The Value of MoneyAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
The Value of Money
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Money
(8) The scheme under consideration gives no value concept which the
economist can make any particular use of. It gives only ratios between
marginal utilities in the mind of the same individual, and abstract
market ratios. It gives no _quantitative_ value, which can be attributed
to goods as a quality,[87] a homogeneous quality of wealth by means of
which diverse sorts of wealth may be compared, funded, etc. Such a
concept is, however, necessary for the economic analysis, and Schumpeter
is driven to creating substitutes for it of various sorts, notably
_Kaufkraft_ and _Kapital_. _Kaufkraft_, as Schumpeter uses the term, is
not derived from marginal utility, but is an abstraction from the idea
of money. It is not a quantity of money alone, nor even of money and
credit, but is a fund of "abstract power," which depends not alone on
the quantity of money and credit in which it is embodied, but also on
the prices of goods.[88] This _Kaufkraft_ is needed to give the causal
"steam," the "motivating power," which the social value concept
connotes, but which ratios in the market lack. Similarly, _Kapital_ is
conceived of as an agent, a dynamic force, distinguished from
accumulations of concrete productive instruments, by means of which the
entrepreneur gets control of land, labor and instrumental goods.[89]
Other functions of the quantitative value are shouldered on a
hard-worked and unusually defined concept, _Kredit_, which leads
Schumpeter into certain "heresies"[90] regarding credit, which are
mostly harmless in themselves, but which will arouse misunderstanding
and opposition. "_Praeter necessitatem entia non multiplicanda sunt_,"
and the social value concept, which covers by inclusion the notion of
market ratio--market ratios being ratios between social values--and
which does all the work that Schumpeter attributes to _Kapital_ and
_Kaufkraft_, and most of the new work which he attributes to _Kredit_,
is to be preferred,[91] if only on grounds of intellectual economy.
"Capital" is then saved for more usual meanings, and economy in
terminology is also effected. Schumpeter also departs, as shown, from
the abstract market ratio notion in erecting a causal theory of value,
in which "marginal utility" is used as the equivalent of a quantitative
value, and is traced by the Austrian imputation process back to the
original factors of production. He even speaks of labor as having
"utility," whereas labor,[92] unless used in domestic service, has, not
utility, but only value.
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