In short, since you wish me to
finish, I must beg you, before we separate, to fix your whole attention
upon this essential point:--When once false money (under whatever form
it may take) is put into circulation, depreciation will ensue, and
manifest itself by the universal rise of every thing which is capable of
being sold. But this rise in prices is not instantaneous and equal for
all things. Sharp men, brokers, and men of business, will not suffer by
it; for it is their trade to watch the fluctuations of prices, to
observe the cause, and even to speculate upon it. But little tradesmen,
countrymen, and workmen, will bear the whole weight of it. The rich man
is not any the richer for it, but the poor man becomes poorer by it.
Therefore, expedients of this kind have the effect of increasing the
distance which separates wealth from poverty, of paralysing the social
tendencies which are incessantly bringing men to the same level, and it
will require centuries for the suffering classes to regain the ground
which they have lost in their advance towards _equality of condition_.
B. Good morning; I shall go and meditate upon the lecture you have
been giving me.
F. Have you finished your own dissertation? As for me, I have scarcely
begun mine. I have not yet spoken of the _hatred_ of capital, of
gratuitous credit--a fatal notion, a deplorable mistake, which takes
its rise from the same source.
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