The Economic Table

instruments, machines, mills, forges
or other usages, etc. . . . . . . . . 2,000,000,000¹

3.º The coined money, or the cash reserve original: "pécule"—the total stock of circulating currency within a nation. of an opulent agricultural Nation, is approximately equal to the net product original: "produit net"—the surplus wealth created by land after all production costs and wages have been paid. that it derives annually from its landed property through the medium of commerce . . . . . 1,000,000,000*

The following text is a continuation of the footnote marked with an asterisk (*). It is printed in two columns and flows continuously from the bottom of the left column to the top of the right column.

• Or approximately 18,600,000 marks original: "marcs"—a traditional unit of weight for gold and silver, equivalent to about 244.75 grams or 8 ounces. of silver.
  It is observed that the cash reserve of England remains fixed at approximately this proportion, which, in the current state of its wealth, maintains itself at about 26 million pounds sterling, or 11 million marks of silver. If this Nation found itself exposed to pressing needs and excessive borrowing due to its wars, it was not through a lack of money; it was because of expenditures that exceeded the revenues of the State. Even when money provided for loans, the revenues would be no less burdened by debts, and the Nation would be ruined if the very source of revenues suffered a progressive decay that diminished the annual reproduction of wealth. It is from this perspective that one must view the state of Nations; because the cash reserve is always self-renewing in a Nation where wealth is continually renewed without decay.

For about a century—that is, from 1450 until 1550—there was a great decrease in the quantity of money in Europe, as can be judged by the price of goods at that time; but this smaller quantity of cash was a matter of indifference to Nations, because the market value of this wealth was the same everywhere, and because, in terms of cash, their status was the same relative to their revenues, which were everywhere equally measured by the uniform value of silver. In this case, for the convenience of men, it is better for the value to compensate for the mass than for the mass to compensate for the value. One is led to believe that it was the discovery of America that brought a greater abundance of gold and silver to Europe; however, the value of silver had already fallen relative to goods, to the degree it is today, before the arrival of American gold and silver in Europe. But all these general variations change nothing regarding the state of each Nation's cash reserve, as it is always proportional to the revenues of landed property and the gains from foreign trade. In the previous century, under Louis XIV, the mark of coined silver was worth 28 livres The livre was the standard currency of account in pre-revolutionary France.. Thus, 18,600,000 marks were then worth approximately 500 million. This was roughly the state of France's cash reserve at that time, when the Kingdom was much wealthier than it was toward the end of that Monarch's reign.

In 1716, the general reminting original: "refonte"—the process of recalling all circulating coins to melt them down and issue new ones, often used by the French crown to adjust the currency's official value. of specie did not amount to 400 million; the mark of coined silver was at 43 livres 12 sols A "sol" or "sou" was a subunit of currency; 20 sols made one livre.; thus the mass of specie from this reminting did not amount to nine million marks; this was less than half of the amount in the general remintings of 1683 and 1693. This mass of cash could only have increased through the annual minting of specie insofar as the Nation's revenue increased. However considerable the total of these annual mintings has been since this reminting, it will have served less to increase the mass of coined money than to repair what is removed annually by smuggling, by various branches of passive trade, and by other uses of money abroad; for over the last 44 years, the total of these annual transmissions, if well calculated, would be found quite considerable. The increase in the face value original: "numéraire"—the nominal value assigned to money by law, regardless of its metal content., which has long been fixed at 54 livres, does not prove that the quantity of the Nation's cash reserve has increased much. These estimates conform little to the opinions of the common people regarding the quantity of a Nation's coined money; the people believe that the wealth of a State consists in money; but money, like all other productions, is wealth only by reason...