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Show 94 ON THE NATURE AND [CH. II. to say, " that no con1n1odities whatever are raised in e~chanaeable value n1erely because "vages rise; b ' they are only so raised when n1ore labour is he-stowed on their production, \vhen wages fall, . or when the medium in which they are estin1ated falls in value."* It is quite certain that n1erely because wages rise and profits fall, all that class of commodities (a11d it will be a large class) will rise in price, where, from the smallness of the capital employed, the fall of profits is in various degrees more than overbalanced by the rise of wages. · There will, however, undoubtedly be a class of commodities which, fron1 the effects of these opposite causes, will remain stationary in price. But from the very nature of the proposition, this class must theoretically form little more than a line ; and where, I would ask, is this line to be placed? Mr. Ricardo, in order to illustrate his proposition, has placed it, at a venture, among those con1modities where the advances consist solely in the payment of labour, and the returns come in exactly in the year.t But the cases are extremely rare "rhere the returns of a capital are delayed for a year, and yet no part of this capital is employed either in the purchase of materials or n1achinery; and in fact there seems to be no justifiable ground for pitching upon this peculiar case as precisely the one where, under any variation in the price of labour, the price of the commodity remains the • Ricardo's Political Economy, p. 41. 2d edit. t Polit. Econ. p. 33. 2d edit. ' I SEC. IV.] MEASURES OF VALUE. 95 same, and a rise or fall of wages is exactly compensated by a fall or rise of profits. At all events it must be allowed, that wherever the line may be placed, it can em brace but a very small class of objects ; and upon a rise in the price of labour, all the rest will either fall or rise in price, although exactly the sa1ne quantity of labour conti}1ues to be employed upon them. What then becon1es of the doctrine, that the exchangeable value of commodities is proportioned to the labour which has been employed upon them ? Instead of their retnaining of the same value 'vhile the same quantity of labour is employed upon thetn, it appears that, froin well known causes of constant and universal operation, the prices of all commodities vary when the price of labour varies, with very few exceptions; and of what description of commodities these fe\V excep- . tions consist, it is scarcely possible to say beforehand. But the different proportions of fixed capital, and the varying quickness of the returns of circulating capital, are not the only causes which, in improved countries, prevent the exchangeable value of commodities fron1 being pr0portioned to the quantity of labour which has been employed upon them. Where commerce prevails to any extent, foreign con1modities, not regulated, it is acknowledged, by the quantity of labour and capital employed upon them, forn1 the materials of many manufactures. In civilized states taxation is every where making considerable changes in prices \\rith- |