knowing by experience the power of such a toy over your own feelings, the magic with which at times it lulls your agitationsof mind, you are vehemently desirous to purchase it.In the hour of leaving London you had forgot to do so; here is a finalchance.But the owner, aware of your situation not less than yourself, is determined to operate by a strain puslie(l to the veryuttermost upon U, upon the intrinsic worth of the article in your individual estimate for your individual purposes.He will nothear of D as any controlling power or mitigating agency in the case; and finally, although at six guineas a-piece in London orParis you might have loaded a waggon with such boxes, you pay sixty rather than lose it when the last knell of the clock hassounded, which summons you to buy now or to forfeit for ever.Here, as before, only one clement is operative: before it wasD, now it is U.But after all, D was not absent, though inoperative.The inertness of D allowed U to put forth its total effect.
The practical compression of D being withdrawn, U springs up, like water in a pump, when released from the pressure ofair.Yet still that D was present in your thoughts, though the price was otherwise regulated, is evident; both because U andD must co-exist in order to found any case of exchange value whatever, and because undeniably you take into veryparticular consideration this D, the extreme difficulty of attainment (which here is the greatest possible, viz, an impossibility)before you consent to have the price racked up to U.The special D has vanished; but it is replaced in your thoughts by anunlimited D.Undoubtedly you have submitted to U in extremity as the regulating force of the price; but it was under a senseof D's latent presence.Yet D is so far from exerting any positive force, that the retirement of D from all agency whatever onthe pricethis it is which creates as it were a perfect vacuum, and through that vacuum U rushes up to its highest andultimate gradation.
"This case, in which the value is wholly regulated by the necessities or desires of the purchaser, is the case of strict andabsolute monopoly; in which, the article desired being only obtainable from one person, he can exact any equivalent, short ofthe point at which no purchaser could be found.But it is not a necessary consequence, even of complete monopoly, that thevalue should be forced up to this ultimate limit: as will be seen when we have considered the law of value in so far asdepending on the other element, difficulty of attainment."(2) The second class is commodities susceptible of indefinite multiplication, as linens, woollens, cottons, axes, watches.
In these the market-price tends rapidly to the natural price: and yet there may be great derangement, as for instance if thesupply of material, as cotton, should fail for a time.
(3) The third class is commodities susceptible of multiplication by increased expense, that is, by increased labour.Of thesecorn is the type, and for us, the most important.
If the supply of corn `be diminished, how much is the price increased?
The statement generally given on this subject is that made by Sir W.Davenant, and quoted by Mr Tooke in his book, On.
High and Low Prices.
The statement is this: that a deficiency in the crop of 1/10, 2/10, 3/10, 4/10, 5/10, raises the price 3/10, 8/10, 16/10, 28/10, 45/10.
respectively.
Which amounts to this: that when the supply is 10 9 8 7 6 5, the price is 10 13 18 26 38 55.
Of course nothing like mathematical exactness or absolute steadiness can be looked for in such cases.And moreover theeffect of the importation of corn is set aside.If the above numbers were to be made the basis of a mathematical rule, itwould be found that the price varies inversely as the square of the supply; or rather in a higher ratio.
But this part of Political Economy is not so far advanced in the establishment of general rules, that we can applymathematical calculation to it with any advantage.To do so would only give a false impression of the certainty andexactness of our results.
