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Writing: The National Gain

The National Gain, § 2

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§ 2

A nation is a multitude of people who have combined in order, under the protection of the Sovereign Power and with the aid of officials, to pursue their own well-being and that of their descendants.

Human beings feel well when they possess their necessities and comforts, which are referred to in common parlance as goods. It is nature that generates these, but they never become useful to us without labour.

The needs are manifold, and no one has ever been able, without the help of others, to acquire the minimum of necessities, while there is hardly a nation that has no need of another. The Almighty Himself has made our species such that we ought to cooperate. Should such mutual assistance be obstructed within or beyond a nation, it is contrary to nature.

When we exchange these commodities among ourselves it is termed commerce, and the kinds of commodities that are generally desired and received are gold and silver, of which larger or smaller stamped portions are called money, which becomes the measure of the value of other commodities.

No commodity is such that it cannot be converted through trade into these metals, nor can any be obtained without them in the absence of other commodities desired by the vendor; and the amount of money that must be paid for the commodity is called its value.

The amount by which the value of exported commodities exceeds that of imported ones is rightly called the profit of the nation, and the amount by which the value of the imported ones surpasses that of those that are exported always constitutes its loss. But a smaller loss compared with a larger one is, relatively speaking, called its profit, and in the same way a lesser profit obtained when a larger one is possible is termed a loss.

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