Social Value: a Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive

CHAPTER II. Formal and Logical Aspects of the Value Concept

FORMAL AND LOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE VALUE CONCEPT

Value as ideal, and value as market fact--Value as absolute, and value as relative--Value as quantity--Relation between quantity and quality--Relative conception of value involves a vicious circle, if treated as ultimate--Every "relative value" implies two absolute values--Ratios must have quantitative terms--But physical quantities cannot serve as these terms--Value and evaluation: confusion of the two responsible, in part, for doctrine of relativity--Value in current economic usage: value and wealth; money as a "measure of values" 13

CHAPTER III. Value and Marginal Utility

VALUE AND MARGINAL UTILITY

Individualistic method of Jevons and the Austrians--Such a method, applied to value problem in concrete social life, yields, not quantities of value, but rather, particular ratios between such quantities--Value cannot be identified with marginal utility of a good to a marginal individual, even though we assume the commensurability and homogeneity of human emotions--Clark's Law 28

CHAPTER IV. Jevons, Pareto and Boehm-Bawerk

JEVONS, PARETO AND BOeHM-BAWERK

When individualistic methods and assumptions are pushed to the extreme, the problem of a quantitative value becomes still more hopeless--Jevons' psychological and epistemological assumptions--No objective value quantity for Jevons--The same true of Pareto--Boehm-Bawerk, trying to find law of value in law of price, reaches results no more satisfactory--Austrian analysis, even with Professor Clark's correction, is simply an explanation of the modus operandi of determining particular ratios between values in the market--It tells us nothing of value itself, and assumes a whole system of values predetermined 34

CHAPTER V. Demand Curves and Utility Curves

DEMAND CURVES AND UTILITY CURVES

Constant confusion of demand curves and utility curves in current economic literature has made necessary much of the foregoing criticism--Confusions in the writings of Jevons, Boehm-Bawerk, Wieser, Pierson, Patten, Hadley, Ely, Schaeffle, Flux, Marshall, and Davenport 40

CHAPTER VI. The Vicious Circle of the Austrians

THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF THE AUSTRIANS

Extreme abstractness of the Austrian theory--Abstraction legitimate and necessary, but must not be carried so far that the explanation phenomena are obliged to include the problem phenomenon--Austrians explain value in terms of value,--a vicious circle--Circle explicit in Wieser--Also explicit in Hobson's attempt to combine Austrian theory with cost theory of English School 45

CHAPTER VII. Professor Clark's Theory of Social Value

PROFESSOR CLARK'S THEORY OF SOCIAL VALUE

All attempts to explain value in terms of the highly abstract factors of individual utility and individual cost, or any combination of them, must become similarly entangled--Austrians have shown this of English theory--Professor Clark's value theory, set forth in the Distribution of Wealth, intended to justify social value concept, really uses only these abstract individual factors, combined in arithmetical sums, and similarly falls into a circle--Differences between Professor Clark's point of view in his Philosophy of Wealth and that of his later writings--The point of view of the earlier book, supplemented by later studies in social psychology, will afford the basis for an organic conception of society, and a valid doctrine of social value 49

Part Iii. the Presuppositions of Economic

THEORY

CHAPTER VIII

THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

Connection between social philosophy and metaphysics and epistemology always close--Three stages in history of philosophy: dogmatic, skeptical, critical--Ancient and modern philosophy have each gone through these three stages--Each philosophic stage characterized by distinctive social philosophy: individualism and sociological monadism go with skeptical philosophy, while organic conception of society goes with critical stage--Economics to-day based on skeptical philosophy of Hume--Doctrine of sociological monadism: Marshall, Pareto, Jevons, Veblen, Davenport--Critique of sociological monadism, from standpoint of epistemology and psychology 59

CHAPTER IX. The Sociological Presuppositions

THE SOCIOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

Conceptions of the social unity: mechanical, biological, psychological--DeGreef's criticism of mechanical and biological analogies--Hierarchy of sciences: Comte and Baldwin--Baldwin's psychical abstractionism--Cooley's psychological conception of the nature of society seems most useful for purposes of this study--Cooley's view--Relation between Cooley and Giddings: the Social Mind--Summary of sociological doctrine--Critique of Davenport 72

Part Iv. a Positive Theory of Social Value

CHAPTER X

VALUE AS GENERIC--THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VALUE

Economic value a species, coordinate with ethical, legal, aesthetic, and other values--Psychology of value, as manifested in individual experience--Values as "tertiary qualities"--When we reflectively break up the experience, values thrown from object to subject's emotional life, but this an abstraction from concrete experience--Feeling and desire in relation to value: hedonism; Ehrenfels and Davenport; Urban and Meinong--"Presuppositions" of value--Feeling and desire both phases in value, but neither is the worth-fundamental, and each may vary in intensity without affecting amount of value--Value and reality judgment: Meinong and Tarde; Urban--On structural side, feeling, desire, and "reality feeling" are all significant phases in value--But real significance of value lies in its functional aspect: the function of value is the function of motivation--Essence of value is power in motivation--For concrete experience, this power a quality of the object--Positive and negative values--Complementary values--Rival values: two cases: qualitatively compatible, and qualitatively incompatible values--In first case, quantitative marginal compromise often possible: generalization of Austrian analysis--So-called "absolute values" ("absolute" here used as in history of ethics)--No sharp lines between different sorts of values, as ethical, economic, aesthetic--Different sorts of values do not constitute self-complete, separate systems--Generalization of notion of price--Suggestions as to analogues in the field of the social values 93

