Principles of Political EconomyPerry, Arthur Latham
General
Principles of Political Economy
Perry, Arthur Latham
Economics
Now two other kinds of things are bought and sold besides physical and
tangible things, namely, personal services and commercial credits; and
it is very plain, that Value cannot be a quality of any one personal
service rendered, as looked at by itself, such as the service of a
physician towards a fever patient, because the service in and of
itself might be the same whether rendered to his own child or the
child of one of his patrons, while in the former case there would be
no value, and in the latter there would be; and so too the very name
"commercial credit" implies an exchange of two Renderings, out of
which Value always emerges, and not at all an attribute of one credit
considered by itself. Value is no more a characteristic of single
intangible services and claims than it is of single intangible
commodities rendered.
And what makes all this still more certain is, that Value even in
physical things, and perhaps still more in services and claims, is all
the while changing under demand and supply, now rising and then
falling, while the physical properties of things, that make them what
they are, are fixed and unchangeable. A gold eagle, for example, has
certain primary qualities as gold, without which it would not be gold;
it is hard and heavy and colored: gold is gold the world over and in
all ages: Value is not one of these primary qualities, nor even a
secondary quality, nor any quality at all, of gold as such; because
circumstances are readily conceived and have often occurred, in which
gold has no Value even in exchange; for instance, among a crew
abandoned at sea, a bag of gold belonging to one of the sailors might
not buy even a biscuit belonging to another; all the natural qualities
of the gold are present,--it is still yellow and weighty and
solid,--but its Value has escaped altogether. Gold is always 19 times
heavier than water: specific gravity is a _quality_ and is constant in
all physical things: Value is not a quality in this sense at all,
inasmuch as it is something that is constantly changing, rising or
falling, and not infrequently disappearing altogether, leaving no
sign.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account