The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1885-05-28
The Labor Price.

Price is term ordinarily used by
political economists to designate the
value of any commodity as expressed
in money. Thus we say that the
price of bushel of wheat is two dol
lars, or that the price of pound of
butter is fifty cents The meaning is
that in the one case two dollars will
buy the wheat, and that IL the other
case fifty cents will buy the butter.
Those who have the articles to sell
will exchange them for money upon
these terms. This monetary value is
the nominal value-value thus ex-
pressed, or value in the nomenclature
of money 1t is, moreover. the value
of which men usually think, because
money is that one commodity which
exchanges for all others, and, hence,
has a universal purchasing power.
What, then. is the cost, to the man
who pays the sum. of the two dollars
which he pays for the bushel of
wheat? If we can answer this ques-
tion we shall find what is the real
price of the wheat to him. Let us
suppose that, in order to get the
money, he gave a days labor; and
then the price of the wheat, as meas
ured by his labor, is one day of such
labor He worked a day for the mon
ey, and then gave the money for the
wheat That is to say, he really
bought the wheat with days labor,
simply using money as the medium of
exchanging his services for the COM
modify The real price to him is the
labor price-namely, the amount of
toll which he must undergo to procure
the thing he wants And what is true
in this case is universally true.
Money itself is the product of labor.
The labor which it takes to get it is
the measure Of its value If it cost
nothing, there is nothing for which it
would be exchangeable
Adam Smith, IN his Wealth of
Nations" Book I, chapter s., gives
the following lucid statement Of this
great economical principle:
THE real price of everything-what
everything really costs to the man
who wants to acquire it's the toll
and trouble of acquiring. What
everything is really worth to the man
who has acquired it, and who wants
to dispose of it, or exchange it for
something else, is the toll and trouble
which it can save to himself and
which it can impose upon other peo-
pie. What is bought with money or
with goods is purchased by labor, as
much as what we acquire by the toll
Of our own body. That money or
those goods, indeed, save US this toll.
They contain the value of a certain
quantity of labor which we exchange
for what is supposed at the time to
contain the value of an equal guam
tity. Labor was the first price, the
original purchase money, that was
paid for all things. It was not by
gold or by silver, but by labor, that
all the wealth of the world was orig
inally purchased; and its value to
those who possess it, and who wait to
exchange it for some new productions,
is precisely equal to the quantity of
labor which it can enable them to pur-
chase or command.
The elementary conditions of pro-
duciDg wealth are supplied by Nature;
but the wealth itself is always the
product of labor, either of the man
who has it or of some one else from
whom he has derived it. All ex-
changes, when traced to their final
analysis, are really exchanges of labor
in its products. Men buy and sell la
Dor in this concrete form. 1t, hence,
follows that the real price which is
paid for everything is, after all, the
labor price.
If we suppose bushel Of wheat to
be worth two dollars to-day, and next
year worth but one dollar, and that at
the former period labor brings two
dollars day, and but one dollar at the
latter period, then, although the NOM
inal price of both wheat and labor has
greatly changed, there is no real
change in the price Of either, consid-
cred relatively to the other. At both
periods the same amount of labor will
buy the same quantity of wheat, and
the same quantity of wheat will buy
the same amount of labor. The only
change that has occurred is in the
expression Of value. The
real price remains the same.
If, on the other hand, the nominal
or monetary price of wheat were to
change, without any corresponding
change in the nominal price Of labor,
so that it would take more or less than
a days labor to buy bushel Of wheat,
then the relations between the labor
and the wheat would be altered. If
the money price of the wheat went up,
it would require more labor to buy it;
and if it went down, less labor would
suffice for the purchase. A rise in
prices, as reckoned in
without corresponding rise
in wages, is always an oppressive bur-
len to those who work for wages. 1t
costs them more to live, with no in
crease Of means. When this rise is
lue to the character Of the money in
use, the laborer is sure to be one of the
chief sufferers. Of all classes in the
those who work for wages
suffer most from the use Of bad money.
It disturbs the natural relation be-
;ween labor and commodities
;ween the means of payment and the
;hings to be paid for.