Political Economy for the People

18. This may be called the natural demand, founded on the existing tastes and means of the community; and to this demand the makers of hats must conform, or incur a loss; for if they make the supply exceed this natural demand, as if they were to make 2000 hats whose cost of production or natural price was five dollars, the natural demand for which was only 1000, they could not sell the extra thousand without a reduction of price. If, on the other hand, they made but 500 hats of that quality, although for them they might obtain a higher price, the profits thus obtained would be less than would be afforded by the sale of a thousand hats at five dollars, according to the laws of value previously stated.

19. Value, being a feeling of the mind, is as various as the diversified and ever-changing wants and tastes of men. It is different in different objects, in the same object at different times and places, with different individuals and with the same individual, on different occasions. On a dreary journey, a draught of water may be more valuable than a gallon of wine.

20. As value can be known only by its manifestations in acts of exchange, its different degrees must be estimated by comparing the values thus exchanged; but as all of such values are liable to alteration, there cannot be that uniform measure of value which is afforded to portions of matter, space, or time. Although, therefore, such a precise and unvarying standard is unattainable, certain objects, which, under particular circumstances, make the nearest approaches to uniformity, have been selected as qualified measures of value.

21. Of these measures, one is best for one purpose and another for another. The precious metals, so highly and so universally prized, and otherwise strongly recommended, afford the best measure for the same time and place. For most objects of exchangeable value, they then and there furnish, for all practical purposes, an exact measure. Thus, if an ounce of silver exchange in the market for a bushel of wheat, weighing sixty pounds, and also for two bushels of maize, or for ten pounds of beef, it follows that one bushel of wheat is equal in value to two bushels of maize, and one pound of beef to six pounds of wheat. But these metals vary greatly in value in different countries, according to their respective distances from the most productive mines of the world. They are thus more valuable in Asia than in Europe, and in Europe than America. Their value has varied yet more in different ages of the world.

22. Labor, which regulates the value of so many articles useful to man, has also been deemed a fit measure of value in different countries, from the similarity of mankind in their ruling propensities and desires, and their obedience to the laws of their common nature; yet we find that human labor is far more willing and efficient in the Temperate than in either the Torrid or the Frigid Zones. Its value varies, too, from moral causes.

23. Corn, some species of which constitute a chief article of subsistence to civilized man, and which is so readily converted into human labor, has also been regarded as a fit measure of value. It has, however, no more uniformity than labor; and, from the diversity of human aliment, has a less extensive application. Besides, it has been found that, in the progressive increase of population, corn gradually increases in value, from its greater difficulty of attainment; and that labor gradually falls in value, from its greater abundance, as will be hereafter more fully explained.