Foundations of Political Economy (Paperback)


Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. DETERMINANTS OF VALUE. Why articles differ in value?Extreme limits of highest and lowest value?Ricardo illogical and self-contradictory? His theory of value untenable?"Natural value" an unsuitable expression?Equivalent value?Effect of competition on exchanges?A " fair " exchange. We come now to the second of the broad questions that a theory of value must explain?viz., why articles should have the power of exchange in such different degrees. Why should iron or coal or wheat or cloth not exchange weight for weight with gold ? Why should cabbages be a penny a pound or apples threepence, while a pound of beef or mutton is twelve-pennies? Why should a coat cost two guineas, and not three, four, or any other number of guineas? Why should a coat have three times the exchange value of a pair of boots or forty times the exchange value of a pair of stockings ? Are all these innumerable gradations of exchanging power merely whimsical, the result of chance, or are they the result of ascertainable and definable causes ? Every exchange, of course, pre-supposes at least two persons and at least two articles or kinds of articles. It also pre-supposes that each of these two persons has what the other wants. B has boots which H wants, and H has hats which B wants.1 Playing upon the boots and the hats are the essential conditions of exchange value?they are desired and they are possessed. Now, what will fix the rate at which they will be exchanged ? B, if he be actuated by ordinary human motives ?and political economy has regard to ordinary human motives only?will strive to get for his boots as much as he can from H; and H will strive to get as much as he can from B. The utmost that B will be able to get from H will be limited by H's desire or need for boots; and the utmost ...

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. DETERMINANTS OF VALUE. Why articles differ in value?Extreme limits of highest and lowest value?Ricardo illogical and self-contradictory? His theory of value untenable?"Natural value" an unsuitable expression?Equivalent value?Effect of competition on exchanges?A " fair " exchange. We come now to the second of the broad questions that a theory of value must explain?viz., why articles should have the power of exchange in such different degrees. Why should iron or coal or wheat or cloth not exchange weight for weight with gold ? Why should cabbages be a penny a pound or apples threepence, while a pound of beef or mutton is twelve-pennies? Why should a coat cost two guineas, and not three, four, or any other number of guineas? Why should a coat have three times the exchange value of a pair of boots or forty times the exchange value of a pair of stockings ? Are all these innumerable gradations of exchanging power merely whimsical, the result of chance, or are they the result of ascertainable and definable causes ? Every exchange, of course, pre-supposes at least two persons and at least two articles or kinds of articles. It also pre-supposes that each of these two persons has what the other wants. B has boots which H wants, and H has hats which B wants.1 Playing upon the boots and the hats are the essential conditions of exchange value?they are desired and they are possessed. Now, what will fix the rate at which they will be exchanged ? B, if he be actuated by ordinary human motives ?and political economy has regard to ordinary human motives only?will strive to get for his boots as much as he can from H; and H will strive to get as much as he can from B. The utmost that B will be able to get from H will be limited by H's desire or need for boots; and the utmost ...

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Product Details

General

Imprint

General Books LLC

Country of origin

United States

Release date

2012

Availability

Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.

First published

2012

Authors

Dimensions

246 x 189 x 3mm (L x W x T)

Format

Paperback - Trade

Pages

104

ISBN-13

978-0-217-83471-1

Barcode

9780217834711

Categories

LSN

0-217-83471-X



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