20: Food and necessaries in this case will have risen 100 per cent if estimated by the quantity of labour necessary to their production, while they will scarcely have increased in value, if measured by the quantity of labour for which they will exchange.
25: Of the durable implement, only a small portion of its value would be transferred to the commodity,
27: The comparative value of the fish and the game would be entirely regulated by the quantity of labour realized in each, whatever might be...profits might be.
28: Suppose money to be that commodity.
29: Which employed the same proportion of fixed and circulating capital, and fixed capital of the same durability.
32: But they will be of more than twice the value of the corn, for the profit on the clothier's and cotton manufacturer's capital for the first year has been added to their capitals, while that of the farmer has been expended and enjoyed. .
32-33: Suppose that for the labour of each workman £50 per annum were paid,... and yet the goods they produce differ in value on account of the different quantities of fixed capital, or accumulated labour, employed by each respectively,
33: There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.
33: All commodities which are produced by very valuable machinery, or in very valuable buildings, or which require a great length of time before they can be brought to market, would fall in relative value.
34: I shall consider all the great variations which take place in the relative value of commodities to be produced by the greater or less quantity of labour which may be required from time to time to produce them.
38: They will fall as wages rise, and rise as wages fall.
39: It would be a perfect measure of value for all things produced under the same circumstances precisely as itself, but for no others.
40: If, then, I may suppose myself to be possessed of a standard so nearly approaching to an invariable one, the advantage is, that I shall be enabled to speak of the variations of other things, without embarrassing myself on every occasion with the consideration of the possible alteration in the value of the medium in which price and value are estimated.
42: A rise in wages, from an alteration in the value of money produces a general effect on price, and for that reason it produces no real effect whatever on profits. On the contrary, a rise of wages, from the circumstance of the labourer being more liberally rewarded, or from a difficulty of procuring the necessaries on which wages are expended, does not, except in some instances, produce the effect of raising price, but has a great effect in lowering. .in lowering profits.
43: In that case I should say that wages and rent had fallen and profits risen; though ... the quantity paid to the labourer and landlord would have increased...
47: When, in the progress of society, land of the second degree of fertility is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on that of the first quality...
48: In this case, as well as in the other, the capital last employed pays no rent.
49: For rent invariably proceeds from the employment of an additional quantity of labour with a proportionately less return.
50: Corn is not high because a rent is paid, but a rent is paid because corn is high.
51: If the surplus produce which land affords in the form of rent be an advantage, it is desirable that, every year, the machinery newly constructed should be less efficient than the old, as that would undoubtedly give a greater exchangeable value.
52-53: and rent does not and cannot enter in the least degree as a component part of its price ... and therefore rent is not a component part of the price of commodities.
56: I hope enough has been said to show that whatever diminishes the inequality in the produce obtained from successive portions of capital employed on the same or on new land tends to lower rent; and that whatever increases that inequality, necessarily produces an opposite effect, and tends to raise it.
56: It is obvious that the landlord is doubly benefitted by difficulty of production.
63: Their natural prices, the quantity of labor necessary to their production, would continue unaltered, but the market price of silks would rise and that of woolens would fall;
66: Notwithstanding the tendency of wages to conform to their natural rate, their market rate may, in an improving society, for an indefinite period, be constantly above it;
67: The quantity of capital may increase, while neither the whole together, nor any part of it singly, will have a greater value than before, but may actually have a less.
69-70: The friends of humanity cannot but wish that in all countries the labouring classes should have a taste for comforts and enjoyments, and that they should...
70: In the natural advance of society, the wages of labour will have a tendency to fall, as far as they are regulated by supply and demand (is this inconsistent with the next quote?)
71: It appears, then, that the same cause which raises rent...will also raise wages; and therefore...both rent and wages will have a tendency to rise with the progress of wealth and population.
73: The importation of gold, and a rise in the price of all home made commodities, are effects absolutely incompatible.
