[25r] The best, most cautious politician has the duty of ensuring that the wealth and resources of the city are divided and distributed among the citizens into suitable mathematical proportions according to the rules dictated by distributive justice.75 This must be done in such a way that even when some members of the city acquire the greater part of the profits, the others are not subject to deprivation and poverty.
[A civil state that deprived its people of their share of resources] would be mon-strous and comparable to an animal’s body; as Aristotle states in book V of the Politics: “Especially should the laws provide against any one having too much power, whether derived from friends or money.”76
In addition, the exorbitant opulence of the former, and the desperate poverty and need of the latter, would provoke upheaval and inspire sedition. Indeed, these two extremes have met many times in the past, and the concurrence has always resulted in disturbances to the civil state. As Solomon stated in Proverbs, chapter 22: “The rich and the poor meet together – the Lord is the maker of them all.”77It is as if he meant to say that the rich man and the poor man frequently meet one another and join together just as dryness encounters humidity and consequently stimulates it, and finally merges with it, all [25v] of which result from Divine provi-dence, which aspires to alter the state of men. Such incongruity and disproportion do not occur by traffic and trade any more than they do from other ways. When they are managed vigilantly and prudently and with the help of good fortune, traffic and trade can easily make people extremely wealthy and dramatically raise the cir-cumstances of anyone who risks undertaking them. Numerous examples demon-strate the truth of this claim.
However, the aspiration to a rigorous reduction of one’s possessions to a moder-ate size has been considered a desirable undertaking to this day, but it is hardly ever practised, especially with regard to the equal distribution of moveable assets and cash. Whenever this was attempted with real estate, the result was, for the most part, unsuccessful. The laws of Phaleas regarding the division of goods have only survived in Aristotle’s attacks in the second book of the Politics;78otherwise they have sunk into oblivion. The equal subdivision of the Holy Land among the ancient
75 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics V:2 (1130b30–1131a9).
76 Aristotle, Politics V:8 (1308b16–17). Luzzatto used the Latin translation by the Florentine human-ist Leonardo Bruni: Arhuman-istotelis Stagiritae Politicorum sive de Republica Libri octo. Leonardo Aretino interprete cum D. Thomae Aquinatis Explanatione (Venetiis: Apud Iuntas, 1568), book 5, lectio 7, 79v:
“Maxime vero lege ita providere conandum est ut nemini sit excessiva potentia, neque amicorum neque pecuniarum.”
77 Hebrew:הוהיםלוכהשוע;ושגפנשרורישע. 78 Aristotle, Politics II:6 (1266a33–b4).
fu senza seditione essequita, ma perché occorse nella loro prima introdutione, e subito per l’inegualità de figliuoli con poco frutto, si rese vana. Fu interdetto a loro re il moltiplicare, et augumentare ricchezze, ma non vi fu posto limite e termine spetiale, come nel Deuteronomio si legge.
Le leggi agrarie furono piuttosto seminarii [26r] de tumulti appresso li Romani, che correttioni de disordini, la ragione è che non si può altrimente arrestare il felice corso de avventurati, se non per vie a loro insensibili, et inosservabili, ch’altrimenti ogni provisione se li rappresenta violente estorsione, et invidioso livore, oltra ch’in tal modo se distorna l’industria degli huomini, e li devia dalli loro cominciati pro-gressi, essendo suspinti da fervente desiderio di estendere all’infinito le loro fortu-ne, non fatturando l’humana avidità, li sognati mondi di Democrito.
È ben vero che la Republica in alcune professioni particolari ha proveduto a simili disordini, limitando il numero de panni a lanaiuoli, e le quantità de tellari a setaiuoli, acciocché a tutti li sia compartito li lavoranti, et operarii, ma circa l’esser-citio mercantile in universale non vi è stato giamai deliberato cosa alcuna, es-send’impresa per se stessa impossibile, et impraticabile.
In quanto agli Hebrei, senza ch’alcuno vi provede, aviene che prosperando al-cuni de loro ne traffici, giamai li è possibile di arrivare a segno di ricchezza, che sia estraordinario, e pregiuditiale ad alcuno. Ma all’influsso de loro avventurati pro-gressi, subito succede a pari passo il reflusso de loro scadimenti, e ciò rissulta per non poter essi possedere beni stabili, che sono li tenaci vincoli, che [26v] arrestano, e fermano la volubilità dell’human fortune. Vi si aggiunge il rito d’amogliarsi ognu-no di loro, e perciò moltiplicare in famiglia, che gli apporta gravi dispendii, e minu-ta divisione de loro haveri, oltr’il solito mancamento dell’industria ne figliuoli de ben aggiati cessando il stimolo del bisogno, e vessati dal lusso, ordinario satteliti delle comodità.
