circulation, each of these discoveries is an advantage, because, instead of diminishing the number of workmen, it augments the mass of labour and its produce.