76: We have seen, too, that all manufactured commodities rise and fall in proportion as more or less labour becomes necessary to their production. Neither the farmer...nor the manufacturer...sacrifice any portion of the produce for rent....
76: Supposing corn and manufactured goods always to sell at the same price, profits would be high or low in proportion as wages were low or high. But...
77: But the farmer on new land would probably be obliged to employ an additional man and therefore to pay an additional sum of £25 for wages, and the farmer on the old land...
81: If a manufacturer had also employed £3000 in his business, he would be obliged, in consequence of the rise of wages, to increase his capital, in order to be enabled to carry on the same business. (Why?)
81: Cotton goods, ... will all rise in price with the rise of wheat; but they rise on account of the greater quantity of labour expended on the raw material from which they are made, and not because more was paid by the manufacturer to the labourers whom he employed on those commodities. (why?)
82: In all cases, commodities rise because more labour is expended on them, and not because the labour which is expended on them is at a higher value.
83: The natural tendency of profits then is to fall; for in the progress of society and wealth, the additional quantity of food required is obtained by the sacrifice of more and more labour.
86: but after capital has accumulated to a large amount, and profits have fallen, the further accumulation diminishes the aggregate of profits.
There can, however, be no accumulation of capital so long as stock yields any profit at all, without its yielding not only an increase of produce, but an increase of value. (Are these two statements inconsistent? Explain.)
88: -that in all countries, and all times, profits depend on the quantity of labour requisite to provide necessaries for the labourers on that land or with that capital which yields no rent.
88: Thus,then, I have endeavored to show, first, that a rise in wages would not raise the price of commodities, but would invariably lower profits; and secondly, that if the prices of all commodities could be raised, still the effect on profits would be the same; and that, In fact, the value of the medium only in which prices and profits are estimated would be lowered.
92-93: Foreign trade, then, though highly beneficial to a country, as it increases the amount and variety of the objects on which revenue may be expended, and affords, by the abundance and cheapness of commoditites, incentives to saving, and to the accumulation of capital, has no tendency to raise the profits of stock unless the commodities imported be of that description on which the wages of labour are expended.
The remarks which have been made respecting foreign trade apply equally to home trade. The rate of profits is never increased by a better distribution of labour, by the invention of machinery, by the establishment of roads and canals, or by any means of abbridging labour either in the manufacture or in the conveyance of goods. These are causes which operate on price, and never fail to be highly beneficial to consumers; since they enable them, with the same labour, or with the value of the produce of the same labour, to obtain in exchange a greater quantity of the commodity to which the improvement is applied;
94: The labour of 100 Englishmen cannot be given for that of 80 Englishmen, but the produce of the labour of 100 Englishment may be given for the produce of the labour of 80 portuguese, 60 Russions, or 120 East Indians.
98: Thus, then, it appears that the improvement of manufacture in any country tends to alter the distribution of the precious metals among the nations of the world: it tends to increase the quantity of commodities, at the same time that it raises general prices in the country where the improvement takes place.
99: This will in some measure account for the different value of money in different countries: it will explain to us why the prices of home commodities, and those of great bulk, though of comparatively small value, are, independently of other causes, higher in those countries where manufactures flourish. Of two countries having precisely the same population, and the same quantity of land of equal fertility in cultivation, with the same knowledge too of agriculture, the prices of raw produce will be highest in that where the greater skill and the better machinery is used in the manufacture of exportable commodities. The rate of profits will probably differ but little; for wages, or the real reward of the labourer, may be the same in both; but those wages, as well as raw produce, will be rated higher in money in that country, into which, from the advantages attending their skill and machinery, an abundance of money is imported in exchange for their goods.
101: But the effects resulting from a high price of corn when produced by the rise in the value.of corn, and when caused by a fall in the value of money, are totally different.
102: This higher value of money will not be indicated by the exchange; bills may continue to be negotiated at par, although the prices of corn and labour should be 10, 20, or 30 percent higher in one country
than another.
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