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On Mr. Ricardo's System 
[Nov. 
price. If the rise of price in food be necessary to the rise of wages which is to 
lower profits, Mr. Ricardo, before he can demand assent to his doctrines, must 
first shew rs in what kind of price this rise is to take place : it cannot take place 
in commodities ; and he does not admit the existence of any except commodity 
price ; in what else, then, can he suppose the rise to take place ? The study of 
production, through the relative values of products, will help him to no answer 
to this query : not even the adroitness in turning all arguments to his purpose, 
which distinguishes Mr. Ricardo, will serve to extricate him from the horns ot the 
dilemma, between which lie has thus got enclosed. He maintains, on the one 
side, that value must always be great, when producing labour is great ; while he 
maintains, on the other, that value cannot rise, even when the producing labour is 
increased, if it should so happen, that all things are subjected, at once, to the same 
change in the means of production. Professing to deny the existence of positive 
value, he does not perceive that he has already admitted its existence, in the mode 
in which be makes it act on wages, and through them upon profits ; and also in 
the fundamental principles which he lays down in his chapter on value. “ The 
real price of every thing,” what every thing really costs, is the toil and trouble 
of acquiring it. “ Labour was the first price, the original purchase money of all 
things.” In these axioms of Dr. Smith, which he quotes with approbation, he 
admits the existence of real price; and as price is only a species ot the genus 
value, price being of necessity offered only for what has value, he admits the 
existence of real value also. Of what value does he treat, when he lays it 
down, that “ value depends on the difficulty, or facility of production ?” It 
must he positive value ; for he here has reference to nothing, save the moral 
agent perceiving the existence of value; and he must admit its existence here, 
even if there were no other than one description of wealth in being ; and when, 
accordingly, there could be no relative value whatever. But although the 
attempt is made to deny the existence of real value, he reasons, as I have 
said, upon its existence, whenever he treats of the rise which is to take 
place in the price or value of food : when he asserts, that it any one 
commodity could be found which now, and at all future times, required precisely 
the same quantity of labour to produce it, that commodity would be of an unva- 
rying value, he treats, of necessity, of its real value ; for here it is the moral 
agent alone, and his perceptions, with which he is concerned. But when he as- 
serts, that on a general and equal change in the labour necessary for producing 
all things, there could be no change in their respective values, he is treating of re- 
lative value ; for here lie has quitted the consideration of the moral agent altoge- 
ther, and is treating of the relations of products among themselves. His theory 
of profits then, is founded on these too conflicting suppositions ; that real value 
can and that real value cannot exist. He looks to a rise in the real value of food, 
which, having served his purpose of raising wages, is then cast aside; and after- 
wards working with the relative value of the products, he concocts that scheme of 
invariability in the value of products, by which the class of capitalists is continually 
to suffer impoverishment. 
But perhaps the doctrine, that we must, of necessity, run back beyond the labour 
directly employed on any product, even to that which is sunk in rearing and 
feeding the living instruments of production, in determining of how much labour 
products are actually the result, may require some further elucidation; Mr. 
Ricardo making a distinction, so very essential to his theory, between products 
which are the result of more labour, and those which are the result of more 
highly priced labour. 
It will not, 1 believe, be denied, that without the co-operation of labour, the la- 
bourer himself could not be produced in the market ; that in bringing him to mar- 
ket, of full age, and ready to apply himself to such work as offers, a certain quan- 
tity of labour has been sunk in feeding, housing, and clothing him. Nor will it be 
denied, that when he is in the market, a similar expenditure of direct and indirect 
labour will be necessarily made in the preservation of his existence. If this be so, 
then it follows, that the necessary wages of labour must be such as to cover all these 
various descriptions of expenditure, otherwise the supply of labourers must cease. 
If this be granted, then it follows, to iny apprehension at least, that products are 
the result, not only of the labour which is directly applied, and of the labour sunk 
in dead implements of industry, the buildings, machinery, and so forth ; but of 
what is sunk in the live instruments also ; without which all the others are as no- 
thing. On what ground, then, can it be denied, that the labour which brings 
labourers to market, and which determines the amount of wages, is a part of. 
