Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/61

34 idea of one sheep but of a certain quantity of each of the more common kinds of produce, which are regarded as the equivalent of this value; and this expression will end by being so entirely applied to a fictitious and abstract value, rather than to a real sheep, that if by chance a pestilence occurs among the sheep, and in order to get one it became necessary to give twice as much corn or wine as were given before, people will say a sheep is worth two sheep, rather than change the expression to which they have become accustomed for all other values.

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Examples of these mean valuations which become an ideal expression of values.

We are acquainted, in the commerce of all the Nations, with many examples of these fictitious valuations in terms of commodities, which are, so to speak, only a conventional language in order to express their value. Thus the Cooks of Paris and the Fish-mongers who provide great houses generally sell by the piece. A fat pullet is reckoned as one piece, a chicken as half a piece, more or less according to the season, and so on. In the Slave trade to the American Colonies a cargo of negroes is sold at the rate of so much a Negro head, a piece of India. The women and children are reckoned in such a way, for example, that three children or even one woman and one child are reckoned as one head of Negro. The valuation is increased or diminished in proportion to the strength and other