| OCR Text |
Show ~08 OF THE. PRO"FITS OF CAPITAL. [cH. v. tion as t\venty has son1etin1es elapsed, not only without any din1inution, but \vith an actual in .. crease of value. In the satne 1nanner, the natutal and necessary tendency of profits to fall in the progress of society, o\ving to the increasing difficulty of procuring food, is a proposition \vhich fe~v will be disposed to controvert; but to atten1pt to estin1ate the rate of profits in any co.untry by a reference to this cause alone, for ten, t\venty, or even fifty years together, that is for periods of . sufficient length to produce the n1ost in1portant effects on national prosperity, \vould inevitably lead to the greatest practical errors. Yet notwithstanding the utter inadequacy of this single cause to account for existing phenomena, lVlr. Ricardo, in his very ingenious chapter on profits, has dwelt on no other. If the premises were all such as he has supposed thetn to be, that is, if no other cause operated on profits than the increasing difficulty of procuring the food of the labourer, and no other cause affected the exchangeable and money value of comtnodities than the quantity of labour \Vhich they had cost in production, the conclusions which he has dra\Vn '\\rould be just, and the rate of profits 'vould. certainly be regulated in the way ,vbich he has described. But, since in the actual state of things the pren1ises are most essentially different from those which he has supposed; since another 1nost powerful cause operates upon profits, as I hav~ endeavoured to shew in the present section; and stnce EC. II.] 01: THE PROFITS OF CAPITAL. 309 the exchangeable value of commodities is not detennined by the labour they have cost, as I endeavoured to she\v in a fonner chapter, the conclusion dra\VL~ by lVIr. Ricardo n1ust necessarily contradict expenence; 1~ot slightly, and for short periods) as t?e ~1arket pnces of sotne articles occasionally differ f1?n1 the natural or n~cessary price, properly exl~laJned} but obviously and broadly, and for penods of such extent, that to overlook then1, \Vould not be n1erely like overlooking the resistance. of the air in a falling body, but like overloolnng the change of direction o·iven to a ball by d . 0 a sccon 1111pulse acting at a different angle fron1 the first. ~ It is itnpossible then to aoTee in the conclusion at ·which Mr. Ricardo an·i~res in his chapter on profits, \, that in all countries, and at all times, pr~fits depGnd upon the quantity of labour required to provide necessaries for the labourer on that land, or \vith that capital which yields 110 rent. '':Y.• If by the necessaries of the labourer be meant such wage~ .as will just keep up the population, o; :vl:at Mr. lucardo calls the natural \Vages of labour, It _Is the san1e ~s saying that land of equal fertility \Vtl! ahvays yield the san1e profits-a proposition whtch 1nust necessarily be untrue. If, for in~tance, in one country, with , the 1ast Ian? taken Into_ cultivation of a given fertility" capital \Vere stationary, not from 'vant of detnand ~ • Prine. of l)olit. Econ. c. vi. p. 133. 2d edit. ~ 3 |
