"If the quantity of labour, realized in commodities, regulate their exchangeable value, every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it"
About this Quote
The specific intent is to stabilize the concept of value amid the chaos of industrial capitalism, where prices swing, speculation proliferates, and new machines scramble old hierarchies of production. Ricardo wants a baseline that can explain relative prices across goods and over time. “Realized in commodities” is doing heavy lifting: labor isn’t just exerted; it is congealed into the product, made commensurable, tradable, legible to markets.
The subtext is disciplinary. By anchoring value in labor quantity, Ricardo implicitly sidelines other claims to worth: tradition, monopoly power, sheer scarcity, or the romance of luxury. He also quietly naturalizes a world in which human effort is the ultimate metric - a move that makes distributional questions (who gets what share of that value) look like secondary disputes after the “real” economics is settled.
Context matters: Ricardo is writing in the wake of Adam Smith, during wartime inflation, the Corn Laws fight, and rapid industrial change. His labor theory of value isn’t a warm tribute to workers; it’s a tool to analyze profits, rents, and the pressures that push wages toward subsistence. The cool certainty of the formulation is the point: capitalism, he implies, can be decoded.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation (David Ricardo, 1817)
Evidence: If the quantity of labour realized in commodities, regulate their exchangeable value, every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it. (Chapter I (On Value), p. 6 (1817 first edition; Gutenberg transcription line ~124)). This sentence appears in David Ricardo’s own text in Chapter I, “On Value,” of the first edition (London: John Murray, 1817). In the Project Gutenberg facsimile-based transcription, it is on p. 6 of Chapter I (shown near the beginning of the chapter). The same wording also appears in other primary-text reprints/transcriptions of Ricardo’s 1817 work (e.g., Marxists Internet Archive transcription of Chapter I), but Gutenberg is useful here because it clearly displays the original 1817 title page (John Murray, 1817) alongside the chapter text. Other candidates (1) The Works of David Ricardo, Esq., M.P. (David Ricardo, John Ramsay McCulloch, 1846) compilation99.9% ... If the quantity of labour realized in commodities regulate their exchangeable value , every increase of the quant... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ricardo, David. (2026, February 24). If the quantity of labour, realized in commodities, regulate their exchangeable value, every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-the-quantity-of-labour-realized-in-commodities-59366/
Chicago Style
Ricardo, David. "If the quantity of labour, realized in commodities, regulate their exchangeable value, every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it." FixQuotes. February 24, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-the-quantity-of-labour-realized-in-commodities-59366/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If the quantity of labour, realized in commodities, regulate their exchangeable value, every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it." FixQuotes, 24 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-the-quantity-of-labour-realized-in-commodities-59366/. Accessed 11 Mar. 2026.
