and others, began their public career under Owen's auspices. Owen himself was hostile to extensive political action and distrustful of popular control, so that he and his special followers, who took the name Socialists, kept steadfastly apart from all political movements and propagated their teachings in the form of Communism. Owen was neither a politician nor a demagogue. He appeared only once as a popular leader. That was during 1829 to 1834, when he inspired the Co-operative Labour Exchange and Syndicalist movements, which will be dealt with later.
It was Ricardo's fate, whilst writing what was intended to be at once an explanation and a defence of the capitalistic system of production, to furnish the enemies of capitalism with their most deadly weapons. Modern economists have felt it incumbent upon them to modify or reject the Ricardian premises which led to such astounding and subversive conclusions.[1] The discussion as to what Ricardo actually did mean, or what he took for granted, may safely be left to experts. It is sufficient to indicate those points upon which anti-capitalistic theory seized. These relate of course to the claims of Labour. Ricardo says, for instance, that "the comparative quantity of labour" is "the foundation of the exchangeable value of all things," and that this doctrine is "of the utmost importance in political economy," [2] Further, he speaks of the "relative quantity of labour as almost exclusively determining the relative values of commodities."[3] Though he introduces reservations allowing that labour applied to making of tools, implements, and buildings, that the elements of time, risk, rate of profits, and quality of labour also influence value, he keeps these reservations in water-tight compartments and permits the superficial reader to assume that they are of no importance in comparison with the great fact of Labour. The rough-and-ready conclusion was drawn—Labour is the source and measure of Value.[4] In the hands of an ingenious writer like Hodgskin the reservations are indeed noted, but only to be swept away. As tools, implements, and buildings are created by labour, their value too depends upon the labour expended
- ↑ E.g. Marshall, Principles, p. 561.
- ↑ Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 3rd ed. 1821, ch. i. sect. 1.
- ↑ Ibid. sect. 2.
- ↑ William Thompson, On the Distribution of Wealth (edition of 1850), sect. 1; "Wealth is produced by Labour: no other ingredient but Labour makes any object of desire an object of wealth. Labour is the sole universal measure as well as the characteristic distinction of wealth." "Wealth is any object of desire produced by labour." "Labour is the sole parent of wealth."
