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."(Vol.I, p.28)"In making labor the foundation of the value of commodities and the comparativequantity of labor which is necessary to their production, the rule which determines therespective quantities of goods which shall be given in exchange for each other, we mustnot be supposed to deny the accidental and temporary deviations of the actual or marketprice of commodities from this, their primary and natural price."(Vol.I, p.105, l.c.)"It is the cost of production which must ultimately regulate the price of commodities, andnot, as has been often said, the proportion between supply and demand."(Vol.II, p.253)Lord Lauderdale had developed the variations of exchange value according to the law ofsupply and demand, or of scarcity and abundance relatively to demand.In his opinion thevalue of a thing can increase when its quantity decreases or when the demand for itincreases; it can decrease owing to an increase of its quantity or owing to the decrease indemand.Thus the value of a thing can change through eight different causes, namely,four causes that apply to money or to any other commodity which serves as a measure ofits value.Here is Ricardo's refutation:"Commodities which are monopolized, either by an individual, or by a company, varyaccording to the law which Lord Laudersdale has laid down: they fall in proportion as the sellers augment their quantity, and rise in proportion to the eagerness of the buyers topurchase them; their price has no necessary connexion with their natural value; but theprices of commodities, which are subject to competition, and whose quantity may beincreased in any moderate degree, will ultimately depend, not on the state of demand andsupply, but on the increased or diminished cost of their production."(Vol.II, p.259)We shall leave it to the reader to make the comparison between this simple, clear, preciselanguage of Ricardo's and M.Proudhon's rhetorical attempts to arrive at thedetermination of relative value by labor time.Ricardo shows us the real movement of bourgeois production, which constitutes value.M.Proudhon, leaving the real movement out of account, "fumes and frets" in order toinvent new processes and to achieve the reorganization of the world on a would-be newformula, which formula is no more than the theoretical expression of the real movementwhich exists and which is so well described by Ricardo.Ricardo takes his starting pointfrom present-day society to demonstrate to us how it constitutes value M.Proudhontakes constituted value as his starting point to construct a new social world with the aid ofthis value.For him, M.Proudhon, constituted value must move around and become oncemore the constituting factor in a world already completely constituted according to thismode of evaluation.The determination of value by labor time, is, for Ricardo, the law ofexchange value; for M.Proudhon.it is the synthesis of use value and exchange value.Ricardo's theory of values is the scientific interpretation of actual economic life; M.Proudhon's theory of values is the utopian interpretation of Ricardo's theory.Ricardoestablishes the truth of his formula by deriving it from all economic relations, and byexplaining in this way all phenomena, even those like ground rent, accumulation ofcapital and the relation of wages to profits, which at first sight seems to contradict it; it isprecisely that which makes his doctrine a scientific system: M.Proudhon, who hasrediscovered this formula of Ricardo's by means of quite arbitrary hypotheses, is forcedthereafter to seek out isolated economic facts which he twists and falsifies to pass themoff as examples, already existing applications, beginning of realization of hisregenerating idea.(See our S.3.Application of Constituted Value)Now let us pass on to the conclusions M.Proudhon draws from value constituted (bylabor time).- A certain quantity of labor is equivalent to the product created by this same quantity oflabor.- Each day's labor is worth as much as another day's labor; that is to say, if the quantitiesare equal, one man's labor is worth as much as another man's labor: there is no qualitativedifference.With the same quantity of work, one man's product can be given in exchangefor another man's product.All men are wage workers getting equal pay for an equal timeof work.Perfect equality rules the exchanges [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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