Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/65

 SI MM EL'S PHILOSOPHY OF MONEY 5 I

possess. The interindividual exchange is only a doubling of this relation. The main point, however, is the process going on in the individual man. The isolated householder also makes valu- ations when he confides the seed to the soil, and it does not matter that not a subject, but the natural order of things which demands a sacrifice in order that our needs may be satisfied is his partner. This is really nothing else than an exchange, for temporary coincidence of action and reaction is not essential to it. We are of the same opinion as Simmel, that exchange or trade is just as productive as the production properly so called, as we cannot create either substances or energies, but can only combine and shift given ones in such a way that as many as possible of "realities" become "values." 1

From the point of view of political economy we have here nothing else than a highly developed theory of sacrifice. Only the ideas that Simmel attaches to the problem of value give a new significance to the theory. One formula only has been taken up, but out of it we can develop the formulae for the world. "To be after" means "to be in relation." Exchange is one of the highest forms of being, the special image of relativity, which to Simmel becomes the symbol of the world. The fact that things are determined one by the other is the basis of human realities, Economics is because there are values, but values are only because economics is. When we have grasped this interpretation, we understand the sentence which in its form is analogous to Kant: "The possibility of economics is at the same time the possibility of the objects of economics." In this theory "rarity" and "usefulness" can be included, but they alone cannot create values ; only the relation to a purpose, which exchange, as the overcoming of any felt dependence, creates only the addition of the human will, not this depend- ence alone is able to create values. As soon as we become aware of the fact that each value is not value in the abstract, but special value, we understand the coincidence of price and value. Yea, value is only the epigone of price, while it seems to us as if we pay a price for that which is valuable. The reason of this is
 * Vide J. B. SAY, Traitt d 'dconomie politique, Vol. I, chap. 4.