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§ 11
I now dare go further and assert that regulations that direct people into particular occupations are harmful to the nation and to its profit: I feel obliged to do so for what in my view are four supremely important reasons.
In the whole of Europe there is not as yet any fixed principle to follow in this matter of distributing workers, for such regulations are sometimes adopted in order to promote a new craft or technology, sometimes in order
to provide employment for more of the population and sometimes to give the owner of some manufacturing works a higher income by means of lower wages.In one case it is done in order to make our products exportable, in another case to fulfil one or other of our requirements within the kingdom. At times the purpose of such a measure is that local shipowners should gain from carrying our commodities and native workers from their wages, at other times to obtain gold and silver within the country. Sometimes they are designed to prevent people from emigrating, sometimes in order to curtail luxury. On one occasion it is deemed to be necessary to maintain proper order among the trades, on another it is required to prevent craftsmen from working in more than one art, with innumerable other reasons.
Is there not a lack of a proper system in all this? And must not a house that is constructed from so many blueprints acquire a strange appearance and lack the necessary stability?
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