Well, the first
effect, the inevitable effect, of the multiplication of values is
to LOWER them: the more abundant is an article of merchandise,
the more it loses in exchange and depreciates commercially. Is
it not true that there is a contradiction between the necessity
of labor and its results?
I adjure the reader, before rushing ahead for the explanation, to
arrest his attention upon the fact.
A peasant who has harvested twenty sacks of wheat, which he with
his family proposes to consume, deems himself twice as rich
as if he had harvested only ten; likewise a housewife who has
spun fifty yards of linen believes that she is twice as rich as
if she had spun but twenty- five. Relatively to the household,
both are right; looked at in their external relations, they may
be utterly mistaken. If the crop of wheat is double throughout
the whole country, twenty sacks will sell for less than ten would
have sold for if it had been but half as great; so, under similar
circumstances, fifty yards of linen will be worth less than
twenty-five: so that value decreases as the production of utility
increases, and a producer may arrive at poverty by continually
enriching himself.
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