defective: that the rate of profits does _not_ exclusively depend upon
the value of wages, in his sense, namely, the quantity of labour of
which the wages of a labourer are the produce; that it does _not_
exclusively depend upon proportional wages, that is, upon the proportion
which the labourers collectively receive of the whole produce, or the
ratio which the wages of an individual labourer bear to the produce of
his individual labour.

Those political economists, therefore, who have always dissented from
Mr. Ricardo's doctrine, or who, having at first admitted, ended by
discarding it, were so far in the right; but they committed a serious
error in this, that, with the usual one-sidedness of disputants, they
knew no medium between admitting absolutely and dismissing entirely;
and saw no other course than utterly to reject what it would have been
sufficient to modify.

It is remarkable how very slight a modification will suffice to render
Mr. Ricardo's doctrine completely true. It is even doubtful whether he
himself, if called upon to adapt his expressions to this peculiar case,
would not have so explained his doctrine as to render it entirely
unobjectionable.

It is perfectly true, that, in the example already made use of, a rise
of profits takes place, while wages, considered in respect to the
quantity of labour of which they are the produce, have not varied at
all. But though wages are still the produce of the same _quantity of
labour_ as before, the _cost of production_ of wages has nevertheless
fallen; for into cost of production there enters another element besides
labour.