SECTION I.
Phæd. Now, X., you know that I abhor arithmetical calculations; besides which, I have no faith in any propositions of a political economist which he cannot make out readily without all this elaborate machinery of tables and figures. Under these circumstances, I put it to you, as a man of feeling, whether you ought to inflict upon me this alarming pile of computations; which, by your gloomy countenance, I see that you are meditating.
X. Stop, recollect yourself: not I it is, remember, that impose this elaborate "table" upon you, but Mr. Malthus. The yoke is his. I am the man sent by Providence to lighten this yoke. Surrender yourself, therefore, to my guidance, Phædrus, and I will lead you over the hill by so easy a road that you shall never know you have been climbing. You see that there are nine columns; that, I suppose, does not pass your skill in arithmetic. Now, then, to simplify the matter, begin by dismissing from your attention every column but the first and the last; fancy all the rest obliterated.
Phæd. Most willingly; it is a heavenly fancy.
X. Next look into the first column, and tell me what you see there.
Phæd. I see "lots" of 150s and 140s, and other ill-looking people of the same description.
X. Well, these numbers express the products of the same labor on land of different qualities. The quantity of labor is assumed to be always the same; namely, the labor of ten men for a year (or one man for ten years, or twenty men for half a year, etc.). The producing labor, I say, is always the same; but the product is constantly varying. Thus, in the case Alpha the product is one hundred and fifty quarters; in the cases Delta and Epsilon, when cultivation has been compelled by increasing population to descend upon inferior land, the product of equal labor is no more than one hundred and forty quarters; and in the case Iota it has fallen to one hundred and twenty quarters. Now, upon Mr. Ricardo's principle of valuation, I demand to know what ought to be the price of these several products which vary so much in quantity.
Phæd. Why, since they are all the products of the same quantity of labor, they ought all to sell for the same price.
X. Doubtless; not, however, of necessity for the same money price, since money may itself have varied, in which case the same money price would be really a very different price; but for the same price in all things which have not varied in value. The Xi product, therefore, which is only ninety quarters, will fetch the same real price as the Alpha or Gamma products, which are one hundred and fifty. But, by the way, in saying this, let me caution you against making the false inference that corn is at the same price in the case Xi as in the case Alpha or Gamma; for the inference is the very opposite; since, if ninety quarters cost as much as one hundred and fifty, then each individual quarter of the ninety costs a great deal more. Thus, suppose that the Alpha product sold at four pounds a quarter, the price of the whole would be six hundred pounds. Six hundred pounds, therefore, must be the price of Xi, or the ninety quarters; but that is six pounds, thirteen shillings, four pence, a quarter. This ought to be a needless caution; yet I have known economists of great name stand much in need of it.
Phæd. I am sure I stand in need of it, and of all sort of assistance, for I am "ill at these numbers." But let us go on; what you require my assent to, I understand to be this: that all the different quantities of corn expressed in the first column will be of the same value, because they are all alike the product of ten men's labor. To this I do assent; and what next? Does anybody deny it?
X. Yes, Mr. Malthus: he asserts that the value will not be always the same; and the purpose of the ninth column is to assign the true values; which, by looking into that column, you may perceive to be constantly varying: the value of Alpha, for instance, is twelve and five tenths; the value of Epsilon is twelve and seven tenths; of Iota, twelve; and of Xi, eleven and twenty-five one-hundredths.
Phæd. But of what? Twelve and five tenths of what?
X. Of anything which, though variable, has in fact happened to be stationary in value; or, if you choose, of anything which is not variable in value.
Phæd. Not variable! But there is no such thing.
X. No! Mr. Malthus, however, says there is; labor, he asserts, is of unalterable value.
Phæd. What! does he mean to say, then, that the laborer always obtains the same wages?
X. Yes, the same real wages; all differences being only apparently in the wages, but really in the commodity in which the wages are paid. Let that commodity be wheat; then, if the laborer receives ten quarters of wheat in 1800, and nine in 1820, that would imply only that wheat was about eleven per cent, dearer in the latter year. Or let money be that commodity; then, if the laborer receives this century two shillings, and next century three shillings, this simply argues that money has fallen in value by fifty per cent.
Phæd. Why, so it may; and the whole difference in wages may have arisen in that way, and be only apparent. But, then, it may also have arisen from a change in the real value of wages; that is, on the Ricardian principle, in the quantity of labor necessary to produce wages. And this latter must have been the nature of the change, if Alpha, Iota, Xi, etc., should be found to purchase more labor; in which case Mr. Ricardo's doctrine is not disturbed; for he will say that Iota in 1700 exchanges for twelve, and Kappa in 1800 for eleven, not because Kappa has fallen in that proportion (for Kappa, being the product of the same labor as Iota, cannot fall below the value of Iota), but because the commodity for which they are exchanged has risen in that proportion.
X. He will; but Mr. Malthus attempts to bar that answer in this case, by alleging that it is impossible for the commodity in question (namely, labor) to rise or to fall in that or in any other proportion. If, then, the change cannot be in the labor, it must be in Alpha, Beta, etc.; in which case Mr. Ricardo will be overthrown; for they are the products of the same quantity of labor, and yet have not retained the same value.
Phæd. But, to bar Mr. Ricardo's answer, Mr. Malthus must not allege this merely; he must prove it.
X. To be sure; and the first seven columns of this table are designed to prove it. Now, then, we have done with the ninth column, and also with the eighth; for they are both mere corollaries from all the rest, and linked together under the plain rule of three. Dismiss these altogether; and we will now come to the argument.