326 
On Mr. Ricardo's System 
[Nov, 
value can be effected with a view to the same end, they also are dexterously made 
use of. And this continual shifting of his ground has been, I doubt not, one of 
the principal causes of the exact nature of bis fallacies not having been perceived, 
and of his system having existed so long without exposure. 
To enable us, therefore, to deal with this reasoner, it is necessary continually to 
keen in mind, that what is predicated with justice, regarding one description ot 
value, may be utterly false with regard to the other. Thus, under the supposition, 
that coats, shoes, and hats, or the labours of which they were the result, stood to 
one another, in the relation of 20, 15, and 10 ; then it is clear, that when we look 
strictly to the relative value , the relations alone of these products amongst them- 
selves; we learn nothing whatever with regard to their real value ; whether -00 o 
20 men, for a given time, be required to produce the coats ; whether 150 oi 15 men 
be required to produce the shoes ; and so forth; for, under either circumstances, 
their relations will be the same, and by the study of the relations alone of pro- 
ducts to products, we most assuredly can learn nothing beyond these reiations. 
Bv the exclusive study of the relative values ot these products, I maintain, (and 1 
cannot help stopping to wonder that such reiteration should have become necessa- 
ry ) that we should make no progress whatever, in ascertaining the circumstances 
of the persons possessing the commodities ;-the.r wealth or poverty would ^un- 
doubtedly remain to us for ever unknown, if we continued only looking at the 
relations^ of the products, and yet all reasoners will agree that the weahh or po- 
verty of men, are the subjects of the science of political economy. How then can 
these relations of commodities be twisted into indications of the wealth ot men . 
But if in place of studying the relations of these products, or what I may term 
their commodity value, (in contradiction to their money, which 1 conceive, for 
reasons which l am prepared to give, must always correspond with their teal 
value,) we had setabout learning the positive value which they enjoyed, and which 
was inevitably put upon them, by the men who had laboured in obtaining these 
nossessions - if we had ascertained at what sacrifice ot bodily ease the people pos- 
sessing these articles, had succeeded in obtaining each product ; if we had passed 
by, as g a matter of minor importance, the accidental relation in which the exertions 
necessary for obtaining each different product happened to stand , and if we had 
then bethought ourselves of the esteem in which men must inevitably hold, that 
which is the product of 10 or 100, of 12 or 120, of 15 or 150 days voluntary 
drudgerv ; and with a view to discover how these people would be affected when 
a change in the means of obtaining products had taken place, if we had kept our 
eve steadily fixed on these considerations, and not allowed it to wandei to the i elu- 
tions of the commodities amongst themselves ; and having seen that it required atone 
time 20 days labour to obtain a coat, and at another 10; at one time /f days 
labour to produce shoes, and at another time 15 ; at one time 5 days labour 
to produce a hat, and at another time 10; we should then have learnt, 
that at one time the persons obtaining coats, shoes, and hats, had been 
comuaratively in more easy circumstances, than at another ; that in fact, they 
had P at one 7 time, been comparatively wealthy, to what they were at the other ; 
and also that a change had been brought about in the real value of their products , 
although the relations of these various products, one to another, had undergone 
n °^T may* VJ' answered, that Mr. Ricardo also looks to the quantity of 
labour of which products are the result, with a view to determining originally, 
their real value. This, however, I maintain, lie ought not in consistency to 
do) for J denies the existence of real, or of any kind of value except -W 
is relative • and 1 maintain, that if he had reasoned logically on the subject, 
and kept his eyes fixed on the relations alone of the commodities amongst theinj 
selves, he must have seen at once the utter hopelessness of his undertaking, 
am aware, however, that notwithstanding his professions to the contiary, lie do 
continually reason, unwittingly, on the existence ot rea value ; and this is one 
the instances. How else could his lucubrations have had any connexion vha 
ever with the subject of wealth ? His first step, then, in this science, is a most gr 
and palpable error, which ought, at once, to have been obvious ; his chief® 
is to show, in fact— all that is original in his essays, goes to establish this m 
outrageous fallacy ; that whether products be the result of greater, or ot less lab , 
at one time than at another, so long as they are all equally affected by any cha g 
there can be no change in their real value. Thus he would write, it coa_ 
now the result of 10 days labour, and had been formerely the result of - > 
shoes were now the result of days labour, and had formerly been le re 
