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X
. Recollect, Philebus, what it is that I maintain; assuredly the hat may rise to the price of nineteen shillings, or of any higher sum, but not as a consequence of the cause you assign. Taking your case, I do maintain that it is impossible the hat should exceed, or even reach, eighteen shillings. When I say eighteen shillings, however, you must recollect that the particular sum of twelve shillings for labor, and six shillings for profits, were taken only for the sake of illustration; translating the sense of the proposition into universal forms, what I assert is, that the rise in the value of the labor can go no further than the amount of profits will allow it: profits swallowed up, there will remain no fund out of which an increase of wages can be paid, and the production of hats will cease.

Phil
. This is the sense in which I understood you; and in this sense I wish that you would convince me that the hat could not, under the circumstances supposed, advance to nineteen shillings or twenty shillings.

X
. Perhaps, in our conversation on Wages, you will see this more irresistibly; you yourself will then shrink from affirming the possibility of such an advance as from an obvious absurdity; meantime, here is a short demonstration of it, which I am surprised that Mr. Ricardo did not use as the strongest and most compendious mode of establishing his doctrine.

Let it be possible that the hat may advance to nineteen shillings; or, to express this more generally, from x (or eighteen shillings)– which it was worth before the rise in wages–to x + y; that is to say, the hat will now be worth x + y quantity of money–having previously been worth no more than
X
. That is your meaning?

Phil
. It is.

X
. And if in money, of necessity in everything else; because otherwise, if the hat were worth more money only, but more of nothing besides, that would simply argue that money had fallen in value; in which case undoubtedly the hat might rise in any proportion that money fell; but, then, without gaining any increased value, which is essential to your argument.

Phil
. Certainly; if in money, then in everything else.

X
. Therefore, for instance, in gloves; having previously been worth four pair of buckskin gloves, the hat will now be worth four pair + y?

Phil
. It will.

X
. But, Philebus, either the rise in wages is universal or it is not universal. If not universal, it must be a case of accidental rise from mere scarcity of hands; which is the case of a rise in market value; and that is not the case of Mr. Ricardo, who is laying down the laws of natural value. It is, therefore, universal; but, if universal, the gloves from the same cause will have risen from the value of x to x + y.

Hence, therefore, the price of the hat, estimated in gloves, is = x + y.

And again, the price of the gloves, estimated in hats, is = x + y.

In other words, H – y = x.
H + y = x.
That is to say, H – y = H + y.

Phed
. Which, I suppose, is an absurdity; and, in fact, it turns out, Philebus, that he has slaughtered you with “ease and affluence.”

X
. And this absurdity must be eluded by him who undertakes to show that a rise in the wages of labor can be transferred to the value of its product.

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