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The exceptions, therefore, to the general proposition that the labour which commodities will command may be considered as a standard measure of their value are only apparent, not real, and may all be consistently explained.
And if the proposition be true, a standard measure of value is of so much importance in political economy, and the one proposed is at all times so very ready and easy of application,[1] that there is scarcely any part of the science in which it will not tend to simplify and facilitate our inquiries.
To advert shortly to a few points on which there have been some differences of opinion. On the subject of rents, such a standard would determine, among other things, that, as the increase in the value of corn is only measured by a decrease in the corn wages of labour, such increase of value is a very inconsiderable source of the increase of rents compared with improvements in agriculture; and on the same principle that, if tithes do not fall mainly on the labourer, the acknowledged diminution in the corn rents of the landlord.
- ↑ The labour worked up in a commodity could not, in many cases, be ascertained without considerable difficulty 3 but the labour which it will command is always open and palpable.
