This is so true, that a very important consequence, and one which is fundamental in Political Economy, flows from it—a consequence which has not been, and indeed could not be remarked. It is this:—
Where value has passed from the service to the product, it undergoes in the product all the risks and chances to which it is subject in the service itself.
It is not fixed in the product, as it would have been had it been one of its own intrinsic qualities. It is essentially variable; it may rise indefinitely, or it may fall until it disappears altogether, just as the species of service to which it owes its origin would have done.
The man who makes a cup to-day for the purpose of selling it a year hence, confers value on it, and that value is determined by that of the service—not the value which the service possesses at the present moment, but that which it will possess at the end of the year. If at the time when the cup comes to be sold such services are more in demand, the cup will be worth more, or it will be depreciated in the opposite case.
This is the reason why man is constantly stimulated to exercise foresight, in order to turn it to account. He has always in [p177] perspective a possible rise or fall of value,—a recompense for just and sagacious prevision, and chastisement when it is erroneous. And, observe, his success or failure coincides with the public good or the public detriment. If his foresight has been well directed, if he has made preparations beforehand to give society the benefit of services which are more in request, more appreciated, more efficacious, which supply more adequately wants which are deeply felt, he has contributed to diminish the scarcity, to augment the abundance, of that description of service, and to bring it within the reach of a greater number of persons at less expense. If, on the other hand, he is mistaken in his calculations for the future, he contributes, by his competition, to depress still farther those services for which there is little demand. He only effects, and at his own expense, a negative good,—he advertises the public that a certain description of wants no longer call for the exertion of much social activity, which activity must now take another direction, or go without recompense.
This remarkable fact—that value, incorporated in a product, depends on the value of the kind of service to which it owes its origin—is of the very highest importance, not only because it demonstrates more and more clearly the theory that the principle of value resides in the service, but because it explains, easily and satisfactorily, phenomena which other systems regard as abnormal and exceptional.
When once the product has been thrown upon the market of the world, do the general tendencies of society operate towards elevating or towards depressing its value? This is to ask whether the particular kind of services which have engendered this value are liable to become more or less appreciated, and better or worse remunerated. The one is as possible as the other, and it is this which opens an unlimited field to human foresight.
This we may remark at least, that the general law of beings, capable of making experiments, of acquiring information, and of rectifying mistakes, is progress. The probability, then, is, that at any given period a certain amount of time and pains will effect greater results than were effected by the same agency at an anterior period: whence we may conclude that the prevailing tendency of value, incorporated with a commodity, is to fall. If, for example, we suppose the cup which I took by way of illustration, and as a symbol of other products, to have been made many years ago, the probability is that it has undergone depreciation, inasmuch as we have at the present day more resources for the manufacture of such articles, more skill, better tools, capital [p178] obtained on easier terms, and a more extended division of labour. In this way the person who wishes to obtain the cup does not say to its possessor, Tell me the exact amount of labour (quantity and quality both taken into account) which that cup has cost you, in order that I may remunerate you accordingly. No, he says, Now-a-days, in consequence of the progress of art, I can make for myself, or procure by exchange, a similar cup at the expense of so much labour of such a quality; and that is the limit of the remuneration which I can consent to give you.
Hence it follows that all labour incorporated with commodities, in other words, all accumulated labour, all capital, has a tendency to become depreciated in presence of services naturally improvable and increasingly and progressively productive; and that, in exchanging present labour against anterior labour, the advantage is generally on the side of present labour, as it ought to be, seeing that it renders a greater amount of service.
This shows us how empty are the declamations which we hear continually directed against the value of landed property. That value differs from other values in nothing—neither in its origin, nor in its nature, nor in the general law of its slow depreciation, as compared with the labour which it originally cost.