2024-01-08: One would think that the situation of Mr. Bennet, Mr. Darcy, & Lizzie Bennet in Pride & Prejudice would end with them like their French counterparts half a generation before—them...
Re the argument for Mr Darcy. I'm not going to make it, but I think you can read it into a debate that is about to happen between Ricardo and Malthus.
Simplifying greatly and loosely interpreting.
Ricardo gives the classic analysis of rent and the rentier -- the argument against Mr Darcy. Rentier's are economic parasites on both the capitalist and the working classes (the productive classes). It is in the interest of rentiers to have high corn prices, but this saps capital from the manufacturing class in the form of high wages. Though it raises normal working class wages, the high prices of corn means the real wage (subsistence wage) stagnates or falls. The answer is free trace (at least in corn) even if this lowers rents and rentier income (euthanize the rentier!). See the corn law debates for this theory in action.
Malthus, at least according to Keynes, counters this with an argument for the landed aristocracy. In modern language, if we divert income from rents to investment capital, we run the risk of over-investment, under-consumption, and a general glut. Malthus is an outlier in this period, as most everyone else subscribes to something like Say's law and thinks a general glut is impossible.
Malthus thinks you need the rentiers to provide employment in the (unproductive) service sector, and keep consumption (demand) high. The landed aristocracy are something like the counter-cyclical consumers of last resort. By Keynes's time only the government can provide this function.
This relies on seeing the Mr Darcy's of the world as unproductive consumers of the product of the unproductive service sector (household servants, lawyers, doctors, education).
Probably around about this time, if Mr Darcy is a smart long-term thinker, he will take his rents and begin to invest in trade (and industry) in the form of shares (much easier and safer after the 1850's Companies Acts) and get out of agriculture. In this way, he will shift his economic function form consumption to production. He might also want to think about downsizing his household servants and move to a smaller house (maybe in London). He will shift form being a wealthy aristocrat, to being a wealthy capitalist.
Not going to say who is right and who is wrong, but it is an argument (of sorts) for Mr. Darcy.
France took on a large debt 1.5 billion livres added to its previous 3 billion to finance the American revolution Brittain spent even more and signed the peace treaty because it ran out of money. 6 years later France had large rural riots the month before Bastille because the peasants could not pay their taxes. America repaid the debt in WWI with 240,000 deaths
Re the argument for Mr Darcy. I'm not going to make it, but I think you can read it into a debate that is about to happen between Ricardo and Malthus.
Simplifying greatly and loosely interpreting.
Ricardo gives the classic analysis of rent and the rentier -- the argument against Mr Darcy. Rentier's are economic parasites on both the capitalist and the working classes (the productive classes). It is in the interest of rentiers to have high corn prices, but this saps capital from the manufacturing class in the form of high wages. Though it raises normal working class wages, the high prices of corn means the real wage (subsistence wage) stagnates or falls. The answer is free trace (at least in corn) even if this lowers rents and rentier income (euthanize the rentier!). See the corn law debates for this theory in action.
Malthus, at least according to Keynes, counters this with an argument for the landed aristocracy. In modern language, if we divert income from rents to investment capital, we run the risk of over-investment, under-consumption, and a general glut. Malthus is an outlier in this period, as most everyone else subscribes to something like Say's law and thinks a general glut is impossible.
Malthus thinks you need the rentiers to provide employment in the (unproductive) service sector, and keep consumption (demand) high. The landed aristocracy are something like the counter-cyclical consumers of last resort. By Keynes's time only the government can provide this function.
This relies on seeing the Mr Darcy's of the world as unproductive consumers of the product of the unproductive service sector (household servants, lawyers, doctors, education).
Probably around about this time, if Mr Darcy is a smart long-term thinker, he will take his rents and begin to invest in trade (and industry) in the form of shares (much easier and safer after the 1850's Companies Acts) and get out of agriculture. In this way, he will shift his economic function form consumption to production. He might also want to think about downsizing his household servants and move to a smaller house (maybe in London). He will shift form being a wealthy aristocrat, to being a wealthy capitalist.
Not going to say who is right and who is wrong, but it is an argument (of sorts) for Mr. Darcy.
France took on a large debt 1.5 billion livres added to its previous 3 billion to finance the American revolution Brittain spent even more and signed the peace treaty because it ran out of money. 6 years later France had large rural riots the month before Bastille because the peasants could not pay their taxes. America repaid the debt in WWI with 240,000 deaths
England had a much stronger tax and financial system than France, which plucked more feathers for less hissing. At least that's what I've been taught.