A Treatise on Political Economy - The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth

macaroni. In Europe, courts of justice are considered indispensable to the maintenance of social union; whereas Native Americans, Tatars, and Arabs original: "the Indian of America, the Tartar, and the Arab" feel no need for such establishments. It is not our business here to inquire where these needs originate; we must take them as given facts original: "data" and reason upon them accordingly.

Of these needs, some are satisfied by the free agency of natural objects, such as air, water, or sunlight. These may be called natural wealth because they are the spontaneous offerings of nature; as such, mankind is not called upon to earn them by any sacrifice or effort whatever. For this reason, they never possess exchangeable value.

There are other needs that can only be satisfied by using objects possessed of a utility original: "an utility" which they could not have been invested with without some modification by human action—without having undergone some change of condition, and without some difficulty having been overcome for the purpose. Of this kind are the products of agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing in all their infinite branches. To them alone is any value attached, and for a very obvious reason: because the very act of production implies an act of mutual exchange, in which the producer has given his personal labor original: "agency" for the product obtained by its exertion. Therefore original: "Wherefore", he will hardly give it up without receiving what is, in his estimation, an equivalent. These may be called social wealth, both because an act of ex— The text breaks off here; likely "exchange."