Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and ConstructiveAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Value
[46] For further discussion of this doctrine, see chapters IV and VIII of
this book. Boehm-Bawerk, _Positive Theory_, p. 149, n., says: "One gives
donations, charities, and the like, when the importance of such, measured
by their marginal utility, is very much higher as regards the well-being
Footnote: of the receiver than as regards that of the giver, and almost
never when the converse is the case." The assumption that emotional states
in different minds can be compared is very clear in this passage. _Cf._
Veblen, Thorstein, "Professor Clark's Economics," _Q. J. E._, Feb., 1908,
p. 170, n.: "Among modern economic hedonists, including Mr. Clark, there
stands over from the better days of the order of nature a presumption,
disavowed, but often decisive, that the sensational response to the like
mechanical impact of the stimulating body is the same in different
individuals. But, while this presumption stands ever in the background, and
helps to many important conclusions,... few modern hedonists would question
the statement in the text" [_i.e._, that comparison of emotional intensity
in one man's mind with emotional intensity in another man's mind is
impossible]. In the light of the psychological doctrine which I shall
maintain in the chapter on the psychology of value, this whole question
will seem beside the point, considered as a psychological question. But my
interest here is in making clear the psychological implications of the
Austrian theory, as I wish for the present to consider their theory on
their own ground.
[47] Boehm-Bawerk and Wieser are certainly seeking an objective value, but
Jevons and Pareto are concerned simply with the ratio. See Wieser, _Natural
Val._, p. 53, n. Jevons, Pareto, and Boehm-Bawerk are discussed, with
reference to this point, in chap. IV.
[48] This law is first set forth by Professor Clark in an article in the
_Q. J. E._, vol. VIII, "A Universal Law of Economic Variation." See also,
_The Distribution of Wealth_, pp. 210-45. A brief exposition of the
doctrine is found in Seligman, _Principles_, 1905, pp. 185-88.
CHAPTER IV
JEVONS, PARETO AND BOeHM-BAWERK
In the foregoing analysis, the assumption of the homogeneity and
communicability of human wants was made. Only on this assumption could
value as a quantity of utility appear even in Wieser's "natural" community.
How hopeless the case becomes when individualistic methods and assumptions
are pushed to the extreme, will appear from a consideration of Jevons and
Pareto, both of whom insist on the entirely subjective and incommunicable
nature of human wants. Thus, Jevons:[49]--
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