aborer.
Why, then, is it sold at so high a price?--Because men are not free.
Society must regulate the exchange and distribution of the rarest
things, as it does that of the most common ones, in such a way that each
may share in the enjoyment of them. What, then, is that value which is
based upon opinion?--Delusion, injustice, and robbery.

By this rule, it is easy to reconcile every body. If the mean term,
which we are searching for, between an infinite value and no value at
all is expressed in the case of every product, by the amount of time and
expense which the product cost, a poem which has cost its author thirty
years of labor and an outlay of ten thousand francs in journeys, books,
&c., must be paid for by the ordinary wages received by a laborer during
thirty years, PLUS ten thousand francs indemnity for expense incurred.
Suppose the whole amount to be fifty thousand francs; if the society
which gets the benefit of the production include a million of men, my
share of the debt is five centimes.

This gives rise to a few observations.

1. The same product, at different times and in different places, may
cost more or less of time and outlay; in this view, it is true that
value is a variable quantity. But this variation is not that of the
economists, who place in their list of the causes of the variation of
values, not only the means of production, but taste, caprice, fashion,
and opinion. In short, the true value of a thing is invariable in its
algebraic expression, although it may vary in its monetary expression.

2. The price of every product in demand should be its cost in time and
outlay--neither more nor less: every product not in demand is a loss to
the producer--a commercial non-value.

3. The ignorance of the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty
under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial
fraud, and one of the most potent causes of the inequality of fortunes.

4. To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a society
is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of talents, the
costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts and sciences.
If, for example, a society of fifty farmers can support a schoolmaster,
it requires one hundred for a shoemaker, one hundred and fifty for a
blacksmith, two hundred for a tailor, &c. If the number of farmers rises
to one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, &c., as fast as
their number increases, th