CHAPTER XI. Recapitulation--the Social Values--Functions of

RECAPITULATION--THE SOCIAL VALUES--FUNCTIONS OF THE VALUE CONCEPT IN ECONOMICS

Conclusions reached both in economic analysis and in sociological analysis point to values which correspond to no individual values, great social forces of motivation--To individual, economic, legal, and moral values appear as external forces, over which his control is limited, and to which he must adapt his individual behavior--Economic theory, often unconsciously, has assumed objectively valid, quantitative value, and economic theory valid only on the basis of such a concept: value the homogeneous element among the diversities of physical forms of goods, by virtue of which ratios, sums, and percentages may be obtained among them, and comparisons made--Process of "imputation" assumes such a value concept--Value used by economists to explain motivation of economic activity--Such a value concept essential for the theory of money--Implied in the term, "purchasing power"--Such a concept has never been justified, but economists, more concerned about practical results than logical consistency, have found it essential, and used it--Impossible to develop a social quantity by synthesis of abstract individual elements--Correct procedure the reverse of this 115

CHAPTER XII. Social Value: the Theories of Urban and Tarde

SOCIAL VALUE: THE THEORIES OF URBAN AND TARDE

Neither Urban nor Tarde primarily concerned with economic value--Urban's important contributions--Insists on conscious feeling as essential for social value--But feeling may vary in intensity without affecting the power in motivation of the value--Feeling significant when values are to be compared--Social weight of those who feel a value a highly significant phase which Urban ignores--Tarde recognizes this phase, but errs in treating it as an abstract element, which obeys the laws of simple arithmetic 124

CHAPTER XIII. Economic Social Value

ECONOMIC SOCIAL VALUE

How get out of Austrian circle?--Temporal regressus vs. logical analysis of the concrete whole of the Social Mind--Even in Wieser's "natural" community, psychic elements other than "marginal utility" significant for the determination of economic values, especially legal and moral values concerned with distribution--Quotation from Mill--Critique of "pure economic" theories of distribution--They presuppose as a "framework" a set of legal and moral values which, in modern times, especially, are little more stable than "pure economic" forces, and which, in any case, are of same nature as economic forces,--fluid, psychic forces--"Pure economic" forces, working in vacuo, would lead to anarchy; any concrete economic tendency depends on legal and moral forces quite as much as on "pure economic" forces--Illustrations 132

CHAPTER XIV. Economic Social Value (_continued_)

ECONOMIC SOCIAL VALUE (continued)

Abstract elements of the Austrian and English schools, individual "utilities" and "costs," have their place in the concrete whole of social intermental life--Social causes largely determine them--But this not enough for a theory of social value--Intensity of a man's feelings or desires has no relation whatever to value in market till we know social rankings of men--Conflicts of values concerned with these social rankings--Prices express results of court decisions as well as results of changing individual desires for economic goods--We break the circle by turning to the concrete whole of social-mental life--Economics has failed to profit by example of other social sciences here--No social science can explain its phenomena by reference to one or two abstract factors 148

CHAPTER XV. Some Mechanical Analogies

SOME MECHANICAL ANALOGIES

Mechanical analogies of limited use in revealing full complexity of social control, but of use for certain purposes--Our argument can be put, in part, in terms of mechanical analogies--Transformations of social forces--Illustrations--Marginal equilibria among social forces--Illustrations--Social forces of control take different forms under different conditions--Mechanical analogies useful enough for economic price-analysis--Our thesis involves no radical revision of economic methodology--It is rather concerned with interpretation and validation of economic methodology 156

CHAPTER XVI. Professor Seligman's Psychological Doctrine of the

PROFESSOR SELIGMAN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE OF THE RELATIVITY OF VALUES

Professor Seligman's contributions to value theory--Points of difference between his views and those here maintained--His psychological doctrine of relativity--Different from doctrine of English School, which is a matter of logical definition--Values relative because there is fixed sum of values, and increase in one value can come only through decrease in other values--Criticism: psychological difficulties; diminution of all values in times of panics and epidemics; decrease of economic values through increase of religious and other values--Element of truth in Professor Seligman's doctrine--Relation between Professor Seligman's view and that of Professor Clark 162

CHAPTER XVII. The Theory of Value and the Theory of Prices

THE THEORY OF VALUE AND THE THEORY OF PRICES

Price and Preis--Price broadened to include all relations between values, whether money be involved or not--History of price-concept in English economics--Distinction between prices and values--Generalization of notion of price--Measurement of beliefs, etc., in terms of money--"Qualitative analysis" and "quantitative analysis"--Great bulk of economic theory, and virtually all that is valid and valuable in economic theory, has so far been in theory of prices, and not in theory of value--Methods of price analysis--Abstract units of value--Price theory and practical problems 175

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