ABSTRACT
The classical approach represents the total labour used by society during any period of production as a single, homogenous quantity. Upon this quantity a uniform wage is paid uniform within an industry, across all industries and the same rate for all grades of labour. Piero Sraffas treatment of labour as a quantity measurable without reference to prices may be as unfortunate as the attempt to measure the quantity of capital without reference to prices. He argues, only to the common denominator of exchange value. But if this is correct, it requires a reconsideration of Sraffas construction of the invariant measure of value because his standard system cannot be shown to exhibit the linear inverse relation between wages and the rate of profit if the quantity of labour is expressed in terms of value and not as a homogenous and given quantity that is independent of value and capable of being set equal to unity as a numerair.
