‘Treasure’ and Cheque-Book Government

Abstract

After ‘nodality’, government’s second basic resource is ‘treasure’. As was explained in Chapter 1, this denotes government’s stock of ‘fungible chattels’, in the sense of anything that can be freely exchanged.

Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,

Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.

…Why, this

Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,

Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads:

This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed,

Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves

And give them title, knee and approbation.

(Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act III, Scene III; substantially the same passage is quoted by Marx and Engels, 1968, pp. 262–3)