ChapterThreeBookOne104

The Greeks, the wisest legislators among the pagans, forbade their citizens on pain of death to exceed a certain quantity of goods.[^1] They had observed that the greed of men was sometimes so great that in wanting to grow their wealth to infinity and have an excess of superfluities, they deprived others of the means to enrich themselves: they seized with their credit the best affairs that presented themselves and deprived others of them, piling wealth upon wealth, which remained in the end idle and almost useless in their hands because they are even unable to spend the revenues,[^2] to the detriment of their fellow citizens. It is like a spring that is finally exhausted (395) and can no longer supply water to all those who need it. It is odious and very harmful to the state for a few to own such an enormous quantity of goods, which could enrich a very large number of families, and for their wealth to provide them the means to rule[^3] over the poor and to seize the fruits of their labor for nothing: their inhumanity forces the poor to leave the country and to seek their fortune elsewhere, the true way of stripping the state of the best part of its wealth.

There is another very considerable disadvantage to the state caused very often by the rich, especially by ministers who have become wealthy in a short time at the expense of the prince and his people. They (396) send their best effects out of the country lest everyone’s indignation against such immoderate wealth, acquired with so little justice, should make them take up arms against them and reduce their treasures to dust because of this natural tendency that providence has established in the ordinary course of human affairs. In this way, they deprive the state and all their fellow citizens of funds that could have circulated through an infinite number of hands and enriched them all. By establishing and maintaining this proportion of values, of which I have just spoken and of which I will speak again in due course, the prince will prevent any individual from being able to enrich himself so suddenly at the expense of others and to misuse his (397) disproportionate wealth. And although a law like that of the Greeks seems very extraordinary today and almost impossible to implement, the prince could nevertheless aim for it and achieve the same end by indirect means or at least ensure that no one seeks his superfluities so much in the possession of an excessive quantity of goods, but rather in an inordinate number of contributors[^4] to his wealth.