History and criticism of the labor theory of value in English political economyWhitaker, Albert C. (Albert Conser)
History
History and criticism of the labor theory of value in English political economy
Whitaker, Albert C. (Albert Conser)
Economics -- Great Britain -- History; Labor theory of value -- Great Britain -- History
the marginal utility and value would be lowered. Conversely if the
costliness be increased, value will be raised. Under Crusoe conditions
we are considering the relations of costliness, utility and value in
the simplest of circumstances we can imagine. Even here the question
arises, is it correct to affirm that costliness is _precisely coördinate_
with utility in determining value? To me it seems apparent that utility
exercises a more direct and intimate control over value than cost, even
in the simplified case now before us.[246] In the first place, value is
still _derived_ solely from utility.[247] Cost influences value only
by way of influencing the value-determining utility itself. Thus cost
is more remote from value than is satisfaction or utility. Even in the
case of goods valued according to their “effective utility,” that is,
according to a foreign utility, there is no violation of the principle
that value is derived solely from utility. Cost or costliness is never
the source of value. No amount of cost endured for a good without utility
will confer value upon it. There can be no discrepancy between utility
(here we are speaking of the utility that is the counterpart of the
satisfaction _conditioned_ upon the good, _i. e._, the marginal utility
in the cases of goods divisible into increments) and value, whereas there
may be between costliness and value. If anything prevents the supply of
a good from being increased to the point of marginal equivalence of
utility and costliness, then of course the value follows the utility
and not the costliness. Costliness is thus not a more fundamental cause
of value, but merely a more remote cause than utility, and in any event
can influence value only by affecting the utility itself, by helping to
determine supply.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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