[43] In this sentence we do not assume the commensurability of disutilities incurred by different persons, but the commensurability of the disutilities incident to different occupations. Thus we should all be willing to say that the steamship stoker’s position means harder labor than that of the chief steward of the dining room, but we may be supposed to judge this by comparing our own (imagined) labor as a stoker with our own labor as steward. [44] _Political Economy_, p. 115. [45] _Letters of Ricardo to McCulloch_, p. 153. [46] _Ibid._, p. 132. [47] _Letters to McCulloch_, p. 153. This shows that Ricardo was not satisfied in principle with his treatment of the value of scarcity goods. [48] _Natural Value_, Author’s Preface, p. xxviii. [49] _Principles_, Gonner ed., p. 6. [50] J. B. Say, _Mélanges et Correspondance d’Économie Politique_, Paris, 1833, pp. 93-4. [51] _Principles_, p. 6. [52] Dietzel, _Theoretische Socialökonomik_, Leipzig, 1895, pp. 228-30. [53] Quoted in _Letters of Ricardo to Malthus_, p. 165, n. [54] For this he is accused of reasoning in a circle. As far as any defense by Marx himself is concerned the charge goes home. Assuming the productivity theory of wages (which is entirely inconsistent with Marx’s theory of wages) it is quite permissible to say that labor which has a higher wage (or value) contains more units of productive power, more efficiency units, than that receiving a lower wage. [55] P. 13. [56] P. 14. [57] P. 16. [58] This explanation of the workings of competition is beautifully written both by Smith and Ricardo—is _classic_ in fact. [59] P. 65. The italics are the present writer’s. [60] “It is necessary for me to remark that I have not said because one commodity has so much labour bestowed upon it as will cost £1,000 and another so much as will cost £2,000 that therefore one would be of the value of £1,000 and the other of the value of £2,000, but I have said that their value will be to each other as two to one, and that in those proportions they will be exchanged. It is of no importance to the truth of this doctrine whether one of these commodities sells for £1,100 and the other for £2,200, or one for £1,500 and the other for £3,000,” _etc._ Gonner ed., p. 39. [61] _Principles_, p. 39, n. The same statement is made in _Letters to Trower_, p. 153. [62] The difficulty of rent is escaped through the Ricardian theory of rent. The present writer is persuaded that the classical theory of rent is unsound in this respect. [63] Pp. 24-6. [64] The distinction between the two kinds of capital was stated to be a question of degree in the first section on this subject. [65] P. 24. [66] P. 35. [67] Ricardo’s theory that a rise of interest must accompany a fall of wages and _vice versâ_ is not an essential part of the present problem. Interest acts as a cause of deviation of exchange value from proportionality to wages cost, whether this particular theory of wages and interest be adopted or not.