Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/607

 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VALUE S'gi

system is, at the same time, the possibility of economic objects. The very procedure between two possessors of objects (substances, labor-powers, rights, exchangeabilities of any sort), which pro- cedure brings them into the so-called economic relationship, namely, reciprocal dedication, at the same time raises each of these objects into the category of values. The difificulty which threatens from the side of logic, namely, that the values must first exist, and exist as values, in order to enter into the form and movement of industry, is now obviated, and by means of the perceived significance of that psychical relationship which we designated as the distance between us and the thing; for this differentiates the original subjective state of feeling into, first, the desiring subject anticipating the feelings ; and, second, the object in antithesis with the subject, and containing in itself the value ; while the distance, on its side, is produced by exchange, that is, by the two-sided operation of limitations, restriction, abstinence. The values of industry emerge, therefore, in the same reciprocity and relativity in which the economic character of values consists.

This transference of the idea of economic value from the character of isolating substantiality into the living process of relation may be further explained on the ground of those factors which we are accustomed to regard as the constituents of value, namely, availability and rarity. Availability appears here as the first condition, based upon the constitution of the industrial actor, under which alone an object can under any circumstances come into question in economics. At the same time it is the presupposition of economic activity. In order that the value may reach a given degree, rarity must be associated with availability, as a characteristic of the objects themselves. If we wish to fix economic values through demand and supply, demand would correspond with availability, supply with rarity. For the availability would decide whether we demand the object at all, the rarity the price which we are compelled to pay. The avail- ability serves as the absolute constituent of the economic — as that the extent of which must be determined in order that it may come into the course of economic exchange. We must