He, if
I am not mistaken, is the author of the formula: EVERY PRODUCT
IS WORTH WHAT IT COSTS; or, what amounts to the same thing:
PRODUCTS ARE BOUGHT WITH PRODUCTS. This aphorism, which leads
straight to equality, has been controverted since by other
economists; we will examine in turn the affirmative and the
negative.
When I say that every product is worth the products which it has
cost, I mean that every product is a collective unit which, in a
new form, groups a certain number of other products consumed in
various quantities. Whence it follows that the products of human
industry are, in relation to each other, genera and species, and
that they form a series from the simple to the composite,
according to the number and proportion of the elements, all
equivalent to each other, which constitute each product. It
matters little, for the present, that this series, as well
as the equivalence of its elements, is expressed in practice more
or less exactly by the equilibrium of wages and fortunes; our
first business is with the relation of things, the economic law.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210