Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive. Benjamin M. Anderson
objective value quantity for Jevons—The same true of Pareto—Böhm-Bawerk, trying to find law of value in law of price, reaches results no more satisfactory—Austrian analysis, even with Professor Clark's correction, is simply an explanation of the modus operandi of determining particular ratios between values in the market—It tells us nothing of value itself, and assumes a whole system of values predetermined 34
CHAPTER V
DEMAND CURVES AND UTILITY CURVES
Constant confusion of demand curves and utility curves in current economic literature has made necessary much of the foregoing criticism—Confusions in the writings of Jevons, Böhm-Bawerk, Wieser, Pierson, Patten, Hadley, Ely, Schaeffle, Flux, Marshall, and Davenport 40
CHAPTER VI
THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF THE AUSTRIANS
Extreme abstractness of the Austrian theory—Abstraction legitimate and necessary, but must not be carried so far that the explanation phenomena are obliged to include the problem phenomenon—Austrians explain value in terms of value,—a vicious circle—Circle explicit in Wieser—Also explicit in Hobson's attempt to combine Austrian theory with cost theory of English School 45
CHAPTER VII
PROFESSOR CLARK'S THEORY OF SOCIAL VALUE
All attempts to explain value in terms of the highly abstract factors of individual utility and individual cost, or any combination of them, must become similarly entangled—Austrians have shown this of English theory—Professor Clark's value theory, set forth in the Distribution of Wealth, intended to justify social value concept, really uses only these abstract individual factors, combined in arithmetical sums, and similarly falls into a circle—Differences between Professor Clark's point of view in his Philosophy of Wealth and that of his later writings—The point of view of the earlier book, supplemented by later studies in social psychology, will afford the basis for an organic conception of society, and a valid doctrine of social value 49
PART III. THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ECONOMIC THEORY
CHAPTER VIII
THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS
Connection between social philosophy and metaphysics and epistemology always close—Three stages in history of philosophy: dogmatic, skeptical, critical—Ancient and modern philosophy have each gone through these three stages—Each philosophic stage characterized by distinctive social philosophy: individualism and sociological monadism go with skeptical philosophy, while organic conception of society goes with critical stage—Economics to-day based on skeptical philosophy of Hume—Doctrine of sociological monadism: Marshall, Pareto, Jevons, Veblen, Davenport—Critique of sociological monadism, from standpoint of epistemology and psychology 59
CHAPTER IX
THE SOCIOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS
Conceptions of the social unity: mechanical, biological, psychological—DeGreef's criticism of mechanical and biological analogies—Hierarchy of sciences: Comte and Baldwin—Baldwin's psychical abstractionism—Cooley's psychological conception of the nature of society seems most useful for purposes of this study—Cooley's view—Relation between Cooley and Giddings: the Social Mind—Summary of sociological doctrine—Critique of Davenport 72
PART IV. A POSITIVE THEORY OF SOCIAL VALUE
CHAPTER X
VALUE AS GENERIC—THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VALUE
Economic value a species, coördinate with ethical, legal, æsthetic, and other values—Psychology of value, as manifested in individual experience—Values as "tertiary qualities"—When we reflectively break up the experience, values thrown from object to subject's emotional life, but this an abstraction from concrete experience—Feeling and desire in relation to value: hedonism; Ehrenfels and Davenport; Urban and Meinong—"Presuppositions" of value—Feeling and desire both phases in value, but neither is the worth-fundamental, and each may vary in intensity without affecting amount of value—Value and reality judgment: Meinong and Tarde; Urban—On structural side, feeling, desire, and "reality feeling" are all significant phases in value—But real significance of value lies in its functional aspect: the function of value is the function of motivation—Essence of value is power in motivation—For concrete experience, this power a quality of the object—Positive and negative values—Complementary values—Rival values: two cases: qualitatively compatible, and qualitatively incompatible values—In first case, quantitative marginal compromise often possible: generalization of Austrian analysis—So-called "absolute values" ("absolute" here used as in history of ethics)—No sharp lines between different sorts of values, as ethical, economic, æsthetic—Different sorts of values do not constitute self-complete, separate systems—Generalization of notion of price—Suggestions as to analogues in the field of the social values 93
CHAPTER XI
RECAPITULATION—THE SOCIAL VALUES—FUNCTIONS OF THE VALUE CONCEPT IN ECONOMICS
Conclusions reached both in economic analysis and in sociological analysis point to values which correspond to no individual values, great social forces of motivation—To individual, economic, legal, and moral values appear as external forces, over which his control is limited, and to which he must adapt his individual behavior—Economic theory, often unconsciously, has assumed objectively valid, quantitative value, and economic theory valid only on the basis of such a concept: value the homogeneous element among the diversities of physical forms of goods, by virtue of which ratios, sums, and percentages may be obtained among them, and comparisons made—Process of "imputation" assumes such a value concept—Value used by economists to explain motivation of economic activity—Such a value concept essential for the theory of money—Implied in the term, "purchasing power"—Such a concept has never been justified, but economists, more concerned about practical results than logical consistency, have found it essential, and used it—Impossible to develop a social quantity by synthesis of abstract individual elements—Correct procedure the reverse of this 115
CHAPTER XII
SOCIAL VALUE: THE THEORIES OF URBAN AND TARDE
Neither Urban nor Tarde primarily concerned with economic value—Urban's important contributions—Insists on conscious feeling as essential for social value—But feeling may vary in intensity without affecting the power in motivation of the value—Feeling significant when values are to be compared—Social weight of those who feel a value a highly significant phase which Urban ignores—Tarde recognizes this phase, but errs in treating it as an abstract element, which obeys the laws of simple arithmetic 124
CHAPTER XIII
ECONOMIC SOCIAL VALUE
How get out of Austrian circle?—Temporal regressus vs. logical analysis of the concrete whole of the Social Mind—Even in Wieser's "natural" community, psychic elements other than "marginal utility" significant for the determination of economic values, especially legal and moral values concerned with