An introduction to the theory of value : $b On the lines of Menger, Weiser, and Böhm-BawerkSmart, William
General
An introduction to the theory of value : $b On the lines of Menger, Weiser, and Böhm-Bawerk
Smart, William
Austrian school of economics; Value
=Exchange.=—Hitherto Value has been presented as a relation between
Satisfactions and Goods. It remains to say that this subjective
valuation becomes objective and explicit in exchange; we have, in fact,
a definite expression of this valuation in the thing surrendered in
exchange. In other words, we need not measure Value by the subjective
satisfaction we should lose in losing the marginal item—we actually
do lose the utility we part with in purchasing, and this—generally
money—names the value. If exchange were by barter, it would be clear
that the exchanger surrendered a utility as well as gained one. Take a
shepherd and goatherd bartering successive items of their flocks; the
gain and loss of sheep-utility and goat-utility are quite evident—as
is also the diminishing marginal utility of the items successively
acquired and the increasing marginal utility of the items successively
parted with. When money forms the one side of the exchange, it is not
essentially different; the motive always is that the thing purchased
is considered of greater utility than the money parted with: that is
to say, of greater utility than all the things that might, in the
circumstances, have been purchased with the money. But, in this case,
the money parted with expresses universally the value of the goods
bought, and gets the name of Price. Thus Price, in this point of view,
is the money expression of Marginal Utility.
=Marginal Utility of Money.=—Money, like all other goods, diminishes in
utility with increase in the amount of it possessed. But the diminution
is much less marked, and never comes near zero, because money is not
one commodity, satisfying one want, but is potentially, everything that
money can buy, _i.e._, a complex of things satisfying almost the whole
complex of wants. Till we have no need for anything which money can
buy, the marginal utility of money will not sink to zero.
=Demand Price.=—What we have in actual life is not, of course,
individual bargains between two persons, where the exchange would be
determined by the marginal utility on each side, and Demand Price and
Supply Price would be convertible terms. Still what we have, on the
one side, is multitudes of people—each with different valuations based
on different subjective marginal utilities depending on different
circumstances of want and provision—offering Demand Prices. That they
are confronted, in the market, with another distinct set of prices
brings us to the other side of the total theory of value.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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