value will still and always be none the less accurately
determined, and it will still be labor alone which will fix the
degree of its importance. Thus value varies, and the law of
value is unchangeable: further, if value is susceptible of
variation, it is because it is governed by a law whose principle
is essentially inconstant,--namely, labor measured by time.

The same reasoning applies to the production of the calendar as
to that of all possible values. I do not need to explain
how--civilization (that is, the social fact of the increase of
life) multiplying our tasks, rendering our moments more and more
precious, and obliging us to keep a perpetual and detailed record
of our whole life--the calendar has become to all one of the most
necessary things. We know, moreover, that this wonderful
discovery has given rise, as its natural complement, to one of
our most valuable industries, the manufacture of clocks and
watches.

At this point there very naturally arises an objection, the only
one that can be offered against the theory of the proportionality
of values.

Say and the economists who have succeeded him have observed that,
labor being itself an object of valuation, a species of
merchandise indeed like any other, to take it as the principal
and efficient cause of value is to reason in a vicious circle.
Therefore, they conclude, it is necessary to fall back on
scarcity and opinion.

These economists, if they will allow me to say it, herein have