Lectures on the Nature and Use of Money Author:John Gray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE III. Production, naturally the cause of Demand, is now the effect of it—the operations of our existing monetary system having reversed their position.... more » The co-equality, therefore, of Production and Demand which has thus been insanely suspended, must be restored, ere it can be possible for mankind to prosper. In my last lecture I endeavoured to show that, apart from all monetary considerations whatsoever, production is the cause, and the sole cause of demand ; that supply and demand are exchangeable terms; and that, in the aggregate, the one should ever be precisely equal to the other. The existence of over-production, therefore, in these circumstances, would evidently be impossible. Disproportion may exist, no doubt, but this is an evil which, in the scapegoat phrase of the political economists, will very speedily cure itself. It is however obvious, that if a great number of persons should meet together in a public market, for the purpose described in my last lecture, namely, that of exchanging amongst each other the varied products of their respective industry—each one having at once something to dispose of, and at the same time a multitude of requirements—they would speedily find themselves in a most unmanageable position.A has food, B clothes, and C a house, to sell. D has furniture, and E fuel, to dispose of. But, unhappily, it is all but certain that no two persons out of any number that might be thus collected, would chance to be in the fortunate situation of mutually requiring the precise kind and quantity of commodities which they should wish to buy and sell. A, for example, has bread to dispose of, and D a mahogany table. But even suppose A to be in want of the table, this article must surely be worth a great deal more bread than D can require at any one t...« less