If these questions cannot be answered in the affirmative, it is obvious that what may be true and important with regard to labour, may be perfectly false or futile in regard to any product of labour.[[80]] The whole depends upon the mode of estimating the values of commodities.
It would, no doubt, be an absurd tautological truism merely to state, that the varying wages of a given quantity of labour will always command the same quantity of labour; but if it were previously shown that the quantity of labour which a commodity commands represents exactly the quantity of labour worked up in it, with the profits upon the advances, and does therefore really represent and measure those natural and necessary conditions of the supply, those elementary costs of production which determine value; then the truism that the varying wages of a given quantity of labour always command the same quantity of labour, must necessarily involve the important truth, that the elementary costs of producing the varying wages of a given quantity of labour must always be the same.
It is obvious to any person inspecting the table, that the uniform numbers in the seventh column, illustrating the invariable value of the wages of a given number of men, might, with perfect certainty, have been stated without the intermediate steps; but if they had been so stated, no conclusion respecting the constancy of the value of such wages could have been drawn. The intermediate steps, which show that the value of the wages of ten men is there estimated by the causes which had been previously shown to determine the values of all commodities, can alone warrant the conclusion that the uniform numbers in the seventh column imply uniformity of value in the wages.
Mr. Ricardo had stated repeatedly, that the value of the wages of labour must necessarily rise in the progress of society. He builds, indeed, the whole foundation of his theory of profits on the rise and fall of the value of labour. The table shows that, if we estimate the value of wages by the labour worked up in them, that is, by one element of value, Mr. Ricardo is right, and the value of wages will really rise as poorer land is taken into cultivation; but that, if we estimate the value of wages by the labour and profits worked up in them, that is, by the two elementary ingredients of value, the value of wages will remain the same.
The author says that, from the remarks he has made, the reader will perceive that Mr. Malthus’s “Table illustrating the invariable value of labour,” absolutely proves nothing;[[81]] and he concludes his chapter with observing, that his “cursory review evinces that the formidable array of figures in the table yields not a single new or important truth.”[[82]]
I was not aware that it was ever expected from a tabular arrangement, that it should afford logical proofs of new propositions; but, if the author means that, taking the whole publication together, it contains nothing new or important, though I may be bound to believe it in relation to his own reading and his own views, I cannot help doubting it a little in regard to the reading and views of many others; and I am quite certain that, with regard to myself, the view I there took of the subject of value, and of the reasons for adopting labour as its measure, was, in many of its parts, quite new to me a year before the publication.
In the first place; I had nowhere seen it stated, that the ordinary quantity of labour which a commodity will command must represent and measure the quantity of labour worked up in it, with the addition of profits. But, as soon as my attention was strongly drawn to this truth, the labour which a commodity would ordinarily command appeared to me in a new light. I had before considered labour as the most general and the most important of all the objects given in exchange, and, therefore, by far the best measure of the general power of purchasing of any one object; but after I became aware that, by representing the labour worked up in a commodity, with the profits, it represented the natural and necessary conditions of its supply, or the elementary costs of its production, its importance, as a measure, appeared to me very greatly increased.
Secondly; I had nowhere seen it stated that, however the fertility of the soil might vary, the elementary costs of producing the wages of a given quantity of labour must always necessarily be the same. Colonel Torrens, in adverting to a measure of value, says, “In the first place, exchangeable value is determined by the cost of production; and there is no commodity, the cost of producing which is not liable to perpetual fluctuation. In the second place, even if a commodity could be found which always required the same expenditure for its production, it would not, therefore, be of invariable exchangeable value, so as to serve as a standard for measuring the value of other things. Exchangeable value is determined, not by the absolute, but by the relative, cost of production.”[[83]]
I had been convinced, however, that, with a view to superior accuracy and utility, and a more complete conformity to the language and practice of society, in estimating the varying values of commodities for short periods, it was necessary to separate the variations in the power of a commodity to purchase, into two parts; the first, derived from causes operating upon the commodity itself; the second, from causes operating upon other commodities; and, in speaking of the variations in the exchangeable value of a commodity, to refer only to the former. In this case it is obvious that, according to Colonel Torrens, we should possess a measure of value if we could find an object the cost of producing which was always the same.
Now it is shown, in the “Measure of value stated and illustrated,” that the conditions of the supply of labour, or the elementary costs of producing the corn wages of a given number of men, estimated just in the same way as we should estimate the elementary costs of producing cloth, linens, hardware, or any other commodity, must of necessity always remain the same.