Section XIV.. Origin of a Nation’s Economy.

Origin Of A Nation’s Economy.

The public economy of a people has its origin simultaneously with the people. It is neither the invention of man nor the revelation of God. It is the natural product of the faculties and propensities which make man man.(125) Just as it may be shown, that the family which lives isolated from all others, contains, in itself, the germs of all political organization,(126) so may it be demonstrated, that every independent household management contains the germs of all politico-economical activity. The public economy of a nation grows with the nation. With the nation, it blooms and ripens. Its season of blossoming and of maturity is the period of its greatest strength, and, at the same time, of the most perfect development of all its more important organs.(127) In respect to it, the economic endeavors of any epoch may be said to be represented by two great parties, the one progressive, the other, conservative. The former would hasten the period of the nation’s richest and most varied development, the latter postpone its departure as long as possible; and hence it comes, that a people’s economic decline is sometimes taken for progress, by the former class, and their progress for decline, by the latter. As a rule, the union and equilibrium of these parties are wont to be the greatest at the period of maturity, because, then, intelligence and the spirit of sacrifice for the common good are most general.(128)

Finally, the public economy of a nation declines with the people. (Infra, § 263 ff.)