1830.] 
of Wealth and Value. 
327 
15 ; if lints were now tlie result of 5 days labour, they having previously required 
10 for their preparation; as the relations of these various products, one to the 
other, would now be precisely the same, as they had been before ; as they still 
would stand to each other as 20, 15, and 10, there could, therefore, be no change 
whatever in their value. 
But it must be enquired, would the wealth of the people have remained unchang- 
ed, although the relative values of the items composing it had been so? would the 
society have experienced neither enrichment nor impoverishment, because these 
products happened to continue in the same relation to each other as before ? In 
answer to this, Mr. Ricardo, now separating wealth and value, and looking only to 
relative value, answers, the society might have more wealth, but they could have no 
increase of relative value ; and this the only legitimate conclusion to he attained 
from his premises, ought to have convinced him, that, if lie desires to study wealth, 
the way to effect his object, was not through the means of the relations of products. 
But no, he would proceed ; and he essayed the unatchievable enterprizc, of estab- 
lishing, how invariability in the relative value of products, under certain circum- 
stances, was to be a paramount principle in the theory of wealth, and that upon it 
was to hinge all the laws which regulate profits, and wages, and rents ; the va- 
lue of food, with the progressive increase of population ; and all that is in con- 
nexion with taxation, and international commerce. 
The following is pretty nearly, I believe, the mode of his proceeding. 
Were all products to have become the result of more labour than before, it is 
not possible that, after so great a change, the incomes of the different classes of 
society should he found to have undergone no change. The wealth of various 
classes must have been affected in different degrees, because, in real life, we do find 
that certain changes arc brought about in the incomes of various classes during the 
progress of wealth 8 . 
There being only relative value in existence, and there being only commodities 
wherewith to make payment for commodities ; on the occurrence of a general 
increase of the labours necessary in obtaining products ; there cannot possibly ben 
change of commodity prices, and if there can be no change of price, there cannot 
possibly be any means of making the rise in the cost of production reach the 
pockets of consumers. If then the consumers do not pay an increased price, who 
is to do so ? In this dilemma, Mr. Ricardo bethinks him, that in certain stage* 
of society, there are two classes connected with production ; those who labour, 
and those who furnish the advances for setting labourers to work. Having satis- 
fied himself that prices (meaning relative prices) cannot rise, when all things are 
equallyaffected by an enhancement of the difficulty of production, he imagines that lie 
has established how price (meaning thereby real price) cannot rise. If then, he 
concludes, the high real price (mark the fallacy) cannot be paid by consumers, be- 
cause the relative prices are unaltered, the high price must be paid by capitalists ; and 
they must be subjected to a fall in their profits Because the relations of product, 
to products must, under certain circumstances, remain fixed, therefor* .the increas- 
ed real value, when this takes place, the increased difficulty of produc ton the al- 
tered relation between products and men, must fall upon the capitahsts ! Oh 
most lame and impotent conclusion.” I trust the rank ! !? e i r 
jumbling of real and relative value or price which pervades the a hole of this ar- 
gument have been made sufficiently apparent ; and that the interminable shifting 
P * .. j _ f t 0 that which is necessary to bring him to this 
is seen, from this kind ot value, to uwi wmtu . .,ij t.. n( , 
conclusion unhappv, and inconsequent as it is. Allowing that there could c n 
chanle Tn the Satire value of products under the circumstances supposed, by what 
cuange in me reiauve ' b j n f er red, that an increase of the labour neces- 
manner of logic could it thence be inter r , ^ value _ is t0 f a || exclusively 
sary tor obtaining all dn Th ly logical inference to be drawn from 
on the heads ot capitalists The existing, is, that after the general 
Mr. Ricardo s premises, re “ ' n0 c( f ect whatever would be produced on 
change, affecting all tilings 9 0 f wealth which had no connexion whatever 
society, except a general dimmuUon cl wait w ftod 01lt , account 
will, relative value ; a concision which f o l ir 5 ed ^ ^ (houi Um ont> 
for other consequences, Mr. Ricardo m ^ of predicating any thing re 
while studying relative rin ,' c)as5es were to be affected in the 
garding the way in 
progress 
iiiivv. ' .( mnnnt rlftSSPS Were to 1)6 HtleCted III the 
rf production^* but ‘his 'object in writing being to account for certain 
„ . . flupronop tviih the writers of the Ricardo school ; 
,™rih m or„«°L^e« J must follow, not because of any reuon assigned in the 
*uch and such consequences nraetice 
argument, but because vve find such to be the cal 1 
