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The Templars’ Dialogues
by
or negative part. In Mr. Ricardo’s writings, all parts (as I have already observed) have a latent polemic reference; but some, however, are more directly and formally polemic than the rest; and these may be the more readily detached from the main body of the work, because (like the chapters on Taxation) they are all corollaries from the general laws, and in no case introductory to them. Divided on this principle, the eighteen chapters fall into the following arrangement:
Chap. Affirmative Chapters.
1.
4. on Value;
30.
2. on Rent;
3.
5. on Wages;
6. on Profits;
7. on Foreign Trade;
19. on Sudden Changes in Trade;
21. on Accumulation;
25. on Colonial Trade;
27. on Currency and Banks;
31. on Machinery.
Chap. Negative (or Polemic) Chapters.
20. on Value and Riches: against Adam Smith, Lord Lauderdale,
M. Say;
24. Rent of Land: against Adam Smith;
26. Gross and Net Revenue: against Adam Smith;
28. Relations of Gold, Corn, and Labor, under certain
circumstances: against A. Smith;
32. Rent: against Mr. Malthus.
Deducting the polemic chapters, there remain thirteen affirmative or doctrinal chapters; of which one (the twenty-seventh), on Currency, etc., ought always to be insulated from all other parts of Political Economy. And thus, out of the whole thirty-two chapters, twelve only are important to the student on his first examination; and to these I propose to limit our discussions.
Phed
. Be it so, and now let us adjourn to more solemn duties.
* * * * *
DIALOGUE THE FIRST.
ON THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Phed
. To cut the matter short, X. Y. Z., and to begin as near as possible to the end–is there any one principle in Political Economy from which all the rest can be deduced? A principle, I mean, which all others presuppose; but which itself presupposes none.
X
. There is, Phaedrus; such a principle exists in the doctrine of Value–truly explained. The question from which all Political Economy will be found to move–the question to which all its difficulties will be found reducible–is this: What is the ground of exchangeable value? My hat, for example, bears the same value as your umbrella; double the value of my shoes; four times the value of my gloves; one twentieth of the value of this watch. Of these several relations of value, what is the sufficient cause? If they were capricious, no such science as that of Political Economy could exist; not being capricious, they must have an assignable cause; this cause–what is it?
Phed
. Ay, what is it?
X
. It is this, Phaedrus; and the entire merit of the discovery belongs to Mr. Ricardo. It is this; and listen with your whole understanding: the ground of the value of all things lies in the quantity (but mark well that word “quantity”) of labor which produces them. Here is that great principle which is the corner- stone of all tenable Political Economy; which granted or denied, all Political Economy stands or falls. Grant me this one principle, with a few square feet of the sea-shore to draw my diagrams upon, and I will undertake to deduce every other truth in the science.