I suppose it is safe for me to assume that you have never read “Capital.” I suppose it is just as safe to assume that you never will read the three bulky tomes in which Marx has expounded the economic system that we call “Socialism.” You needn’t be ashamed to admit this fact. There are lots of others like you. Even the soap-boxer, who quotes Marx so fluently and who upholds his theories so energetically, has no advantage over you in this respect. It is a safe hundred to one shot that he also has never read--and never will read--“Capital.” The German poet Heine tells us that when Hegel, the well-known philosopher, lay on his death-bed, he declared: “Only one has understood me.” But, immediately after, he added, irritably: “And he did not understand me, either.” If this story had been told of Marx instead of Hegel, I should be quite as ready to believe that it is true. If the soap-box orator should attempt to explain the Marxian theory of value, he would have no audience in five minutes. It is because he explains the effects of this “law,” and not the principles supposed to underlie it, that he finds so many people willing to listen to him. Nobody wants to be “robbed,” and, when the Socialist orator asserts that all workers are constantly being “robbed” of the larger portion of their earnings, we are interested at once. So, if I am to make you understand the reason that this theory of the Socialists is false, if I am to prove to you that you are not “robbed” (at least not in the way the Socialists say you are), I must avoid the technical words and often unintelligible expressions that have made Marx’s “law of value” so difficult to comprehend. I must appeal strictly to your common sense. Then, if you want to go more deeply into the intricate detail in which Marx has framed his economic theories, there are several books that will give you all the information you can possibly digest. One of these is “Socialism: A Critical Analysis,” by Professor Oscar D. Skelton of Queens University, Canada; another is “Socialism” by Cathrein-Gettelmann. You will find them in any good library. Marx separated value into two classes: _value in use_ and _value in exchange_. “Use-value” means the value that an article has in satisfying some human need. “Exchange value” means the value that an article has when we come to exchange it for something else--for money or for other articles. Thus, an article may be very valuable _for use_ and still have no value _in exchange_. For example, both water and air are necessary to human life and so are very useful, yet, should we desire to exchange them for clothes or fuel, we should find it a difficult matter to make such a bargain, simply because water and air are usually free to all.