1831.] 
Further Observations regarding Value. 
49 
able value of commodities would teach us nothing but that certain circumstances 
affecting them respectively, had undergone change, or had remained constant, but 
that of the nature of these circumstances we should be left wholly in the dark ; he 
likewise tells us that the price man must pay for all things, is the same as their 
real value. 
Had I been writing to establish my own views on this subject, I could not have 
used more appropriate language : what then shall we say when we find this Author 
writing to prove, that the price of commodities must be determined by very differ - 
ent principles from the above ; that prices cannot rise or fall, if all commodities be 
equally affected by any change ; and that prices being incapacitated from rising or 
falling by the incidental circumstance of the relations of products amongst them- 
selves remaining unchanged, therefore the giving of more or less real value, or 
higher wages, to the class of labourers, the enhancement, or reduction of the real 
cost of producing commodities, will affect society no further than by enriching or 
impoverishing the class of capitalists ! He writes thus at page 297. “ Suppose 
that the quantities of labour required for the production of every species of 
commodities are increased in exactly the same proportion, under such circumstan- 
ces, it is quite certain that their exchangeable values, as compared with each other, 
would remain unaltered : a bushel of corn would not then exchange for a greater 
quantity of muslin or broad cloth, than it did before the increased expense of its 
production ; but each would have a greater real value, because each would be the 
produce of a greater quantity of labour. Under these circumstances the prices of 
commodities would remain stationary,” (the toil and trouble of acquiring each 
having been increased, and the toil and trouble of acquisition being, by his own 
shewing, the price of all things whatsoever,) “ while the wealth and comforts of the 
society would be materially diminished.” All classes in that case would, I take it, 
have become poorer ; the labourers getting smaller wages, and the capitalists smaller 
profits, and this, notwithstanding the fixedness of the relations of products amongst 
themselves ; “ but he adds,” as the expense of producing all commodities is by the 
supposition equally increased, it would not be necessary to make any greater exer- 
tions to obtain one than another, and their relative values would be totally unaf- 
fected.” Now what, I may ask, does this import to the society ? it may be a matter 
of investigation to the curious, to watch how the relations of commodities stand, 
after certain changes in the means of production have taken place ; but nothing 
more. What concerns the society, and the political economist, studying the causes 
of the increase or diminution of wealth, is the circumstance of all producers 
having been rendered poorer than before. But no, the writers of Mr. Ricardo's 
school have other affairs on hand, and that which has become important in their 
estimation, is not the diminishing or increasing wealth of all classes, it is the re- 
lations of products amongst themselves which they have undertaken to watch, and 
thus they proceed. “ But if a general and equal increase of the quantities of labour 
required for the production of commodities, cannot alter their relation to one ano- 
ther, it is quite obvious that this relation cannot be affected by a general and equal 
increase of the wages paid for that labour. Fluctuations in the rate of real wages 
affect the proportion in which the produce of industry is divided between capital * 
ists and labourers, diminishing the proportion belonging to capitalists when they 
rise, and increasing it when they fall. But as these changes in the distribution of 
commodities neither add to, nor take from the quantity of labour required to 
produce them, they cannot affect either their real or exchangeable value.” page 298. 
Let us sift this to the bottom : Wages permanently rise, says Mr. M’Culloch, be- 
cause, from the increase of population, and the consequent extension of cultivation 
