Everywhere in society among individuals who earn a part or all of their money incomes,[248] we may expect to find pure “esteem values” being measured by subjective costs. But the relation of subjective cost to _exchange value_ is a different matter. Two parlor tables of the same make and pattern will possess the same exchange values, but the esteem values of the two to their separate owners are not comparable quantities. Each of these owners, for himself, may estimate the esteem value of the table in terms of its indirect _cost of acquisition_ in his own disutility. The dollars cost him disutility and the table cost him dollars. But this is not at all the same as saying that the “exchange value” of a table is measured by the disutility _cost of production_ of that commodity. Exchange value can have no such intimate relation with disutility cost as esteem value. Furthermore, the cost of production of tables is experienced only by makers of tables, and not by their consumers. The exchange values and pain costs of commodities can have no closer relation than one of mere proportionality. It is possible that, if one A has an exchange value of two B, an A has cost twice as much disutility to produce as a B. In this case the exchange values of these commodities, each in terms of the other, are proportional to their subjective costs. It is permissible to predicate equality of subjective cost and esteem value, but to say that the subjective cost of an article _equals_ its exchange value would, of course, convey no meaning. The unqualified classical labor theory asserted that exchange values were determined in proportion to relative labor costs. The aim of this chapter has been, therefore, to prepare to answer this question: Are the exchange values of commodities in the social market in proportion to the subjective costs of production of these commodities? Is there any way of defining, or method of reckoning, the pain cost of a good, which will enable us to show this proportionality?