The Online Library of Liberty

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• Editor's Preface
• Author's Preface
• Book I: The Elementary Theory of Value
• Chapter I: The Origin of Value
• Chapter II: The Value of Satisfactions of Want
• Chapter III: Gossen's Law of the Satiation of Want
• Chapter IV: The Scales of Satiation
• Chapter V: Marginal Utility
• Chapter VI: The Value of Future Satisfactions of Want
• Chapter VII: The Value of Goods
• Chapter VIII: The Valuation of a Single Commodity
• Chapter IX: The Valuation of Goods In Stocks. the Law of Marginal Utility the General Law of Value
• Chapter X: The Paradox of Value
• Chapter XI: The Antinomy of Value and the Service of Value
• Book II: Exchange Value and Natural Value
• Chapter I: Price
• Chapter II: Exchange Value In the Subjective Sense
• Chapter III: Exchange Value In the Objective Sense
• Chapter IV: The Antinomy of Exchange Value
• Chapter V: The Service of Exchange Value In General Economy
• Chapter VI: Natural Value
• Chapter VII: The Socialist Theory of Value
• Book III: The Natural Imputation of the Return From Production
• Part I: The General Principles of Imputation
• Chapter I: Return Value
• Chapter II: The Problem of Imputation
• Chapter III: The Socialist Reading of the Problem. the Claim of the Labourer to the Entire Return
• Chapter IV: Previous Attempts At Solution
• Chapter V: The Principle of Solution. the Productive Contribution
• Chapter VI: The Principle of Solution (continued) . Contribution and Co-operation
• Chapter VII: The Principle of Solution (continued) . the Economic Service of Imputation
• Chapter VIII: The Principle of Solution (continued) . Imputation and the Marginal Law
• Chapter IX: The Individual Factors of Imputation. I.—SUPPLY
• Chapter X: The Individual Factors of Imputation ( Continued ). II. — Demand and Complementary Goods
• Chapter XI: The Individual Factors of Imputation ( Continued ). III. — Technique
• Chapter XII: The Individual Factors of Imputation ( Continued ). IV. — the Imputation to Cost Goods and to Monopoly Goods
• Chapter XIII: The Individual Factors of Imputation ( Continued ). V. — the Imputation to Productive Factors of Preferable Quality
• Part II: Natural Land Rent
• Chapter XIV: Ricardo's Differential Rent: the First Part
• Chapter XV: Ricardo's Differential Rent: the Second Part
• Chapter XVI: Criticism of Ricardo's Theory
• Part III: The Natural Return to Capital
• Chapter XVII: The Productivity of Capital
• Chapter XVIII: The Calculation of Return to Capital In Primitiive and In Developed Economies
• Chapter XIX: The Imputation of Gross Return and of Net Return
• Book IV: The Natural Value of Land, Capital, and Labour
• Chapter I: Introduction
• Chapter II: The Value of Capital and the Interest On Capital I.—DISCOUNTING
• Chapter III: The Value of Capital and the Interest On Capital (continued) . II.—THE Rate of Interest
• Chapter IV: The Value of Capital and the Interest On Capital (continued). III.— The Law of the Uniform Calculation of the Interest Rate
• Chapter V: The Value of Capital and the Interest On Capital (continued.) IV.—CHANGE In the Rate of Interest
• Chapter VI: The Value of Capital and the Interest On Capital (continued) . V.—THE Valuation of Fixed Capital
• Chapter VII: The Value of Capital and the Interest On Capital ( Continued ) VI.— Capitalisation
• Chapter VIII: Interest On the Consumption Loan. House Rent
• Chapter IX: The Value of Land
• Chapter X: The Value of Labour
• Chapter XI.: The Value of Production Goods, With Reference to the Competition Between Present and Future Interests
• Book V: The Natural Cost Value of Products
• Chapter I: The Law of Costs
• Chapter II: The Conception of Costs
• Chapter III: Foundation of the Law of Costs
• Chapter IV: Conditions Under Which the Law of Costs Obtains
• Chapter V: The Determining Amount of Costs
• Chapter VI: The Law of Costs and the General Law of Value
• Chapter VII: The So-called Costs of Production of Labour
• Chapter VIII: The Cost Theories
• Chapter IX: The Cost Theories ( Continued ). Labour As an Element In Cost
• Chapter X: The Cost Theories ( Continued ). Capital As an Element In Cost
• Chapter XI: The Cost Theories (continued) . Interest As an Element In Cost
• Chapter XII: The Cost Theories (continued) . Land Rent As an Element In Cost
• Chapter XIII: The Service of Individual Economic Value In National Economy 1
• Book VI: Value In the Economy of the State
• Chapter I: Introduction
• Chapter II: The Province of a State Economy
• Chapter III: Value In the Natural Economy of the State
• Chapter IV: Value In the Present-day Economy of the State
• Chapter V: The Fundamental Law of Collective Valuation

CHAPTER I

return value

Production goods, as well as consumption goods, afford utility. Land, capital, and labour afford utility inasmuch as they produce useful objects of consumption. As the latter serve directly, so do the former indirectly, toward the satisfaction of wants. The seed, the tree, the soil, the yarn, the coal, the machine:—these are not indeed ripe or finished goods, like the fruit and the garment, but they are just as really goods. They contain prospective or potential utility.

