One will see by examining my thoughts if they come closer to this general goal of all states than many others, which only lead to the destruction and to a decrease in the number of people, and if, in the way that I claim that the economy of a state is composed, one will arrive sooner or later at what I call public and universal opulence. I say again, in concluding this chapter, that a small number of excessively rich people, that is to say, owners of the greatest part of the state’s wealth, is a thing as monstrous in a state as the quantity of beggars and poor wretches who sleep in the streets and along the main roads because the one is usually a natural consequence (411) of the other. The injustice, greed, and power of these rich people are so great that they know how to protect themselves against the best laws in the world, crushing and ruining an infinite number of others to satisfy their insatiable desire to have all the goods of others for nothing. Seeing, for example, a man who needs to prevent himself from dying of hunger, they are unjust enough to pay for his daily work with a piece of bread and to steal from him the share of conveniences and superfluities that he needs not only as a reward for his work, but also to be able to continue it and to feed his family: when he is ruined and reduced to begging, another will take his place who (412) is hardly better treated. And this disease spreads imperceptibly like a canker to so many members of the state that it often results in a general languor of the whole body, that is to say, public destitution. If providence had not prepared an excellent remedy against this cruelty of the rich, they would be able to upset the whole economy of a state, because they do not want to understand that they are acting against their true interests by enriching themselves through the ruin of others; they notice it too late when, because of a decrease in the number of contributors[^1] to their wealth, their goods lose half their value and power, so that it is as if they had (413) done nothing by seizing the goods of others through cruelties and appalling injustices.[^2]
When goods are more proportionally distributed among the members of a state, so that some cannot do without others any more than the others can do without them, such disorders do not happen so often, and everything is better. This is why a prince must sometimes think of doing a judicious and suitable bleeding to bodies that are so fat and make sure that the vital sap circulates proportionally in all the members of the body. But since this is a state secret, it is not appropriate to speak about it more particularly in a public work. (414)
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