Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/499

dities regulates their relative value' is 'considerably modified by the employment of machinery and other fixed and durable capital;' as well as by its 'unequal durability and by the unequal rapidity with which it is returned to its employer.'^[1] It may be observed, indeed, that even in his exegesis of these sections our author seems to go beyond what is written; for he attributes to Ricardo the opinion that his principle would be modified by differences in the amount of capital,^[2] whereas all Ricardo considers is the proportion of fixed capital, and the rapidity with which capital returns. The argument from these sections is further supported by a reference to the note in the third edition, where Ricardo expressly declares that in 'cost of production' he includes profit.

It is not necessary for the present purpose to discuss the exact effect of these 'modifications' upon his general doctrine, or what precisely he meant by 'considerably modified.' But it is right to lay stress on the following facts:—

(1) That Ricardo did not think these modifications touched the essence of his doctrine; and that he continued to lay it down in terms indistinguishable from those employed by Rodbertus and Marx;

(2) That he was understood in this sense by all his most influential followers and exponents;

(3) That his doctrine rested, at least in part, upon an identification of capital with labour, and of profits with return for labour, which was afterwards worked out by his followers, and which also entered into the later Socialist theory. Let me illustrate each of these points by a few quotations.

(1) As to Ricardo's own statement of the doctrine:—

This (i.e. labour) is really the foundation of the exchangeable value of all things ....^[3]

If the quantity of labour realised in commodities regulates their exchangeable value, etc.^[4] [Is not Marx merely using more forcible language for the same meaning when he speaks of values as 'crystals' or 'congelations' of the common social substance, labour? Cf. Ricardo's use of the phrase in other passages: 'The comparative value of the fish and the game would be entirely regulated by the quantity of labour realised in each.'^[5]]

Apropos of his argument as to different qualities of labour, he

1. Quoted from the headings to the sections in the third and subsequent editions.
2. 'If it was assisted by more capital,' p. 532.
3. P. 10 in the edition ordinarily used, the reprint of the third edition.
4. P. 11.
5. P. 18 (in one of the additions to the 1st edition).