A “commonplace” is any idea, expression or formula used in reasoning, discussion or simple conversation, whose relevance is never put to the test of a serious examination of its possible truth. In this sense, it is akin to a received idea whose general reception makes it a “commonplace”. There are commonplaces that are true. For example: “Better late than never”. If you think about it, you’ll agree that this maxim is well-founded. There are others that are less so, and yet creep into the discourse of ordinary people as well as the most educated in their field. I’m referring here to the phrase that is uttered just about everywhere: “to produce wealth”, “the production of wealth” or even “wealth produced” and therefore quantified. Doesn’t this syntagm, which slips so easily into our language or is so easily found under our pen, deserve to be examined for its meaning and the possible contradiction it might contain? After all, if you think about it carefully, do we really produce wealth? Is what comes out of our hands wealth? Of course not. They are objects, things that are the fruit of our effort and labor. So what is it that makes them valuable and wealthy? It is, of course, our desire to dispose of them as we please, in other words, to own them. Undoubtedly, we would not produce things if, on the other hand, they did not meet this desire to possess in a general way, and if, consequently, the thing produced did not also represent a value, a wealth. But wealth does not derive from the act of producing. There is clearly a hiatus, a gulf between the two, so obvious in fact that it seems astonishing that it has gone unnoticed by most, if not all, economists. No, wealth is not produced. For what is produced to become wealth, to acquire any value at all, it has to pass through another channel: the desire to possess.

It may be objected that the omission of this passage from our thinking is hardly a problem. However, I don’t see how a theory of value can do without it. It has to be said that Marx did address this question. But he immediately obscured it by directly attributing the value of objects to the labor required to make them. A peremptory and arbitrary attribution, whose sole function in Marxist theory is to justify the thesis of capitalist exploitation of the worker.

We can’t get away with this, and we need to take another look at the banal yet problematic idea of “wealth production”.

What is the origin of the confusion, or even amalgam, of these two relationships we have with manufactured objects: their production and their possession? To begin to answer this question, I believe it is useful to go back in history to the time when we first observe this confusion in a work that is also considered the founding act of modern economic science: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) by Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790). Wealth” is the French word for “wealth”. We won’t translate it as “prosperity”, which, incidentally, is spelled the same way in English: prosperity. Smith is referring to the “wealth” of a nation, a people, not a state. But how can a people as a whole be rich, since it produces for its own needs, even if these needs are more or less well satisfied, depending on the situation of each individual? If they were conquerors, they could be said to be rich from their conquests or from the tribute levied on subjugated nations, like the Athenian empire at its ephemeral peak, or the Roman Empire at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire. A monarchical state can also be wealthy insofar as it governs a hard-working, industrious, inventive and enterprising people, from whom it draws, through a judicious and moderate tax system, a growing income that adds to its wealth and power. But how could a people, a nation, be rich? The confusion in Smith’s mind should enlighten us.

Why does he adopt the point of view of the State while speaking of the Nation? To understand this, we need to paint a brief picture of English society and economy for Adam Smith, an enlightened and perceptive observer. England in the second half of the eighteenth century was a hive of activity: booming cottage industries stimulated by slow but steady progress in productivity, foreign trade flourishing thanks to relatively low comparative prices, new manufactures adding to the pleasures of life, and agriculture seeing its yields increase. Smith’s picture was a happy one, with new fortunes being made without undoing old ones, growing demand giving work to artisans whose affluence was increasing, and even to ordinary workers whose wages were rising above the level of mere subsistence. England was a better and cheaper producer of everyday goods than the Continent, even though it itself benefited from a rather favorable economic climate. Historians estimate that economic growth in Western Europe during the 18th century was between 0.2% and 0.3% a year, which may not seem like much, but it gradually changes the state of a society and the very perception of its members. This change was particularly noticeable in England and Scotland, inspiring Smith to use the word “Wealth”.

He unconsciously equated the good fortune of commercial capitalism with the admittedly modest rise in general well-being through increased production and productivity, the benefits of which remain partly in the hands of the producers themselves. Yes, wealth does seem to be produced in such a situation, but it cannot last indefinitely, especially when, due to its very vigor, wages and prices rise, and attention then turns to the pursuit of productivity for its own sake and as a means of restoring and increasing profits. In other words: by lowering prices through the use of machines, profits will rise, and a greater share of the value circulating in trade will be captured. And here, long after Smith, the contradiction inherent in the idea of “wealth production” becomes clear. By relentlessly striving to produce better, faster and cheaper, we destroy the value of what we produce in the hope of capturing more of what we don‘t produce. This can be a path to fortune, as long as other areas of production are not sucked into the maelstrom of value-destroying productivism. The history of this generalization is that of the entire 19th and 20th centuries. But once the wave of productivism has swept over all human activities, the great contradiction of this commonplace emerges into the open and finally produces its real and deleterious effects, which we call the economic crisis without realizing its underlying causes, carried away as we are in the frantic agitation of a headlong rush forward.

True and real wealth – the peaceful, lasting and tranquil enjoyment of real goods, itself the condition for the direct or indirect creation of these goods – is exposed to a continuous and general destruction in which civilization itself risks sinking.

For a more in-depth study of what is only briefly outlined here, see the book: La Richesse n’est pas produite ou Essai sur la nature et l’origine de la Valeur marchande et la Richesse matérielle, L’Harmattan, 2011.