The opinion of
the human race on the existing difference between real value and
market price may be said to be unanimous. It is for this reason
that so many kinds of merchandise are sold at a fixed price;
there are some, indeed, which, even in their variations, are
always fixed,--bread, for instance. It will not be denied that,
if two manufacturers can supply one another by an account
current, and at a settled price, with quantities of their
respective products, ten, a hundred, a thousand manufacturers can
do the same. Now, that would be a solution of the problem of the
measure of value. The price of everything would be debated upon,
I allow, because debate is still our only method of fixing
prices; but yet, as all light is the result of conflict, debate,
though it may be a proof of uncertainty, has for its object,
setting aside the greater or less amount of good faith that
enters into it, the discovery of the relation of values to each
other,-- that is, their measurement, their law.
Ricardo, in his theory of rent, has given a magnificent example
of the commensurability of values.
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