The Principles of Economical Philosophy (1)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ...to the opinion of Adam Smith, M. Say in the fourth chapter speaks of the value which is given to commodities by natural agents, such as the sun, the air, the pressure of the atmosphere, ifec., which are sometimes substituted for the labour of man and sometimes concur with him in producing. But these natural agents, though they add greatly to value in use, Never Add Exchangeable Value to a commodity! And they (natural agents) are serviceable to us by increasing the abundance of productions, by making men richer, by adding to value in use; but as they perform their work gratuitously, as nothing is paid for the use of the air, of heat, and of water, the assistance which they afford us adds nothing to Value in Exchange! I 'Principles of FMical Economy, ch. x.v Now when logical reasoning from certain premises leads to results which are notoriously false, and contrary to experience and fact, it is perfectly certain that those premises must be erroneous. Nothing more is required than the grotesque absurdity of the consequences which Ricardo arrives at, which are the logical results of the doctrine that Labour is the sole cause of Value, to shew the utter fallacy of the doctrine. If a man plants an acorn, the full grown oak tree, according to Ricardo, ought to be of no more value than the acorn; because human labour ends with the planting of the acorn, the rest is the agency of Nature. According to this doctrine, cattle and fowls ought to have no value at all, because no human labour ever made an animal, or ever laid an egg. According to Ricardo's doctrine the value of the harvest reaped should be no greater than the cost of the seed corn and the ploughing and labouring the land; because there human labour ends: the rest is the agency of nature. According to ...