FullReads

Phed
. I am sure I stand in need of it, and of all sort of assistance, for I am “ill at these numbers.” But let us go on; what you require my assent to, I understand to be this: that all the different quantities of corn expressed in the first column will be of the same value, because they are all alike the product of ten men’s labor. To this I do assent; and what next? Does anybody deny it?

X
. Yes, Mr. Malthus: he asserts that the value will not be always the same; and the purpose of the ninth column is to assign the true values; which, by looking into that column, you may perceive to be constantly varying: the value of Alpha, for instance, is twelve and five tenths; the value of Epsilon is twelve and seven tenths; of Iota, twelve; and of Xi, eleven and twenty-five one-hundredths.

Phed
. But of what? Twelve and five tenths of what?

X
. Of anything which, though variable, has in fact happened to be stationary in value; or, if you choose, of anything which is not variable in value.

Phed
. Not variable! But there is no such thing.

X
. No! Mr. Malthus, however, says there is; labor, he asserts, is of unalterable value.

Phed
. What! does he mean to say, then, that the laborer always obtains the same wages?

X
. Yes, the same real wages; all differences being only apparently in the wages, but really in the commodity in which the wages are paid. Let that commodity be wheat; then, if the laborer receives ten quarters of wheat in 1800, and nine in 1820, that would imply only that wheat was about eleven per cent, dearer in the latter year. Or let money be that commodity; then, if the laborer receives this century two shillings, and next century three shillings, this simply argues that money has fallen in value by fifty per cent.

Phed
. Why, so it may; and the whole difference in wages may have arisen in that way, and be only apparent. But, then, it may also have arisen from a change in the real value of wages; that is, on the Ricardian principle, in the quantity of labor necessary to produce wages. And this latter must have been the nature of the change, if Alpha, Iota, Xi, etc., should be found to purchase more labor; in which case Mr. Ricardo’s doctrine is not disturbed; for he will say that Iota in 1700 exchanges for twelve, and Kappa in 1800 for eleven, not because Kappa has fallen in that proportion (for Kappa, being the product of the same labor as Iota, cannot fall below the value of Iota), but because the commodity for which they are exchanged has risen in that proportion.

X
. He will; but Mr. Malthus attempts to bar that answer in this case, by alleging that it is impossible for the commodity in question (namely, labor) to rise or to fall in that or in any other proportion. If, then, the change cannot be in the labor, it must be in Alpha, Beta, etc.; in which case Mr. Ricardo will be overthrown; for they are the products of the same quantity of labor, and yet have not retained the same value.

Phed
. But, to bar Mr. Ricardo’s answer, Mr. Malthus must not allege this merely; he must prove it.

X
. To be sure; and the first seven columns of this table are designed to prove it. Now, then, we have done with the ninth column, and also with the eighth; for they are both mere corollaries from all the rest, and linked together under the plain rule of three. Dismiss these altogether; and we will now come to the argument.