As regards superfluous grains and other necessary things for life, they are hoarded and often kept in a way that is very harmful, according (345) to what I have just said on the topic of necessities. A warehouse in public granaries will also remove the fear of a famine, which makes people hoard grains inopportunely, and the administrators will answer with their lives and their property for always supplying a sufficient quantity to everyone at a reasonable and fixed price. Then no one will want to keep the grains any longer, neither from fear of starving to death nor from the expectation of excessive gain. The deplorable misfortunes that this fear and this greed for gain often bring about will cease and suddenly end.
The desire to have and to earn superfluous goods for the establishment of a family is the most reasonable and the most useful to the state in relation to its aim of (346) multiplying the number of people. But it is nevertheless necessary for the prince to rectify it and to make it more suitable for producing the results that we must expect from it for the state’s wealth. When children are taught in the public schools that goods are the least of the guarantees against destitution and poverty and that only personal contribution to other people’s needs makes us solidly rich; when the prince makes everyone learn a trade according to the scope of his strengths; when he makes those who have no talent, who exercise no profession, and who are a burden to others, regarded as unworthy and rotten members of society; when everyone is employed (347) and is able to work in security without worrying about the fruits of his labor; and when all ways of living at the expense of others without contributing proportionally one’s part are removed, most of the money worries of fathers will cease. They will only have to wish for a family as large as it can be; it will become, through these kinds of establishments, their greatest wealth because their children will learn trades without it costing them anything and will then be employed and occupied in a way that will provide them with the needs of life: at the same time, the fathers will be protected from lacking them in their old age. In this way the prince will divert both fathers (348) and children from this immoderate greed to have and to keep superfluities for a use that will become almost unnecessary. Goods that often remain idle in the hands of a single person for several years, from the fear that his children may run out of goods, will be exchanged with others and put into commerce. The injustices and terrible treachery that we often commit for the love of our family will be suppressed. It will no longer be so easy for all the property of a city or a village to fall into the hands of one or two families and for the others to only be their slaves. It will no longer happen so often that, failing to see ways to subsist with a family, (349) we give up this natural desire to multiply, which is a great detriment to the state’s wealth.
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