The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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i8 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. more commodities into the market, the price of these com modities will fall, consumers will profit thereby, and rent will not rise. Mill, indeed, believes that in such a case rent would be lowered. Ricardo was perfectly right in maintaining that the cause of the rise of rent is the increase of population, which, by requiring more food, brings about a rise in its price. On the other hand, when there is no want of land, as is the case in new countries, rent is almost nil, however productive labour may be. The reason of this is evident; the farmer will not consent to pay a high price for the enjoyment of a farm which he can get almost for nothing elsewhere. What remains true in the statement of Rodbertus is that every invention, every process which lessens the cost of production, permits of an increase of rent. This is a very important point, which has not been clearly perceived, and which escaped even Ricardo and Mill. The capital mistake of Rodbertus, borrowed from him by the other German Socialists, is that he makes labour the sole source of value. He concludes from it that all commodities ought to be exchanged on the footing of the amount of manual labour each of them has exacted, and on this basis he has sketched the project of a Loan Institution, which closely resembles Proudhon’s Bank of Exchange. The workman deposits a commodity at the central depot ; this commodity is valued according to the number of hours of labour normally and on the average necessary to produce it. This is its natural price. He receives in payment a credit-note representing these hours of labour, and with this credit-note he can buy in the common emporium any other commodity the price of which is fixed in the same way. This, as may be seen, is putting into practice the idea of Adam Smith, that labour, and not coin, is the best common measure of values. In the multitude of exchanges which take place, hours of labour would,always be bartered against hours of labour, or, as Bastiat expresses it, services against services. The well-being of each person would be proportioned to the part he had taken in the national production, without any deduction to the profit of anybody. The power of buying would be in proportion to

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