And the production goods, land, labour, and capital, must receive value on account of their utility, so far as they are not available in superfluity. The atom of air, which floats above the field in company with the countless others that throng space, is useful but valueless, because its place is at any time taken and filled by another. On the other hand, in the judgment of economic men, all those elements of production must receive value on account of their useful effect, which, however numerous they be, are yet not numerous enough to prevent even a small loss in them being perceptible and bringing harm in its train. Production does not despise free goods; it does not disdain the fruitful land although it should stretch away in excess of all requirements, or the wood in the primeval forest, or free water power: on the contrary, it seeks them out and prefers to use them wherever it can, because their services are the most perfect possible, and present no break in the rendering. None the less it must be said that production pays little attention to free goods,—indeed less than little. It does not consider them at all. It merely uses them; it ascribes to them no value. It does not even reckon to them the services they render. Utility alone gives no value; there must be limitation of supply as well, before value emerges from utility. Utility is and remains the source of value, but in order to set the source flowing there must be a peculiar motive power, which will direct the attention of man to the necessity of watching and attending to it.

It is, however, not usual to follow the value of production goods to its source in utility. To estimate the value of a field I do not consider what satisfactions of want can be had from its crop. I content myself with calculating what and how much crop it will probably yield; this crop then I estimate according to the value which attaches to it in virtue of its utility; and this value is to me the basis from which I ascertain the value of the field. The act of valuation of production goods, which ought to reach right back to wants, is, therefore, usually carried only to that point at which the relation of these goods to the value of their products is clearly established, for in the value of products the calculation of the wants is already represented. To this extent it is possible to say that the value of production goods is determined by the value of their products or by the value of the return. Productive value is return-value. The consideration that, from production goods, one can obtain a return in goods which possess not only utility but value, gives production goods their value.

According to the manner in which production is planned and carried out, it is possible to obtain from the same goods widely diverse kinds and amounts of return. Economic principles demand the obtaining of the greatest possible return; that is, the return possessing the greatest value which it is possible to obtain under the circumstances. It is this “greatest possible return” whose value should serve as basis for the valuation of production goods.1 Probably it never is possible to decide this beforehand with absolute accuracy, but some anticipatory estimate there must be. It is not therefore actually the value of the return which forms the ground of production value,—but the expectation which is formed of it. It is the anticipated value of the anticipated return.

The greater the return reckoned on, the greater will be the productive value. The greater the dividend expected from a stock, the higher will be the value put upon the stock. This illustration of stocks and dividends is, on the whole, the best that could be given to explain productive value. Every means of production, every tool, every piece of land or raw material, every service of labour, represents, if one may say so, a share in an undertaking. This share contributes to the result cf the undertaking, and consequently gets ascribed to it a quota of the result, and upon the amount of this result its value must depend.1

[1]The value of the productive unit again is decided according to the marginal law—i.e. by the least among these returns. See below, Book III. chap. viii.

[1]The classical political economy really examines only the value of products, or, more exactly, of produced consumption goods. So far as the factors of production are concerned, it looks upon them, on the one side, as sources of income (rent, interest, wage, and, perhaps, also undertaker's income); on the other side, as the elements which go to form the costs of production, and are considered to decide, principally, the value of the products.

But when one compares with this the endeavours which, explicitly or implicitly, guide the new writers on the theory of value, we find the circle of the phenomena to which the idea of value is applied extraordinarily widened. Factors of production—better expressed by the later writers as “production goods”—are conceived of all through as objects of value; costs are directly phenomena of value; and even income must be so conceived. Further than this, the relations between the value of utilities and the value of production goods is turned just the other way about—the former being considered as determining, the latter as determined. On the present occasion we have first to do with the proposition which may serve as starting-point for the whole theory;—that production goods receive their value from the value of the products which they serve to create. Gossen, Jevons, Menger, and Walras are all agreed on this point. In my opinion it is again Menger who gives the most clear and comprehensive statement of the matter. He divides (as does also Gossen, though much less perfectly) the entire goods which stand in the productive nexus into Ranks, and value is conducted from rank to rank. The first and lowest rank is formed by those utilities which receive their value direct from wants. The value thus received passes over first to goods of the second rank, those, namely, which serve directly towards the producing of goods of the first rank; as e.g. the meal and the labour of the baker in the preparation of bread. From these value passes on to goods of the third rank (e.g. wheat and the labour of the miller); and so on, step by step, till it reaches the highest, or, as Böhm-Bawerk calls them, the most remote ranks.