A note on Ricardo’s ‘invariable measure of value’

This paper presents an alternative to both Sraffa’s and his critics’ interpretations of the nature of Ricardo’s search for an ‘invariable measure of value’. It points out that Ricardo recognised two causes of change in the relative values of commodities: (i) changes in the labour content of commodities and (ii) changes in the distribution of income. However, he characterised the first change as the real change and the second change as only an apparent change. The article argues that Ricardo believed that the apparent changes are solely due to the arbitrary nature of the numéraire and would disappear if the commodities were measured against an ‘invariable measure of value’.