Chapter II: Preface: To the First Edition

This book has few pretensions to originality. The theory is that enunciated by Menger and Jevons, and worked out by Wieser and Böhm-Bawerk. I have done little more than take it out of its German setting, and pass it through my own mind. As the translator of Böhm-Bawerk’s _Capital and Interest_ and _The Positive Theory of Capital_, I may claim to have more than a superficial acquaintance with the work of the Austrian school, and this must form my credentials for the present _Introduction_. At the same time I must emphasise that it claims to be no more than an introduction. I do not consider that the last word on Value has been said by the Austrian school, but that seems to me no reason why the principles of the new theory should remain any longer beyond the reach of the ordinary English student. And in case it be said that I have stopped short of the most interesting part of the _Natürlicher Werth_, the application of the Value theory to the theory of Distribution, I may explain that, in justice to Professor Wieser, I have preferred to put the translation of that most brilliant and suggestive book into the capable hands of one of my students.

WILLIAM SMART.
QUEEN MARGARET COLLEGE,
GLASGOW.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 1
II. THE ANALYSIS OF VALUE 9
III. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UTILITY AND VALUE 13
IV. THE SCALE OF VALUE 18
V. THE MARGINAL UTILITY 29
VI. DIFFICULTIES AND EXPLANATIONS 35
VII. COMPLEMENTARY GOODS 42
VIII. SUBJECTIVE EXCHANGE VALUE 47
IX. FROM SUBJECTIVE TO OBJECTIVE VALUE 52
X. PRICE 55
XI. SUBJECTIVE VALUATIONS THE BASIS OF PRICE 61
XII. COST OF PRODUCTION 67
XIII. FROM MARGINAL PRODUCTS TO COST OF PRODUCTION 74
XIV. FROM COST OF PRODUCTION TO PRODUCT 78
XV. CONCLUSION 84
APPENDIX I 87
APPENDIX II 91
INDEX 103

WRITERS AND BOOKS REFERRED TO

CARL MENGER
(Professor in the University of Vienna),
_Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaftslehre_, Vienna, 1871.

FRIEDRICH VON WIESER
(Professor in the University of Prague),
_Ueber den Ursprung und die Hauptgesetze des wirthschaftlichen
Werthes_, Vienna, 1884.

_Der natürliche Werth_, Vienna, 1889,
translated as _Natural Value_, Macmillan & Co., 1893.

EUGEN V. BÖHM-BAWERK
(Honorary Professor in the University of Vienna),
_Grundzüge der Theorie des wirthschaftlichen Güterwerths_,
published in Conrad’s _Jahrbücher_, 1886.

_Geschichte und Kritik der Kapitalzius-theoriem_,
Innsbruck, 1884, translated as _Capital and Interest_,
Macmillan & Co., 1890.

_Positive Theorie des Kapitales_, Innsbruck, 1889,
translated as _The Positive Theory of Capital_,
Macmillan & Co., 1891.

W. STANLEY JEVONS
(Professor in University College, London),
_The Theory of Political Economy_, 2d edition,
Macmillan & Co., 1879.