arly endeavour to keep by him,
besides the produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some
commodity such as other people will be likely to take in exchange for
the produce of their particular industries. Cattle, for example, have
been widely used for this purpose in primitive societies, and Homer
speaks of a suit of armour costing a hundred oxen.

But the durability of metals, as well as the facility with which they
can be subdivided, has led to their employment, in all countries, as the
means of exchange; and in order to obviate the necessity of weighing
portions of the metals at every purchase, as well as to prevent fraud,
it has been found necessary to affix a public stamp upon certain
quantities of the metals commonly used to purchase goods. The value of
commodities thus comes to be expressed in terms of coinage.

But labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all
commodities; the value of any commodity to the person who possesses it
is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or
to command. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by
labour as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. "Labour
alone, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real
standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and in
all places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is
their nominal price only. Equal quantities of labour will at distant
times be purchased more nearly with equal quantities of corn, the
subsistence of the labourer, than with equal quantities of gold, or of
any other commodity."

Several elements enter into the price of commodities. In a nation of
hunters, if it costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it costs to
kill a deer, one beaver will be worth two deer. But if the one kind of
labour be more severe than the other, some allowance will naturally be
made for this superior hardship; and thirdly, if one kind of labour
requires an uncommon degree of dexterity and ingenuity, it will command
a higher value than that which would be due to the time employed in it.
So far, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer.

But as soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons,
some of them will employ it in setting to work industrious workmen, whom
they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a
profit by the sale of their work. The profits of stock are not