Notes on Ricardo’s Principles (7) – 価値 6
労働の質の違いについて
Section II
労働の質の違いについて。リカードは、アダム・スミスの見解を踏襲している。労働には質の違い(能力や熟練等の獲得に必要な労力等による)があるため、全ての労働を同じ尺度でとらえることはできない。労働の質の違いを、加重して労働投入量を考える、という趣旨のことを述べる。
Labor of different qualities differently rewarded. This no cause of variation in the relative value of commodities.
In speaking, however, of labor, as being the foundation of all value, and the relative quantity of labor as almost exclusively determining the relative value of commodities, I must not be supposed to be inattentive to the different qualities of labor, and the difficulty of comparing an hour’s or a day’s labor in one employment with the same duration of labor in another. The estimation in which different qualities of labor are held comes soon to be adjusted in the market with sufficient precision for all practical purposes, and depends much on the comparative skill of the laborer and intensity of the labor performed. The scale, when once formed, is liable to little variation. If a day’s labor of a working jeweler be more valuable than a day’s labor of a common laborer, it has long ago been adjusted and placed in its proper position in the scale of value.
異時点間の比較
リカードは、「同一商品の異なる時点の価値の比較をする場合には、労働の熟練度や密度の相対的な違いは無視してよい。」という。というのは、それぞれの時点での(当該商品の生産のための)労働は、(当該時点での)他の商品との比較において、同じように作用するからである。
In comparing, therefore, the value of the same commodity at different periods of time, the consideration of the comparative skill and intensity of labor required for that particular commodity needs scarcely to be attended to, as it operates equally at both periods. One description of labor at one time is compared with the same description of labor at another; if a tenth, a fifth, or a fourth has been added or taken away, an effect proportioned to the cause will be produced on the relative value of the commodity.
If a piece of cloth be now of the value of two pieces of line, and if, in ten years hence, the ordinary value of a piece of cloth should be four pieces of line, we may safely conclude that either more labor is required to make the cloth, or less to make the linen, or that both causes have operated.
相対的価値の変化
リカードは言う。「読者の注意を促したいことは、ここで探究すべきは、商品の絶対的な価値ではなく、相対的価値である、ということである」そして、「それぞれの商品に必要とされる労働の質の違い(才能、熟練、その習得に必要な時間等による)が、あったとしても、その違いは、世代間で大きな変化は生じないし、あったとしても年次間においては無視しうるだろうし、短期においてはほとんど影響を与えない、と結論できるだろう」と。リカードの言わんとすることは、ある時点における商品間の相対的価値の比較においては、労働の質の違いは考慮すべきだが、異時点間の比較においては、相対価格の比較において、労働の質の違いは無視しうるとしている。これは、後述のアダム・スミスの見解に準拠している。
As the inquiry to which I wish to draw the reader’s attention relates to the effect of the variations in the relative value of commodities, and not in their absolute value, it will be of little importance to examine into the comparative degree of estimation in which the different kinds of human labor are held. We may fairly conclude that whatever inequality there might originally have been in them, whatever inequality there might originally have been in them, whatever the ingenuity, skill, or time necessary for the acquirement of one species of manual dexterity more than another, it continues nearly the same from one generation to another; or at least that the variation is very inconsiderable from year to year, and therefore can have little effect, for short periods, on the relative value of commodities.
アダム・スミスの見解: 新古典派成長理論の萌芽
リカードは、ここで、アダム・スミスを引用し、自らの主張を裏付けようとしている。「世代間の違いにおける社会の貧困、進歩、停滞、後退は、労働と資本に一様に影響するため、賃金と資本の関係には、ほとんど影響を与えないであろう」(国富論第1冊、第10章)。このスミスの見解は、労働と資本の代替可能性、価格調整を前提とする、新古典派成長理論の均一成長(労働、資本、国民所得が同率で成長する安定的な成長)に繋がる考え方であるが、同時に、スミス、リカードが生きた当時の技術水準、時代状況を反映したものであるということがいえるだろう。
“The proportion between the different rates both of wages and profit in the different employments of labor and stock seems not to be much affected, as has already been observed, by the riches of poverty, the advancing, stationary, or declining state of the society. Such revolutions in the public welfare, though they affect the general rates of both wages and profit, must in the end affect them equally in all different employments. The proportion between them therefore must remain the same, and cannot well be altered, at least for any considerable time, by any such revolutions.”(Wealth of Nations, book I, chap. 10)
(2015.8)
