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
8. We may now essay a partial summary of the results which have been
reached up to this point. The end of the theory of value is primarily
to explain exchange value. The only workable definition of this term
is purchasing power. The purchasing power of a commodity is measured
objectively in terms of the physical units of some other particular
good, except when we are speaking of the concept of an article’s
_general_ purchasing power. This, its purchasing power over all other
commodities,[264] is measured as some kind of mean or average of all its
particular purchasing powers. What mean, it is no part of our task to
enquire. All goods which possess exchange value also possess that other
kind of worth which we termed “esteem value.” Every commodity derives
its exchange value solely from its esteem value, or, speaking with
precision, from its esteem values. For a commodity has a separate esteem
value to each individual person who can utilize it. If society were as
one man,[265] the exchange values of goods would be but the exponents of
their relative esteem values. In other words, if a physical unit of one
commodity exchanged for two units of another, the reason would be merely
because the first possessed twice as much esteem value to all society
as a unit of the second. But the esteem value of an article is a much
more definite thing than a social estimate, _i. e._, an “average” (or
typical) estimate of worth. The esteem value of a good to a person is
the measure of the amount of that person’s satisfaction conditioned upon
the enjoyment of the good. Goods existing in superfluous abundance give
satisfaction but do not condition it, and hence lack esteem value. Taking
for granted the amount of an individual’s income, the esteem value which
a good has for him determines his price equivalent for that good.[266]
The market price, or exchange value, of a good is a _resultant_ from
(never in any sense an average of) the individual price equivalents
placed upon it by the body of individual consumers.
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