OF VALUE.

25

The same error runs through the whole of
Mr. Malthus’s pamphlet, entitled “The Measure
 of Value stated and illustrated;” and is
involved in the position which it is the object
of that pamphlet to establish. He maintains,
after Adam Smith, that labour is always of the
same value ; that is, according to his own definition,
 always retains the same power of commanding
 other objects in exchange; and yet,
in the same treatise, he speaks of the labourer
earning a greater or smaller quantity of money
Or necessaries, and insists that it is not the value
of the labour which varies, but the value of the
money or the necessaries. As if produce or
money could change in value relatively to labour,
 without labour changing in value relatively
 to produce or money. But we need not
be surprised at any implied inconsistency in
Mr. Malthus, when, after having set out with the
definition which we have already quoted, that
value is “the power of commanding other ob-Jects
 in exchange,” or, in other words, “the
power of purchasing,” he subsequently makes