PRICE AND VALUE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1502, 24 October 1885, Page 4

PRICE AND VALUE.

There is a dffierence between price and value, which we shall endeavour to point out. The value of a commodity, is determined by the quantity of labour bestowed upon its production ; the price of a commodity, which means the amount of money that it exchanges for, is also determined, tc- . gether with something else. This will appear if we just consider for a moment what money is. Money is not 1 necessarily gold, or silver, or copper, or bank-notes —the forms in which it ( is familiar to us. There JJhave been, and are, communities where quite other substances have been used to perform the functions of money. In the days of Lycurgus iron was used in Sparta. : bo that it should not be too easy to carry about; nails passed current so late as last century in remote parts of Scotland; tobacco was adopted amongst the early Virginian planters; cattle in I paßtoral societies were frequently re- j sorted to —indeed, from this circum-; stance was derived the Latin name for j money, pecunia ; and, without multiplying instancee, amongst the Chinese at one time pressed cubeß of tea supplied a convenient medium of exchange. Suppose that whilst tea was used in China as money, some improvement in the method of producing that article were to take place, so that twice the quantity could be produced with the same amount of labour, the consequence of this would be that the cube that formerly bought a hat, say, would now be only half the price of a hat. The price of the hat would be doubled ; reckoned in tea, the price of everything would be j doubled. Prices would then be high j for the reason that tea (money )had become cheaper. The value of all articles would not be in any way altered, unless by improvements they too were being produced by less labour, or vice verga, and yet their prices would be doubled. The price of an article, then, is determined, not by its value alone, not simply by the quantity of labour required to produce it, but also by the value of money —by the quantity of labour required to dig gold.—From Qauetft Family Magazine,