and Destutt de Tracy was eager in particular to make a distinction between that of “idle” and “active” capitalists (199). The expenditure of the former, he contended, largely deriving from a fixed income in the form of rent or interest on capital, was devoted to their personal satisfaction and, as such, was “absolutely pure loss” and “sterile” (199). In its extreme form it degenerated into “unbridled luxury” (199), the excessive and superfluous expenditure that was both “repugnant to good sense” (204) and damaging to the economy. In contrast, the active capitalist was modest in his consumption patterns. “Industrious men,” Destutt de Tracy wrote, “are commonly frugal, and too often not very rich” (200). They spent little to satisfy personal and family needs and returned their capital to the productive process, thereby increasing the growth and circulation of wealth throughout society.
Patterns of consumption were linked to questions of distribution. This, in turn, raised the issue of the unequal possession of wealth. According to Destutt de Tracy, a natural inequality existed between individuals, deriving from their differing faculties and abilities. This natural inequality was extended as our material wealth increased. Conflicts of interest were inherent to this situation. Did this mean that class conflict was inevitable and permanent? Destutt de Tracy did not think so. First, although we each had particular interests, these were frequently changing. Next, all of us—employers and employees—were united by the “common... interests of proprietors and consumers” (167). In brief, we all benefited if property was respected and industry prospered. This was best attained through “the free disposition” (189) of labor and, in Destutt de Tracy’s view, if wages were both sufficient and constant. As he commented: “humanity, justice and policy, equally require that of all interests, those of the poor should always be the most consulted” (179), but to this he added that “the real interests of the poor” were “always conformable to reason and the general interest” (180). For example, to reduce the lowest class of society to “extreme misery” would be to encourage “the death of industry” (182–83).
It was clearly no part of Destutt de Tracy’s plan that government should seek to eradicate the consequences of natural inequality. To attempt to do so would be vain. Rather, in his view, “in every society the government is the greatest of consumers” (217) and its expenditure, even when necessary, was unproductive and thus sterile. To the extent that taxes encroached on productive consumption and took “from individuals the wealth which was at their disposition” (220), it should be reduced to a minimum. It was even more desirable that governments should not contract debts as the evidence of the recent past proved that “public credit is the poison which rapidly enough destroys modern governments” (250). Destutt de Tracy similarly lamented the government issue of paper currency, seeing it as a form of theft and a cause of inflation.
Destutt de Tracy was never to finish his Elements of Ideology. Around 1815 he started to go blind, and his plan to extend his inquiries from economy to morality got no further than an essay on love (duly sent to Jefferson but first published in Italy in 1819). He lived until 1836, sitting in the Chamber of Peers and maintaining a distinguished salon frequented by both Benjamin Constant and the novelist Stendhal. Long before his death the philosophical climate had turned against the scientific aspirations of idéologie, but this could not detract from the fact that in his Treatise on Political Economy Destutt de Tracy had written one of the classics of nineteenth-century French economic liberalism.
Note on the Text
As the introduction makes clear, when Thomas Jefferson finally received the translation of Destutt de Tracy’s text, he was not pleased with what he found and thus set about revising and correcting it as best he could. “The claim of the present translation,” he wrote in the Prospectus, “is limited to its duties of fidelity and justice to the sense of the original.” In preparing this edition I have sought to approach Destutt de Tracy’s text and Jefferson’s translation in the same spirit and have, therefore, kept revisions to a minimum.
Certain changes have been made in terms of presentation. I have restored the paragraph structure of the original French text. I have done the same with the use of italics and capitalization, as the English version used these randomly. I have similarly removed the vast number of dashes deployed needlessly in the translation. I have likewise endeavored to correct typographical errors and, upon a few occasions and where necessary, have corrected the translation. I have retained the page order of the English translation, where the Abstract or Analytical Table appears at the beginning rather than at the end of the book.
All translations present the translator and editor with dilemmas. Destutt de Tracy’s text in its Jeffersonian version is no exception to this rule. As far as possible I have modified the translation of key terms only when if left unchanged they would confuse the modern reader or obscure the meaning of the text. Below I set out the specific decisions I have made with regard to key terms.
Agriculteur: Rather than the original “agricolist,” I have chosen the more familiar “farmer.”
Besoin: Although we might more normally translate this as “need,” I have retained its translation as “want.”
Commerçan: Rather than the original “commercialist,” I have chosen “merchant.”
Entrepreneur: In the Jefferson edition this is translated as “undertaker.” To avoid an obvious misunderstanding I have chosen “entrepreneur.”
Fabrican: Rather than the original “fabricator,” I have chosen “manufacturer.” Similarly, for the verb “fabriquer,” I have chosen “to manufacture” rather than “to fabricate.”
Impôt: In the original text this is translated as both “impost” and “tax.” I have decided to leave this unchanged.
Métairie: Rather than the original “half-shares,” I have chosen “sharecropper” and “tenant farm.”
Rentier: Rather than the original “annuitant,” I have chosen “rentier” as it now has an accepted English usage.
Salarié: Rather than the original “hireling,” I have chosen “wage earner.”
A TREATISE
on
POLITICAL ECONOMY;
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED
A SUPPLEMENT TO A PRECEDING WORK
ON THE UNDERSTANDING,
OR ELEMENTS OF IDEOLOGY;
WITH AN
ANALYTICAL TABLE,
AND AN
INTRODUCTION ON THE FACULTY OF THE WILL.
BY THE COUNT DESTUTT TRACY,
MEMBER OF THE SENATE AND INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, AND OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE UNPUBLISHED FRENCH ORIGINAL.
GEORGETOWN,
