The doubly abstract conceptions of individual costs and individual satisfactions, connected with economic goods,--abstracted first from the social _milieu_, and second, from the rest of the individual's interests and desires,--lead us around in a circle, from value to value, but never to anything else. It is the belief of the writer that we get out of the circle only by broadening our explanation phenomena, by giving up these abstractions, and getting back to the concrete reality of the total intermental life of men in society. FOOTNOTES: [82] See _inter alia_ Boehm-Bawerk, "Ultimate Standard of Value," _Annals of the American Academy_, vol. V; also his "Grundzuege," p. 516, n.; Wieser, _op. cit._, bk. V. [83] See Laughlin, J. L., "Marshall's Theory of Value and Distribution," _Q. J. E._ vol. I, pp. 227-32. See also Marshall's reply in the same volume. [84] There is a needless complication here. For Professor Clark's purposes it is not necessary to seek a _unit_ of value; what is needed is simply a vindication of the quantitative social value concept. The unit may then be arbitrarily chosen--_e.g._, the amount of value in 23.22 grains of gold. _Cf._ the discussion of abstract units of value, _infra_, chap. XVII, pp. 183-84. [85] The issue appears to be shifted here. If an ultimate _cause_ of value is being sought, it is certain that labor does not supply it for the monopolized goods; and if it be simply a _measure_ of the amount of value embodied in the monopolized goods that is looked for, then it is clear that goods produced entirely by competitive labor (assuming that such goods exist, which I deny) can fulfill this function only by virtue of being themselves _valuable_--and that they serve this purpose no better than other goods into which a monopoly element enters. The doctrine here criticized goes back to Ricardo: "If the state charges a seignorage for coinage, the coined piece of money will generally exceed the value of the uncoined piece of metal by the whole seignorage charged, _because it will require a greater quantity of labour, or, which is the same thing, the value of the produce of a greater quantity of labour, to procure it_." (Italics mine.) Ricardo, _Works_, McCulloch edition, 1852, p. 213. [86] _Philosophy of Wealth_, 1892 ed., p. 83. [87] Tarde, _The Laws of Imitation_, _Psychologie Economique_, 2 vols., Paris, 1902. Cooley, C. H., _Human Nature and the Social Order_, _Social Organisation_. Baldwin, Mark, _Social and Ethical Interpretations_. Elwood, C. A., _Some Prolegomena to Social Psychology_, Chicago, 1901; "The Psychological View of Society," _American Journal of Sociology_, March, 1910. Hayden, Edwin Andrew, _The Social Will_, 1909. No attempt is made at an exhaustive list here, nor are the writers mentioned to be held accountable for the views maintained in the text, though their point of view is in general that which I shall maintain. PART III THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ECONOMIC THEORY CHAPTER VIII