and provide houses for habitation and enclosures for their flocks, much sooner than the separate labours of the same number. By concert and alternate relief they can keep a perpetual watch, which without concert they could not accomplish.”
In explaining the “Foundation of Property” Hutcheson says that when population was scanty, the country fertile and the climate mild, there was not much need for developing the rules of property, but as things are, “universal industry is plainly necessary for the support of mankind” and men must be excited to labour by self-interest and family affection. If the fruits of men’s labours are not secured to them, “one has no other motive to labour than the general affection to his kind, which is commonly much weaker than the narrower affections to our friends and relations, not to mention the opposition which in this case would be given by most of the selfish ones.” Willing industry could not be secured in a communistic society.
The largest continuous block of economic doctrine in the System of Moral Philosophy is to be found in the chapter on “The Values of Goods in Commerce and the Nature of Coin” which occurs in the middle of the discussion of contracts. In this chapter it is pointed out that it is necessary for commerce that goods should be valued. The values of goods depend on the demand for them and the difficulty of acquiring them. Values must be measured by some common standard, and this standard must be something generally desired, so that men may be generally willing to take it in exchange. To secure this it should be something portable, divisible without loss, and durable. Gold and silver best fulfil these requirements. At first they were used by quantity or weight, without coinage, but eventually the state vouched for quantity and quality by its stamp. The stamp being “easy workmanship” adds no considerable value. “Coin is ever valued as a commodity in commerce as well as other goods; and that in proportion to the rarity of the metal, for the demand is universal.” The only way to raise its value artificially would be by restricting the produce of the mines.