ABSTRACT
The true measure of value is the quantity of each of the things which one generally agrees to give to obtain it. The measure of the value of a garment is indifferently either five hectolitres of wheat, twenty-five pounds of candle wax or twenty five-franc coins, if one gives one or other of these things to buy it. In this respect labour is as good a measure of value as anything else because, in the example suggested, the garment can buy fifty days’ labour if, by selling it for a hundred francs, one acquires by this garment the means of buying fifty days’ labour at two francs per day. Smith’s error does not lie there; it consists in having wanted to make labour the invariable measure of value; to have said, for example, that in a particular country and at a particular time that the product of ten days’ labour had been carried out, this product was worth as much as any other product which costs ten days’ labour today. However this proposal is not justifiable. In spite of the value of one ten days’ labour differing greatly from the value of another ten days’ labour of much higher quality, or much lower, the mere circumstance of need, as so rightly observes Mr Storch, considerably changes the value of labour and consequently that of the product to which it is applied.