Vi concorre anco le gravezze ordinarie, e straordinarie, imposte alla natione, dalli quali accidenti, ne segue, ch’in brevissimo tempo a guisa di baleno, le loro facoltà spariscono, in maniera tale, che li loro haveri, e facoltà, sono sempre mobili, e girativi, né mai fissi, e permanenti. E la esperienza lo dimostra, per il corso d’anni
Jews was executed peacefully, but only because it happened upon their first enter-ing it. The division was challenged due to the imbalance caused by [a different number of] sons, and it became fruitless and vain. The kings were forbidden to multiply and increase their riches, but no limitations or special terms were placed upon them, as one can read in Deuteronomy.79
The agrarian laws sowed [26r] discontent among the Romans rather than cor-recting the disorder. The reason for this is that one can only stop the happy exploits of adventurers by means that are invisible and that go unnoticed by them, since otherwise every provision appears to them to be a violent extortion and a form of selective malevolence. Furthermore, by acting this way, the industriousness of men is distracted and they are diverted from any further progress, for they are urged on by a fervent desire to infinitely increase their fortunes. For human greed does not take into account that the worlds of Democritus are only a dream.80
It is true that the Venetian Republic has provided remedies for comparable ir-regularities in specific professions by limiting the number of clothes for wool mak-ers, and the quantity of looms for silk manufacturmak-ers, so that all of them can divide the workers and labourers amongst themselves. But with regard to the mercantile trade in general, nothing has been contemplated so far, for it would be an impossi-ble and unfeasiimpossi-ble undertaking.
As for the Jews, although some of them prosper in trade, it would never be pos-sible for them, without the intervention of others, to arrive at a level of wealth that might seem extraordinary or dangerous to anyone. When they make progress in their fortunes, their decline immediately follows at the same rate, because of their inability to possess real estate, which is the tenacious bond that [26v] prevents and impedes the volatility of human fortune. Their fortunes are also thwarted by the common prac-tice among the Jews of taking a wife and raising a family, which incurs great expense and results in the fragmentation of their possessions. The children of wealthy Jews exhibit the usual absence of industry, wealth ending the stimulus for need, and idle-ness originating from luxury which are usually connected to comfort.
The imposition of ordinary and extraordinary tolls upon the Jewish Nation must also be taken into account, so that in a very short time, like a bolt of lightning, their wealth disappears. In this way, their possessions and wealth are always in flux and in circulation, and never fixed or permanent. Experience shows that for the past
79 Deuteronomy 17:14–20, especially 17:17.
80 This is a tentative translation based on the rendition of the problematic Italian verb fatturare with “calculating, taking into account.” Essentially, Luzzatto is comparing the infinite expansion of human greed to the infinite worlds of Democritus. Given the opportunity, it would also expand to those infinite worlds, if they were not a dream. The following is another possible translation:
“For human greed is as infinite as the infinite worlds envisioned by Democritus are.” Lattes inter-prets the passage as follows: “For human greed will never be satisfied, not even by the infinite worlds envisioned by Democritus” (Lattes, Ma’amar, 96).
cento giamai essersi partiti dalla città Hebrei, che fossero opulenti, e ricchi, ma sempre doppo il totale descapito de loro haveri, e facoltà, et a guisa del mare, solito di riggettare a lidi le cose lievi, e ritenersi le sode, e gravi, ha parimente la città per suo costume d’escomiare da sé gli abbatutti, e disfatti, et abbracciare gli aggiati, et oppulenti, e si è osservato, che quasi mai alcuna mediocre ricchezza d’Hebrei è trapassata il secondo grado di posterità.
one hundred years, wealthy and affluent Jews have never left Venice. On the con-trary, only those who have lost all their possessions have left the city. Like the sea, which casts light objects upon the shores and retains those that are solid and heavy, so too the city evicts the ruined and defeated while embracing the rich and the wealthy. It has been observed that hardly ever have any moderate riches belonging to Jews been passed down beyond the second generation.