As soon as a society reaches a certain level of civilization, the growing division of labor causes the development of a special professional class which operates as an intermediary in exchanges and
performs for the other members of society not only the mechanical part of trading operations (shipping, distribution, the storing of goods, etc.), but also the task of keeping records of the available quantities.
Thus we observe that a specific class of people has a special professional interest in compiling data about the quantities of goods, so-called stocks in the widest sense of the word, currently at the disposal of the various peoples and nations whose trade they mediate. The data they compile cover trading regions that are smaller or larger (single counties, provinces, or even entire countries or continents) according to the position the intermediaries in question occupy in commercial life. They have, moreover, an interestin many other general kinds of information, but we will have occasion to discuss this at a later point.
The keeping of such statistical records, insofar as they relate to the quantities of goods currently at the disposal of sizeable groups of individuals, or even at the disposal of whole nations or groups of nations, meets, however, with not inconsiderable difficulties, since the exact determination of these stocks can be made only by means of a census. The procedure of a census presupposes a complicated apparatus of public officials, covering an entire trading area and equipped with the necessary powers. Such an apparatus can be supplied only by national governments, and by these only within their own territories. Moreover, a census fails to be efficient even within these limits, as is known to every expert, when it deals
with goods whose available quantities are not easily accessible to official enumeration. Read the rest of this entry »



