Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive. Benjamin M. Anderson

Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive - Benjamin M. Anderson


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i.e. must have a common quality, present in each in definite quantitative degree, before comparison is possible, or a ratio can emerge. This quality is value. The difficulty, from the standpoint of logic, is only covered up, and not avoided, if we say with Professor Davenport,[28] "Value is a ratio of exchange between two goods, quantitatively specified." [Italics mine.] For the quantitative specification depends on the extent to which the homogeneous quality is present in each of the goods, or, if we assume that the quantitative specification is made before the question of exchange ratio is raised, then the exchange ratio will vary with the extent to which the common quality is present in each of the goods. We can have no quantitative ratios between unlike things. And yet, we must have terms for our ratios. The situation here is not unlike the situation that arises when we compare two weights. We have no unit of weight in the abstract. Weight never appears as an isolated quality, but always along with other qualities, as extension, color, and the like. And when we compare weights, we really compare two heavy objects, and make our weight ratio between the object to be weighed and the physical standard of weight. Nor does value ever appear as an isolated quality. And we have no unit of abstract value which we can apply abstractly in a measurement. Instead, we choose some valuable object, as 23.22 grains of gold, and make our ratio between the given quantity of gold and the object whose value we wish to measure. But we must not forget that this is merely a symbol, a convenient mode of expression, and that the fact expressed is something different—that the real terms of our ratios are so many units of abstract weight, or of abstract value, as the case may be. Otherwise conceived, the ratio itself is meaningless: it has no terms. We have four to one up in the air, not four units of something to one unit of something. The abstract ratio is a thing for pure mathematics, and not a thing for economics. An economic ratio must have "economic quantities" as terms.[29]

      

      

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