fect upon the
capitalists who constitute the market. The world is conceived as one
great market, in which the motives of the capitalist supply the motive
power; and the share which goes to the labourer is an incidental or
collateral result of the working of the whole machinery. Now, though
the sociologist would say that this is quite inadequate for his
purpose, and that we must consider the whole social structure, he may
also admit that the scheme has a validity in its own sphere. It
describes the actual working of the mechanism at any given time; and
it may be that in Ricardo's time it gave an approximate account of the
facts. To make it complete, it requires to be set, so to speak, in a
more general framework of theory; and we may then see that it cannot
give a complete solution. Still, as a consistent scheme which
corresponds to the immediate phenomena, it helps us to understand the
play of the industrial forces which immediately regulate the market.

Ricardo's position suggested a different line of reply. The doctrines
that capital is 'accumulated labour' and that all value is in
proportion to the labour fell in with the Socialist theory. If value
is created by labour, ought not 'labour' to possess what it makes? The
right to the whole produce of labour seemed to be a natural
conclusion. Ricardo might answer that when I buy your labour, it
becomes mine. I may consider myself to have acquired the rights of the
real creator of the wealth, and to embody all the labourers, whose
'accumulated labour' is capital. Still, there is a difficulty. The
beaver and deer case has an awkward ethical aspect. To say that they
are exchanged at such a rate seems to mean that they ought to be
exchanged at the rate. This again implies the principle that a man has
a right to what he has caught; that is, to the whole fruits of his
labour. James Mill, as we have seen, starts his political treatise by
assuming this as obvious.[335] He did not consider the possible
inferences; for it is certainly a daring assumption that the principle
is carried out by the economic system. According to Ricardo rent is
paid to men who don't labour at all. The fundholder was a weight upon
all industry, and as dead a weight as the landlord. The capitalist,
Ricardo's social mainspring, required at least cross-examination. He
represents 'accumulated labour' in some fashion, but it is not plain
that the slice which he takes out of the whole cake is proportioned
ac