Honest Money

CHAPTER I.. Value and the Standard of Value.

VALUE AND THE STANDARD OF VALUE.

Definition of Value.

A clear conception of the meaning of the term value is the first essential to a discussion of the subject of money.

Under the general term value the older economists recognized two distinct conceptions, which they distinguished as value in use and value in exchange.

To the former they gave little attention, merely stating that while it was essential to value in exchange, the latter was not proportional to nor determined by the former, and citing air and water as familiar examples of objects having great utility, or use value, yet having little or no exchange value.

Modern economists--chiefly those of the Austrian school--have analyzed the subject more thoroughly, especially the relation between the two conceptions, and have shown that utility or subjective value, as it is generally termed by them, is an expression both of human desire and of the quantity of the necessary commodity available to satisfy such desire.

The utility of a thing grows less as the quantity of it increases, and it is the utility of the last increment of supply, or the marginal utility, that determines the subjective value of the whole supply, and it is the ratios between these subjective values that determine exchange values. Air and water, for instance, have no great utility, as viewed by the older economists, except where the supply is limited; ordinarily, their abundance makes their utility, or use value, small.

It is not essential to the purpose of this work to enter into an abstract discussion of the theory of value further than is necessary to make clear the fact that the present analysis in no way lessens or invalidates the distinction between the two conceptions of value noted by the earlier economists,--a fact which has been overlooked by some who have accepted the marginal utility theory. The distinction remains, broad and clear. The one conception, whether called "value in use," "marginal utility," or "subjective value," pertains wholly to the relation which a single good, or unit group of goods, bears to a single individual, or society unit, in respect to human well-being, and has no reference or relation to any other individual or other good.

The other conception, called "objective value," or "exchange value," is dual in its nature, involving in all cases two or more commodities. Abstractly, it is the ratio at which commodities may be exchanged for each other, or, since such ratio for a unit of one commodity is expressed by the amount of another given for it, the exchange value of a thing is the quantity of some other thing that will be evenly exchanged for it, or, considered in a general sense, the amount of commodities in general it will exchange for,--its general purchasing power, in short.

This latter conception--exchange value--is the one that principally concerns us in discussing the subject of money. It is also the conception generally in mind when the simple term value is used either by economists or by the general public, and wherever the term is used in this work without qualification it is to be understood in that sense.

The Austrian economist, E. von Böhm-Bawerk, says, in his "Positive Theory of Capital," p. 130:--

"Value in the subjective sense is the importance which a good, or a complex of goods, possesses with regard to the well-being of a subject."

"Besides the expression 'value in exchange,' English economists use, quite indifferently, the expression 'purchasing power,' and we Germans are beginning in the same way to put in general use the term Tauschkraft."

The value of a thing may be considered either in a particular sense, with reference to some other specified thing, or it may be considered in a general sense, with reference to all other things considered as a whole. We may say the value of a bushel of wheat is two bushels of corn, meaning that these two commodities exchange for each other in that ratio; or we may speak of the value of wheat having risen or fallen, meaning that its general purchasing power, or the ratio between that and all other things taken as a unit or a whole, has increased or decreased.

The term must invariably be used or considered in a general sense, unless otherwise specifically stated, for we must always have some other thing in mind besides the one whose value we are considering; while if no other is stated, commodities in general (taken as a whole) is that thing.

Value being a ratio, it is impossible for all values to rise or fall simultaneously. The sum of subjective values may increase or decrease,--indeed it is one of the great objects of human endeavour to increase the sum of want-satisfying power,--but the sum of the ratios between these subjective values is constant. As one term of any ratio rises relative to the other, the second necessarily falls as regards the first.

This principle is so universally recognized that quotations might be given from almost every work on political economy in support of it. The following will be sufficient, however, as regards both the definition of value and this principle.

John Stuart Mill says, in his "Principles of Political Economy":--

"Value is a relative term. The value of a thing means the quantity of some other thing, or of things in general, which it exchanges for. The values of all things can never, therefore, rise or fall simultaneously. There is no such thing as a general rise or a general fall of values. Every rise of value supposes a fall, and every fall a rise."

Again, he says:--

"Things which are exchanged for one another can no more all fall, or all rise, than a dozen runners can each outstrip all the rest, or a hundred trees all overtop one another."

Prof. S. N. Patten says, in "Dynamic Economics," p. 64: "Objective values, however, are never a sum, but only a relation between subjective values. There can never be high or low objective values of commodities as a whole. It is therefore impossible to add to or subtract from them."

This latter quotation, as well as the preceding one from von Böhm-Bawerk,--both exponents of the marginal utility theory,--may help to correct a quite prevalent impression that this later theory does not distinguish between the two conceptions of value, and that because the sum of subjective values may increase, the sum of objective or exchange values can increase also.

Supply and Demand.

All economists recognize the fact that the immediate determiner of value is the relation between supply and demand. These terms in their economic sense mean something more than mere desire and mere quantity. Supply means the amount offered in exchange, and demand means not only a desire, but a desire coupled with the ability and willingness to give other commodities in exchange for the one wanted.

In this sense the terms are strictly correlative. The supply of a commodity (that is, the amount offered) may be considered as equivalent to a demand for some other commodity, or for commodities in general. We may say, then, that the value of any commodity is determined by the ratio that the demand for that commodity bears to its supply; or by the ratio that the demand for that commodity bears to the demand for some other commodity,--or commodities in general, when the term value is used in a general sense and not with reference to some other specified thing only. (The objection that has been made by some writers that a ratio could not logically exist between a desire [demand] and a quantity [supply], does not apply to these terms in their economic sense; for, as above stated, they are something more than a mere desire and a mere quantity, and the expression is translatable into the other expression, "ratio between the demand for one commodity and the demand for others in general.")

The statement of the later economists that exchange value depends on, and is determined by, the ratio between subjective values in no way conflicts with the above statement that value is determined by the ratio between demand and supply, for the demand for a commodity is determined by its subjective value and by that alone, and must vary with it. Hence, as the quantity of anything increases and its subjective value lessens, the demand for it relative to the quantity of other articles also lessens, and its value falls, and vice versa.

This close connection between value and the ratio between demand and supply--value rising as the ratio increases, and falling as it grows less--is true in all cases. No other factor can affect the value of any commodity except by altering the relation or ratio between these two.

Cost of production is a more remote factor that enters into the determination of value in most but not in all cases, through its effect on supply. It is used, like the term value, in two senses, a subjective and an objective sense. In the former it means the pain of labour and waiting that must be undergone to produce the good that is being considered,--the negative pleasure given to get the positive pleasure to be derived from that good. In its objective sense--the sense in which it is generally used--cost of production means the goods that must otherwise be given for, bartered or set against those desired; in a simple case of direct production, it means the goods that might have been produced, in lieu of those that have been produced, with the same subjective cost; in more complex cases, it means the sum of the goods sacrificed, in the shape of raw materials, rent, wages, interest, etc., to get the one produced.

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