Page:Malthus 1823 The Measure of Value.djvu/17

, which equally applies to the formation of the capital, as to the products to be obtained by it, is the profit which must be paid on the advances of the labour, and is absolutely necessary to the encouragement of such advances.

But in this state of things commodities would cease to exchange with each other according to the quantity of labour employed upon them. Some commodities, on which the same quantity of accumulated and immediate labour had been employed, would be of a different exchangeable value, on account of the different quantity of profits which had entered into their composition; while others, on which different quantities of accumulated and immediate labour had been employed, might be of the same exchangeable value, on account of the greater quantity of profits of which they were composed being balanced by the smaller quantity of labour advanced to produce them.

In the earliest stages of society accumulations of capital are very rare, and profits may be extremely high, perhaps forty or fifty per cent. If under these circumstances the construction of a war canoe were to take two years before it were fit for use, it is evident that its value in exchange would be prodigiously enhanced by such profits. Compared with a