Phæd. It is so, X.; but that I did not overlook; for tell me—on Mr. Ricardo's principle, will not all things double their value simultaneously, if the quantity of labor spent in producing all should double simultaneously?
X. It will, Phædrus.
Phæd. And yet nothing will exchange for more or less than before.
X. True; but the rise is not ideal, for all that, but will affect everybody. A pound of wheat, which previously bought three pounds of salt, will still buy three pounds; but, then, the salt-maker and the wheat-maker will have only one pound of those articles where before he had two. However, the difference between the two cases cannot fully be understood, without a previous examination of certain distinctions, which I will make the subject of our next dialogue; and the rather, because, apart from our present question, at every step we should else be embarrassed, as all others have been, by the perplexity attending these distinctions. Meantime, as an answer to your argument, the following consideration will be quite sufficient. The case which your argument respects is that in which wages are supposed to rise? Why? In consequence of a real rise in corn or something else. As a means of meeting this rise, wages rise; but the increased value of wages is only a means to an end, and the laborer cares about the rise only in that light. The end is—to give him the same quantity of corn, suppose. That end attained, he cares nothing about the means by which it is attained. Now, your ideal rise of wages does not attain this end. The corn has really risen; this is the first step. In consequence of this, an ideal rise follows in all things, which evades the absurdities of a real rise—and evades the Ricardian doctrine of profits; but, then, only by also evading any real rise in wages, the necessity of which (in order to meet the real rise in corn) first led to the whole movement of price. But this you will more clearly see after our next dialogue.
* * * * *
DIALOGUE THE FOURTH.
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF TWO CELEBRATED DISTINCTIONS IN THE THEORY OF VALUE.
X. Now, gentlemen, I come to a question which on a double account is interesting: first, because it is indispensable to the fluency of our future progress that this question should be once for all decided; secondly, because it furnishes an experimentum crucis for distinguishing a true knowledge of Mr. Ricardo's theory from a spurious or half-knowledge. Many a man will accompany Mr. Ricardo thus far, and will keep his seat pretty well until he comes to the point which we have now reached—at which point scarcely one in a thousand will escape being unhorsed.
Phæd. Which one most assuredly will not be myself. For I have a natural alacrity in losing my seat, and gravitate so determinately to the ground, that (like a Roman of old) I ride without stirrups, by way of holding myself in constant readiness for projection; upon the least hint, anticipating my horse's wishes on that point, and throwing myself off as fast as possible; for what's the use of taking the negative side in a dispute where one's horse takes the affirmative? So I leave it to Philebus to ride through the steeple-chase you will lead him; his be the honor of the day—and his the labor.
X. But that cannot be; Philebus is bound in duty to be dismounted, for the sake of keeping Mr. Malthus with many others in countenance. For at this point, Phædrus, more than at any other almost, there is a sad confusion of lords and gentlemen that I could name thrown out of the saddle pell-mell upon their mother earth.