asis of value,
obvious and beyond argument. A primitive savage makes a bow and arrow in
a day: it takes him a fortnight to make a bark canoe. On that fact rests
the exchange value between the two. The relative quantity of labor
embodied in each object is the basis of its value.

This line of reasoning has a very convincing sound. It appears in
nearly every book on economic theory from Adam Smith and Ricardo till
to-day. "Labor alone," wrote Smith, "never varying in its own value is
above the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all
commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared."

But the idea that _quantity of labor governs_ value will not stand
examination for a moment. What is _quantity_ of labor and how is it
measured? As long as we draw our illustrations from primitive life where
one man's work is much the same as another's and where all operations
are simple, we seem easily able to measure and compare. One day is the
same as another and one man about as capable as his fellow. But in the
complexity of modern industrial life such a calculation no longer
applies: the differences of skill, of native ingenuity, and technical
preparation become enormous. The hour's work of a common laborer is not
the same thing as the hour's work of a watchmaker mending a watch, or of
an engineer directing the building of a bridge, or of an architect
drawing a plan. There is no way of reducing these hours to a common
basis. We may think, if we like, that the quantity of labor _ought_ to
be the basis of value and exchange. Such is always the dream of the
socialist. But on a closer view it is shattered like any other dream.
For we have, alas, no means of finding out what the quantity of labor is
and how it can be measured. We cannot measure it in terms of time. We
have no calculus for comparing relative amounts of skill and energy. We
can not measure it by the amount of its contribution to the product, for
that is the very matter that we want to discover.

What the economist does is to slip out of the difficulty altogether by
begging the whole question. He deliberately measures the quantity of
labor _by what is paid for it_. Skilled labor is worth, let us say,
three times as much as common labor; and brain work, speaking broadly,
is worth several times as much again. Hence by adding up all the wages
and salaries paid we get something that seems to indicate the total
quantity of labor, measured not simply i