The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated: With an Application of it to the Alterations in the Value of the English Currency since 1790Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert)
General
The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated: With an Application of it to the Alterations in the Value of the English Currency since 1790
Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert)
Currency question -- Great Britain; Value
Now there is no supposition but one, relating to the value of money in
different countries, which, combined with the natural elements of the
value of produce in each, would constitute the present natural prices
of commodities in these countries, or the rates at which they actually
exchange with each other. This is the supposition that the differences
in the value of money in different countries are proportioned to the
differences in the money prices of agricultural labour.[E]
The conditions of the supply of an Indian commodity are the advance and
consumption of a certain quantity of Indian labour, with the profits
on all the advances for the time that they are employed. Thus, if for
the production of an Indian commodity, a fixed capital consisting of
accumulated labour and profits, equal to 300 days, were advanced for a
year, and a quantity of accumulated and immediate labour, consisting
of the wear and tear of the machinery, the materials to be worked up,
and direct labour, equal to 1500 days, were consumed on the commodity
in the same time, profits being 20 per cent., the natural value of such
commodity in India would be equal to the 1500 days labour consumed,
with a profit of 20 per cent. upon 1800 days labour, which would amount
to 1860 days labour.
If labour in India were fourpence a day, the fixed money capital in
this case would equal £5, the labour advanced and consumed £25, and
the labour consumed, together with the profits on the whole advances,
would be equal to £31. And this would evidently be the natural price
at which the commodity would circulate, and according to which it would
exchange with any foreign commodity brought to India.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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