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Show 106 ON THE NATURE AND ( CH. II. modi tie·~, ,vould of course depend upon the proportionate facility or difficulty with \vhich other commodities were fabricated, and in reference to particular articles, the labour of fabricating ,vhich had remained the san1e, or was accurately known, it would still depend upon all those circun1stances which have already been stated, as preventing the labour ,vhich a cornn1odity has cost in its production, fron1 being a correct measure of relative value, even at the san1e place and at the same time. In order to shevv that the q tiantity of labour which a con1n1odity has cost is a better tneasure of value than the quantity Vihich it will command, Mr. Ricardo makes the supposition, that a given quantity of corn n1ight require only half the quantity of labour in its production at one time which it might require at another and subsequent period, and yet that the labourer might be paid in both periods with the same quantity of corn;* in which case, he says, we should have an instance of a commodity which had risen to double its former exchangeable value, according to what he conceives to be · the just definition of value, although it would command no n1ore labour in exchange than before. This supposition, it must be allowed, is a most improbable one. But, supposing such an event to take place, it would strikingly exemplify the incorrectness of his definition, and shew at once the n1arked distinction which must al \vays exist between cost and value. We have here a clear case * Principles of Political Economy, chap. i. p. 8. 2d edit. SEC. IV.] MEASURES 01" VALUE .. 107 of increased cost in the quantity of labour to a double a1nount; yet it is a part of the supposition that the comn1odity, which has been thus greatly increased in the cost of its production, will not purchase n1ore of that article, which is, beyond comparison, the most extensive and the most important of all the objects which are offered in exchange, 11amely, labour. This instance she\vs at once that the quantity of lalJour which a con1modity has cost in its production, is not a n1easure of its value in exchange. It \vill be n1ost readily allowed that the labour etnployed in the production of a con1n1odity, including the labour employed in the production of the necessary capital, is the principal ingredient an1ong the cornponent parts of price, and, other , things being equal, will determine the l'elative value of all the co1nmodities in the san1e country,. or, tnore correctly speaking, in the same place. But, i:q. looking back to any past period, vve should ascertain the relative values of conunodities at on~e, a~d wi.th much n1ore accuracy, by collecting their pnces 1n the money of the time. For this purpose, therefore, an inquiry into the quantity of labour which each comn1odity had cost, vvould be of no use. And if we vvere to infer that, because a particular commodity 300 years ago had cost ten . days' labour and llO\V costs t\venty its exchanO'e- ' b able value had doubled, 've should certainly run the risk of dravving a conclusion most extremely wide of the truth. It appears then, that the quantity of labour |