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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1830 edition. Excerpt:... to artificial restraints. The exchangeable value of these commodities bears no definite proportion to their real value, but varies in every different degree, according to the closeness of the monopoly, and the competition for them. They may, however, be always readily discriminated from those that are freely produced in unlimited quantities; and are but few and unimportant, when compared with the latter. If the demand and supply of freely produced commodities were always exactly proportioned to each other--that is, if the supply brought to market were uniformly such as could be taken off by those who were desirous of obtaining them, and willing to pay the cost of their production, their exchangeable value would always bear the same proportion 'to their real value, or cost. That this would be so is obvious; for under the circumstances supposed, there is nothing that could determine, or indeed affect the exchangeable value of commodities, except the labour expended upon them. Practically speaking, the supply of commodities is, owing to an infinity of causes, such as changes of fashion, of seasons, and of the usual channels of commercial intercourse, the speculations of merchants, &c. seldom or never adjusted precisely in proportion to the effectual demand, or the demand of those who are able and willing to pay them. But it will be shewn in the next chapter, that fluctuations of value, arising from these causes, are confined within certain limits; that the producers always exert themselves to reduce the value of those that yield more than the fair average rate of profit, and to elevate those that do not; and that the common level of value and price which is thus attained, may be considered as identical with the cost of production,...