ABSTRACT
Labour is sometimes defended as the best measure of value, as being thought the most invariable one in different ages or countries; but even this is a proposition assumed upon very slender foundations. The same quantity of labour will not, in different ages or countries, produce or purchase the same amount of the luxuries, comforts, or necessaries of life. Labour therefore is not a “real,” in the sense of being an invariable, measure of value. Indeed it is utterly impossible that there can exist any invariable measure of value as long as the prices of different commodities vary in relation to each other. The rules which regulate the relative values of commodities are simple, and may be considered as the consequence of this general law, which is not subject to many exceptions—namely, that every person is desirous to get as much as he can for the goods of which he disposes.
