Page "Law of value" Paragraph 35

In this sense, neoclassical economist Paul A. Samuelson ( 1971 ) famously argued that " the beaver-deer exchange ratio can range anywhere from 4 / 3 to 2 / 1 depending upon whether tastes are strong for deer or for beaver " and, therefore, it seems that trading ratios are regulated only by the volume and intensity of consumer demand, as expressed by consumer preferences, rather than by labour-time.

According to the classical economists, however, such shifts in trading ratios would quickly cause a switch from beaver-hunting to deer-hunting or vice versa ; short-term fluctuations in demand could not usually change the labour-costs of hunting as such, except if new technologies suddenly made it possible to capture more game in less labour-time, or if the herds of animals had become seriously depleted.

Thus Marx writes: