Richard Cantillon notes: Essay on the Nature of Trade in General

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Of Wealth

Here, Cantillon is speaking of the land, mines and sea and how they are all part of the production of wealth. Production of man will determine the amount of wealth that will be earned. Essentially, all men have the same resources (e.t. land), but production is how wealth is acquired.

Of Market Towns

Cantillon uses the market as a basis for social order. He suggests that it is easier and more natural to have a market for the people to come to trade. Merchants or Undertakers will go to different villages to buy goods and then take them to the market to sell. Also, the prices would be fixed at the market price as opposed to different prices in each village.

Of Cities

Landlords live in small estates in the Market Towns and villages because that is what they can afford, even after the wealth earned from transporting produce.

There are some landlords who have larger amounts of land that are able to afford larger dwellings and royalty that have land given to them that are able to build big houses. Many of the people that can afford these larger dwellings will want to live near one another. Once they form a city, they will also need other people of lower classes such as merchant's butchers, etc to live nearby to benefit the nobles.

Intrinsic Value

Cantillon states that the price of a good generally is based on that measure of the land and labor that goes into producing it. He compares outcomes of land when one produces more than the other or better quality due to that labor of man. Quality of a good is being entered as part of the value. Markets do not always work that way due to how the people buying view each...