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.From the time of Charlemagne among the French, and fromthat of William the Conqueror among the English, the proportionbetween the pound, the shilling, and the penny, seems to havebeen uniformly the same as at present, though the value of eachhas been very different.For in every country of the world, Ibelieve, the avarice and injustice of princes and sovereign states,abusing the confidence of their subjects, have by degreesdiminished the real quantity of metal, which had been originallycontained in their coins.The Roman as, in the latter ages of theRepublic, was reduced to the twenty-fourth part of its originalvalue, and, instead of weighing a pound, came to weigh only halfan ounce.The English pound and penny contain at present abouta third only; the Scots pound and penny about a thirty-sixth; andthe French pound and penny about a sixty-sixth part of theiroriginal value.By means of those operations the princes andsovereign states which performed them were enabled, inappearance, to pay their debts and to fulfil their engagements witha smaller quantity of silver than would otherwise have beenrequisite.It was indeed in appearance only; for their creditorswere really defrauded of a part of what was due to them.All otherdebtors in the state were allowed the same privilege, and mightpay with the same nominal sum of the new and debased coinwhatever they had borrowed in the old.Such operations,therefore, have always proved favourable to the debtor, andruinous to the creditor, and have sometimes produced a greaterAdam Smith ElecBook Classics The Wealth of Nations: Book 1 48and more universal revolution in the fortunes of private persons,than could have been occasioned by a very great public calamity.It is in this manner that money has become in all civilisednations the universal instrument of commerce, by the interventionof which goods of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged forone another.What are the rules which men naturally observe in exchangingthem either for money or for one another, I shall now proceed toexamine.These rules determine what may be called the relative orexchangeable value of goods.The word value, it is to be observed, has two differentmeanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particularobject, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods whichthe possession of that object conveys.The one may be called value in use ; the other,  value in exchange. The things whichhave the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value inexchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the greatestvalue in exchange have frequently little or no value in use.Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarceanything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it.Adiamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a verygreat quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchangefor it.In order to investigate the principles which regulate theexchangeable value of commodities, I shall endeavour to show:First, what is the real measure of this exchangeable value; or,wherein consists the real price of all commodities.Secondly, what are the different parts of which this real price iscomposed or made up.Adam Smith ElecBook Classics The Wealth of Nations: Book 1 49And, lastly, what are the different circumstances whichsometimes raise some or all of these different parts of price above,and sometimes sink them below their natural or ordinary rate; or,what are the causes which sometimes hinder the market price,that is, the actual price of commodities, from coinciding exactlywith what may be called their natural price.I shall endeavour to explain, as fully and distinctly as I can,those three subjects in the three following chapters, for which Imust very earnestly entreat both the patience and attention of thereader: his patience in order to examine a detail which mayperhaps in some places appear unnecessarily tedious; and hisattention in order to understand what may, perhaps, after thefullest explication which I am capable of giving of it, appear still insome degree obscure.I am always willing to run some hazard ofbeing tedious in order to be sure that I am perspicuous; and aftertaking the utmost pains that I can to be perspicuous, someobscurity may still appear to remain upon a subject in its ownnature extremely abstracted.Adam Smith ElecBook Classics The Wealth of Nations: Book 1 50Chapter VOf the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities, ortheir Price in Labour, and their Price in Moneyvery man is rich or poor according to the degree in whichhe can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, andEamusements of human life.But after the division of labourhas once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of thesewith which a man s own labour can supply him.The far greaterpart of them he must derive from the labour of other people, andhe must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labourwhich he can command, or which he can afford to purchase.Thevalue of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it,and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchangeit for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which itenables him to purchase or command [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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