was
simplifying Ricardo and bringing the whole science into unity. All
questions, whether of value in exchange, or of the rate of wages, can
then be reduced to comparing the simple unit called labour. Both Mill
and M'Culloch regard capital as a kind of labour, so that things may
be produced by capital alone, 'without the co-operation of any
immediate labour'[372]--a result which can hardly be realised with the
discovery of a perpetual motion. So, again, the value of a joint
product is the 'sum' of these two values.[373] All value, therefore,
can be regarded as proportioned to labour in one of its two states.
M'Culloch advanced to an unfortunate conclusion, which excited some
ridicule. Though Ricardo and Torrens[374] rejected it, it was accepted
by Mill in his second edition.[375] Wine kept in a cask might increase
in value. Could that value be ascribed to 'additional labour actually
laid out'? M'Culloch gallantly asserted that it could, though 'labour'
certainly has to be interpreted in a non-natural sense.[376] Not only
is capital labour, but fermentation is labour, or how can we say that
all value is proportioned to labour? This is only worth notice as a
pathetic illustration of the misfortunes of a theorist ridden by a
dogma of his own creation. Another conclusion is more important. The
'real value' of anything is measured by the labour required to produce
it. Nothing 'again is more obvious' than that equal labour implies the
'same sacrifice' in all states of society.[377] It might seem to
follow that the value of anything was measured by the labour which it
would command. This doctrine, however, though maintained by Malthus,
was, according to M'Culloch, a pestilent heresy, first exploded by
Ricardo's sagacity.[378] Things exchange, as he explains, in
proportion to the labour which produces them, but the share given to
the labourer may vary widely. The labourer, he says, 'gives a
constant, but receives a variable quantity in its stead.' He makes the
same sacrifice when he works for a day, but may get for it what he
produces in ten hours, or only in one. In every case, however, he gets
less than he produces, for the excess 'constitutes profits.'[379] The
capitalist must get his interest, that is, the wages of the
accumulated labour. Here we come again to the Socialist position, only
that the Socialist infers that the labourer is always cheated by the
capitalist, and does not consider that the machine can ask for 'wages