Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/138

 118 aim, to minister to wants as such and allay them as far as possible. Those misshapen prices which are engendered by monopolies may be abolished by the suppression of monopolies, and those which, especially in the matter of wages, arise from the distress in the position of the labourer, may be removed by a general coalition of labourers; but those which result from inequality in the means of purchasers are, I take it, inextricably bound up with our economic régime.

V

Value in use and value in exchange, understood in the sense we have employed hitherto, are to be distinguished not only in extension but also in intension. Value in use is not only particular but also subjective; value in exchange is not only general but also objective. There is no doubt a subjective exchange-value as well, which plays an extremely important part in economy, but for brevity's sake there shall be no mention of that here.

If value is understood as subjective, then the question, why commodities are valuable, becomes equivalent to, why do men prize commodities? The phenomenon requiring explanation is, the love of men for material goods, auri sacra fames, side by side with the love of men for men, and their love for moral goods. The Austrian school, while indicating utility as the root and measure of that love, seeks to establish this principle in the sphere of material objects, as the utilitarians do in estimating moral values. And yet how complicated even in the material world is the calculus of self-interest! We value commodities for the sake of their utility, yet we do not value utility when it is coupled with abundance; in other commodities we value as a rule not the total, but only the marginal, utility; in the cost of production we value, instead of the utility of the product itself, the utility of other extraneous products; and finally through it all runs the difficulty of imputing the reward of production.

What on the other hand is the nature of value in exchange as objective? It informs us respecting the ratio of the prices of commodities, telling us that such a commodity has such a price, while it brings it into comparison with the prices other commodities are commanding at the same time. It is concerned only with the relations between commodities, nowhere with those between men. There is no definition under which we may combine both conceptions of value, the subjective and the objective. We must be content with showing their mutual relation.

In economy both find application. Every decision arrived at