I’ve been rather hastily reading Chapters IV and V of Wealth of Nations, “Of the Origin and Use of Money” and “Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities, or of Their Price in Labour, and Their Price in Money.” It’s been difficult to find anything I thought applied to this blog, but I finally settled on a string of quotes from Chapter V.
But though labour be the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities, it is not that by which their value is commonly estimated. It is often difficult to ascertain the proportion between two different quantities of labour… The different degrees of hardship endured, and of ingenuity exercised, must likewise be taken into account… But it is not easy to find any accurate measure either of hardship or ingenuity… (34)
Every commodity besides, is more frequently exchanged for, and thereby compared with, other commodities than with labour… (35)
But when barter ceases, and money has become the common instrument of commerce, every particular commodity is more frequently exchanged for money than for any other commodity… (35)
Equal quantities of labour, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer… (36)
But though equal quantities of labour are always of equal value to the labourer, yet to the person who employs him they appear sometimes to be of greater and sometimes of smaller value… (37)
Equal quantities of labour will at distant times be purchased more nearly with equal quantities of corn, the subsistence of the labourer, than with equal quantities of gold and silver, or perhaps of any other commodity… (39)
Labour, therefore, it appears evidently, is the only universal, as well as the only accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times and all places. (41)
