absolutely open market the value of goods is measured by the quantity of work socially necessary to produce those goods" (see Ricardo, Proudhon, Marx, and so many others), we do not accept this assertion as an article of faith for the reason that it was put forth by a particular authority, or that it may seem to us "devilishly Socialistic." "It is possible," we say, "that it is true. But do you not see that, in making this assertion, you maintain that the value and quantity of work necessary are proportional, just as the rapidity of a falling body is proportional to the number of seconds that the fall lasts? You thus affirm a certain quantitative relation between labour and market value. Very well; but have you, then, made mensurations, observations—quantitative measures that alone could confirm a quantitative assertion?
You can say that, broadly speaking, the exchange value of goods grows if the quantity of necessary work is greater. This is how Adam Smith expressed himself; but then he was wise enough to add that under capitalist production the proportionality between exchange value and the amount of necessary labour exists no more. But to jump to the conclusion that consequently the two quantities are proportional, that one is the measure of the other, and that this is a law of Economics, is a gross error. As gross as to affirm, for example, that the quantity of rain that is going to fall to-morrow will be proportional to the quantity of millimetres that the barometer will have fallen below the average established at a certain place in a certain season.
The man who first remarked that there was a correlation between the lower level of the barometer and the quantity of rain that falls—the man who first remarked that a stone falling from a great height has acquired a greater velocity than a stone that has only fallen one yard, made scientific discoveries. That is what Adam Smith did as regards Value. But the man who would come after such a general remark has been made, and affirm that the quantity of rain fallen is measured by the quantity the barometer has fallen below the average, or else, that the space traversed by a falling stone is proportional to the duration of the fall and is measured by it, would be talking nonsense. Besides, he would prove that scientific methods of research are absolutely strange to him. He would prove that his writings are not scientific, however full of words borrowed from scientific jargon. But this was exactly what was done by those who made the above-mentioned affirmation about Value.
