The difficulty I have experienced in attacking this Marxian heresy is the common one which confronts any opponent of a popular doctrine accepted on faith and not on logic. A reasoned explanation of the fallacy is often not understood, a striking refutation is regarded as an extreme instance to which no reasonable person would ever suggest that the principle applied. When I have put the classic case of a man who discovers a precious stone, picks it up and finds it is worth, say, £50, and have suggested that the labour-force exerted by the finder in reaching down and lifting up the stone and carrying it to a purchaser cannot surely be the sole cause of its value, the answer has at once been made: “That is a case of raw material, and not a manufactured article.” I have then taken the case of some manufactured article like “pigs” or “ingots.” These when made were of a certain value, but they were put into store as against a rising market and became, subsequently, of greater value. According to Marx, the magnitude of the value of any commodity is determined by the amount of the labour socially necessary for its production and embodied in it under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. This amount of labour, in the case of the “pigs” and “ingots,” was the amount expended when they were first made, but since then, without the expenditure of any more labour, their value has greatly increased. The increase in value cannot obviously be attributed to the addition of “abstract”or any other kind of labour. It is surprising how many workmen have learned quite glibly the outlines of the Marxian value and surplus value argument, and can express it by rote in flawless Marxian terminology. Even accepting it, as it has been so truly described, as “the greatest intellectual mare’s nest of the last century,” without any question it is an argument that has to be seriously considered. It must be driven by economic education out of the workers’ list of cherished convictions. No good will come of treating it with flippancy, or pouring ridicule upon it. I made it my practice to take up the argument stage by stage, emphasize what appeared to me to be the flaws, and then finish off with a number of practical workshop illustrations of cases where the argument fails egregiously to hold water. To be convincing, and to drive each point well home, takes a considerable amount of time, but it is well worth it. Few persons appreciate the extent to which this Marxian sophistry prevents achievement of the co-operative ideal in industry.