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ON THE NATURE

If value, however, denotes merely a relation,
this proposition cannot be true. We may ask,
to what would this commodity bear an invariable
 value? What is the correlative?
Would it bear the same value to all other commodities?
 It might do so, it is true, but certainly
 not in consequence of being produced
by an unvarying quantity of labour: for while
the labour, in this instance, remained a fixed
quantity, yet if the labour in other commodities
were increased or diminished, the relations of
value between this one commodity, and all
others, would, on Mr. Ricardos own principle,
be instantly altered.
If corn, for example, always required precisely
 the same quantity of labour to produce
it, but all other commodities whatever came to

be remarked, that notwithstanding the suppression of the
sentence above cited, he retains another but slightly different
 in expression. *¢ That commodity,” says he (chap.
xx, on Value and Riches), <* is alone invariable, which at
all times requires the same sacrifice of toil and labour to
produce it.”