ChapterFourBookOne111

I have shown above that the value of all goods only depends on the number, the will, and the power of those who must use them, whom I call contributors[^1] to our wealth. Those (423) who get rich without retaining the proportion that is so essential to real wealth destroy the power, the will, and often even the number of those who should support their so-called wealth, which would not have happened by observing this proportion that would have preserved everything. Therefore, it is true to say that one becomes less rich by these pernicious ways than  by the right and natural way. The resulting harm to the state is even greater. Although the very people who make use of these bad ways fail to become richer, from which the state suffers, a number of those whom they have ruined either go to seek their fortune elsewhere or die of hunger as in a famine or (424) embrace the occupation of beggars and often even that of vagabonds and highway robbers: so many treasures, so many sources of wealth that are lost for the state and for all those who are part of it. If instead, the power, the will, and the number of a good part of the contributors[^2] to its wealth had been preserved and urged to multiply by a just proportion—which would have happened without fail—not only would the goods of those who ruined them have been worth more, but the state would have found a very considerable increase in its wealth from the goods that the ruined number would have made.

It is therefore the great work of the prince who wants to be happy, that is to say, to enrich his people, to unite (425) these different and so pernicious ways that individuals use to get rich and to leave only one as I have just said, which is the one that never leads to the ruin of others, but ensures that everyone gets rich at the same time by a proportional contribution to their mutual necessities, conveniences, and superfluities. The principles and the maxims that I have proposed in the preceding chapters lead only to this end and to the general goal of a state, which is, first, the increase in the number of its people and second, the increase in the number of foreign contributors[^3] to its wealth. The general rule that contains everything that could be said about this is: anything that diminishes (426) the power, the will, and the number of contributors[^4] to the state’s wealth must never enter into the ways to enrich individuals, and the prince must oppose it with all his strength and all his authority.