ChapterTwoBookOne91

In this way, the prince will control the superfluities of each individual; he will be able to dispose of them judiciously to enrich everyone and to ensure that each one has his share in proportion to his needs, that is to say, his necessities and his conveniences. A prince needs only the superfluous of two kinds of goods, namely money and grains, to be master of the rest. He needs money to facilitate the exchange of his subject’s products for those they need from others, as much for their necessities as for their conveniences, and to prevent anyone from being deprived of the fruits of his labor because of an excessive price for one or another (350) commodity. He needs grains to ensure everyone’s necessities by fixing them at a price that all those who want to be useful members of society and to follow the natural order in the acquisition of wealth can always afford, without worrying about scarcity or famine.

The greatest public calamities that we often see in states originate in two extremes that happen with two kinds of goods. Sometimes money is too scarce, sometimes it is too common: sometimes grains are excessively scarce and people die of hunger, sometimes the costs of cultivation are hardly recuperated. Many families perish and are ruined from (351) one or another of these extremes without being able to recover. However, these goods are scarce, not because of their quantity, but rather from the lack of exchanging them, which stops because of an often imaginary fear to which men are subject. When the prince controls the superfluous money and grains in his states, he will also have the authority to prevent this very pernicious fear and to ensure that money and grains are always equally scarce and equally common[^1] and that the extremes mentioned no longer prevent nor stop public opulence. By leading things to such a point of proportion, he will be able to boast of having procured an infinite increase (352) in wealth for his people; he will soon see surprising effects and very advantageous consequences. I cannot hide the fact that my whole system aims only at this balance, of which I will speak even more later.