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change for or be worth two deer. It is natural CHA P. that what is usually the produce of two days or two hours labour, fhould be worth double of what is ufually the produce of one day's or one hour's labour.

If the one fpecies of labour should be more fevere than the other, fome allowance will naturally be made for this fuperior hardship; and the produce of one hour's labour in the one way may frequently exchange for that of two hours labour in the other.

Or if the one fpecies of labour requires an uncommon degree of dexterity and ingenuity, the esteem which men have for fuch talents, will naturally give a value to their produce, fuperior to what would be due to the time employed about it. Such talents can feldom be acquired but in confequence of long application, and the fuperior value of their produce may frequently be no more than a reasonable compenfation for the time and labour which must be spent in acquiring them. In the advanced state of fociety, allowances of this kind, for fuperior hardship and fuperior skill, are commonly made in the wages of labour; and fomething of the fame kind muft probably have taken place in its earliest and rudeft period.

In this ftate of things, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer; and the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, is the only circumftance which can regulate the quantity of la

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BOOK bour which it ought commonly to purchase, command, or exchange for.

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As foon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular perfons, fome of them will naturally employ it in fetting to work induftrious people, whom they will supply with materials and fubfiftence, in order to make a profit by the fale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials. In exchanging the complete manufacture either for money, for labour, or for other goods, over and above what may be fufficient to pay the price of the materials, and the wages of the workmen, something must be given for the profits of the undertaker of the work who hazards his ftock in this adventure. The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, refolves itself in this cafe into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole flock of materials and wages which he advanced. He could have no intereft to employ them, unless he expected from the fale of their work fomething more than what was fufficient to replace his flock to him; and he could have no interest to employ a great ftock rather than a fmall one, unless his profits were to bear fome proportion to the extent of his ftock.

The profits of ftock, it may perhaps be thought, are only a different name for the wages of a particular fort of labour, the labour of infpection and direction. They are, however, altogether different, are regulated by quite differ

ent

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ent principles, and bear no proportion to the CHA P. quantity, the hardship, or the ingenuity of this fuppofed labour of infpection and direction. They are regulated altogether by the value of the stock employed, and are greater or smaller in proportion to the extent of this stock. Let us fuppofe, for example, that in fome particular place, where the common annual profits of manufacturing stock are ten per cent. there are two different manufactures, in each of which twenty workmen are employed at the rate of fifteen pounds a year each, or at the expence of three hundred a year in each manufactory. Let us fuppofe too, that the coarse materials annually wrought up in the one coft only feven hundred pounds, while the finer materials in the other coft feven thoufand. The capital annually employed in the one will in this cafe amount only to one thousand pounds; whereas that employed in the other will amount to feven thousand three hundred pounds. At the rate of ten per cent. therefore, the undertaker of the one will expect an yearly profit of about one hundred pounds only; while that of the other will expect about feven hundred and thirty pounds. But though their profits are so very different, their labour of infpection and direction may be either altogether or very nearly the fame. In many great works, almoft the whole labour of this kind is committed to fome principal clerk. His wages properly exprefs the value of this labour of infpection and direction. Though in fettling them fome regard is had commonly, not only to his labour

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BOOK and skill, but to the truft which is reposed in him, yet they never bear any regular proportion to the capital of which he overfees the management; and the owner of this capital, though he is thus difcharged of almost all labour, ftill expects that his profits should bear a regular proportion to his capital. In the price of commodities, therefore, the profits of ftock constitute a component part altogether different from the wages of labour, and regulated by quite different principles.

In this ftate of things, the whole produce of labour does not always belong to the labourer, He muft in moft cafes fhare it with the owner of the stock which employs him. Neither is the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, the only circumftance which can regulate the quantity which it ought commonly to purchase, command, or exchange for. An additional quantity, it is evident, must be due for the profits of the ftock which advanced the wages and furnished the materials of that labour.

As foon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never fowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the foreft, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, coft the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He muft. then pay for the licence to

gather

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gather them; and muft give up to the landlord C HA P. a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the fame thing, the price of this portion, conftitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities makes a third component part.

The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be obferved, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of them, purchase or command. Labour meafures the value not only of that part of price which refolves itself into labour, but of that which refolves itself into rent, and of that which refolves itself into profit.

In every fociety the price of every commodity finally refolves itself into fome one or other, or all of those three parts; and in every improved fociety, all the three enter more or lefs, as component parts, into the price of the far greater part of commodities.

In the price of corn, for example, one part pays the rent of the landlord, another pays the wages or maintenance of the labourers and labouring cattle employed in producing it, and the third pays the profit of the farmer. Thefe three parts feem either immediately or ultimately to make up the whole price of corn. A fourth part, it may perhaps be thought, is neceffary for replacing the stock of the farmer, or for compenfating the wear and tear of his labouring cattle, and other inftruments of husbandry. But it must be confidered that the price of any

inftru.

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