ChapterFourBookOne110

This way is: that everyone observes an exact proportion in the acquisition of goods. I will say nothing here of the ways to get rich that are already forbidden by all the laws of the world, which are to take the property of another by open force, theft, larceny, or deceit and fraud, etc., that the prince must try to eliminate from his states by good morals rather than by torture; rather I will only speak of the ways to get rich that are not forbidden by laws and that are often more pernicious to the state than the crimes that are punished by death. (420)  Is it not true that a miser who hides his grain or his money during a public food shortage does more harm to the state and to his fellow citizens than a thief? Often a thief steals from a thousand people without ruining or impoverishing a single one. But misers not only ruin, but also cause an infinite number of others to perish from poverty by getting rich in cruel and unjust ways. Although they are criminal in the eyes of God, they are nevertheless not so to the state, since there are no laws against them, or if there are any, it is not possible to enforce them.

The merchant, by being cruel towards workers, often makes them leave the profession and the country, one after the other: (421) because of his extreme greed for gain, he also prevents many from buying and consuming. The worker in turn follows the same path and does all he can to sell his merchandise to country people at an excessive price and to have their goods for nothing. Sometimes the peasant, although very rarely, gets the advantage too and takes from the worker two or three months worth of products for a small quantity of produce, which he consumes in a week, and so on. All these very ordinary ways of getting rich in every state are very pernicious to public opulence and to the true wealth of each individual, as can be judged by the (422) principles that I proposed in chapter one. Everyone would become incomparably richer or at least their wealth would be more solid if they always followed the same proportion that the natural order shows them in the acquisition of goods, by preserving the will and the power of the contributors[^1] to wealth and by increasing their number instead of decreasing it. For it is clear that by using the opposite ways, the very people who believe they are getting rich by ruining others are very grossly mistaken.