See e. g. Galiani, “Della Moneta,” in vol. 3 of Scrittori Classici italiani di Economia politica (Published by Custodi). Parte Moderna, Milano, 1803. “La fatica, he says, è l’unica che dà valore alla cosa” (“only effort can give value to any thing”). The designation of labor as “fatica,” strain, effort, is characteristic of the southerner.

Steuart’s work, “An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, being an Essay on the Science of Domestic Policy in Free Nations,” appeared first in London in two quarto volumes in the year 1767, ten years before Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.” I quote from the Dublin edition of 1770. (The references to pages are the same for the standard London edition of 1767, except where otherwise stated. Translator.)

Steuart, l. c., vol. I., p. 181-183.

Steuart, l. c., vol. I., p. 361-362.

See chapter I., book II., vol. I. “of the reciprocal connections between Trade and Industry” (Translator).

He declares, therefore, the patriarchal form of agriculture which is devoted to the direct production of use-values for the owner of the land, to be an “abuse,” not in Sparta, or Rome, or even in Athens, but in the industrial countries of the eighteenth century. This “abusive agriculture” is not “trade,” but a “direct means of subsisting.” Just as capitalistic agriculture clears the country of superfluous mouths, so does the capitalistic mode of manufacture clear the factory of superfluous hands.