Mutual traffic then
is advantageous to both, but principally to B, because the exchange is
not between _utility_ and _utility_, but between _value_ and _value_.
Now A furnishes a greater _utility in a similar value_, because the
utility of any article includes at once what Nature and what labor
have done; whereas the value of it only corresponds to the portion
accomplished by labor. B then makes an entirely advantageous bargain;
for by simply paying the producer from A for his labor, it receives in
return not only the results of that labor, but in addition there is
thrown in whatever may have accrued from the superior bounty of
Nature.
We will lay down the general rule.
Traffic is an exchange of _values_; and as value is reduced by
competition to the simple representation of labor, traffic is the
exchange of equal labors. Whatever Nature has done towards the
production of the articles exchanged, is given on both sides
_gratuitously_; from whence it necessarily follows, that the most
advantageous commerce is transacted with those countries which are
the least favored by Nature.
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