Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/719

Rh undertaking. A debt as an exchangeable commodity is simply a "right of action." It lies wholly in the future; but it has a present value; and when put in the form of a negotiable instrument can be bought and sold equally with any material commodity. As instruments of credit can be multiplied indefinitely beyond existing material property, they form a distinct addition to existing wealth.

All wealth being produced in order to be exchanged, the problem of economics, according to our author, is to determine the conditions in conformity with which exchanges take place—that is the law of value. In arriving at this he sweeps aside the doctrine that value is due to labor, or is determined by the cost of production. Cost of production is simply the lower limit below which the value of anything can not stay for any considerable time and the thing continue to be produced. The labor embodied in anything bears no definite relation to its value. Many valuable things have no labor whatever associated with them. The sole cause of value, the author contends, is demand. If anything will exchange for something else, it has value; if it can not be exchanged, it has no value. Value, therefore, is not something which resides in a thing, but is given to it by the consumer. The same thing may consequently have very different values in different times and places. Value always being a ratio—a relation between two things—it follows that intrinsic value is a contradiction. The search for an invariable standard of value which is based upon the conception of intrinsic value is a wholly futile proceeding. Money may, indeed, be a measure of value—that is, the medium in terms of which all other values are reckoned—and this is quite sufficient. An invariable standard of value is not only unobtainable, but would be wholly useless if it were obtainable.

With these two postulates, that anything is wealth which can be bought and sold, and that the value of anything depends solely upon the relation between supply and demand, the author undertakes a consideration of the various problems of the science. We can not here undertake to follow him in his exposition, but will simply indicate the scope of his inquiry. The first volume, which was published some five years ago, is mainly devoted to establishing his propositions with regard to wealth and value. As if afraid to get too far away from the economists of acknowledged position, he fortifies himself at every step by numerous quotations from their works, showing that they have at one time or another admitted the validity of his own position. In the present volume, which closes his discussion of "Pure Economics," he considers the relation of labor to value, and the conditions affecting the wages of labor. He scouts the wage-fund theory, and contends, in agreement with various other economical writers, that the wages of labor come out of production; but he has nothing hopeful to offer to wage-workers, simply contenting himself with admonishing them to keep their numbers down.

Upon the subject of the rent of land, the author is quite at variance with the most authoritative economic teaching. He has small respect for the Ricardian theory, and maintains that Ricardo has uniformly inverted cause and effect. He does not see that land offers any special feature that takes it out of the realm of other economic quantities. The owner of a piece of land has the right to the successive crops forever, and its purchase-price is simply the summation of the present value of the successive future returns. The rent of land is simply the interest on the purchase-price.

Rights, or incorporeal wealth, the foreign exchanges, the currency, Law's theory of paper money, and a consideration of the legislation affecting the Bank of England, make up the remainder of the volume.

most important paper in the report is the address of the retiring president, Richard Pearce, on the growth and work of the society, particularly as they are related to the interests of Colorado. It claims that the science of mineralogy has been especially benefited by the society's labors, through which a great many additions have been made to the list of strictly Western minerals. The most important achievement is the discovery of three distinct new minerals.