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
distribution--Quotation from Mill--Critique of "pure
economic" theories of distribution--They presuppose as a
"framework" a set of legal and moral values which, in
modern times, especially, are little more stable than
"pure economic" forces, and which, in any case, are of
same nature as economic forces,--fluid, psychic
forces--"Pure economic" forces, working in _vacuo_,
would lead to anarchy; any concrete economic tendency
depends on legal and moral forces quite as much as on
"pure economic" forces--Illustrations 132

CHAPTER XIV

ECONOMIC SOCIAL VALUE (_continued_)

Abstract elements of the Austrian and English schools,
individual "utilities" and "costs," have their place in
the concrete whole of social intermental life--Social
causes largely determine them--But this not enough for a
theory of social value--Intensity of a man's feelings or
desires has no relation whatever to value in market till
we know social rankings of _men_--Conflicts of values
concerned with these social rankings--Prices express
results of court decisions as well as results of
changing individual desires for economic goods--We break
the circle by turning to the concrete whole of
social-mental life--Economics has failed to profit by
example of other social sciences here--No social science
can explain its phenomena by reference to one or two
abstract factors 148

CHAPTER XV

SOME MECHANICAL ANALOGIES

Mechanical analogies of limited use in revealing full
complexity of social control, but of use for certain
purposes--Our argument can be put, in part, in terms of
mechanical analogies--Transformations of social
forces--Illustrations--Marginal equilibria among social
forces--Illustrations--Social forces of control take
different forms under different conditions--Mechanical
analogies useful enough for economic price-analysis--Our
thesis involves no radical revision of economic
methodology--It is rather concerned with interpretation
and validation of economic methodology 156

CHAPTER XVI

PROFESSOR SELIGMAN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE OF THE RELATIVITY OF VALUES

Professor Seligman's contributions to value
theory--Points of difference between his views and those
here maintained--His psychological doctrine of
relativity--Different from doctrine of English School,
which is a matter of logical definition--Values relative
because there is fixed sum of values, and increase in
one value can come only through decrease in other
values--Criticism: psychological difficulties;
diminution of all values in times of panics and
epidemics; decrease of economic values through increase
of religious and other values--Element of truth in
Professor Seligman's doctrine--Relation between
Professor Seligman's view and that of Professor Clark 162

CHAPTER XVII

THE THEORY OF VALUE AND THE THEORY OF PRICES

Price and _Preis_--Price broadened to include all
relations between values, whether money be involved or
not--History of price-concept in English
economics--Distinction between prices and
values--Generalization of notion of price--Measurement
of beliefs, etc., in terms of money--"Qualitative
analysis" and "quantitative analysis"--Great bulk of
economic theory, and virtually all that is valid and
valuable in economic theory, has so far been in theory
of prices, and not in theory of value--Methods of price
analysis--Abstract units of value--Price theory and
practical problems 175

CHAPTER XVIII

THE THEORY OF VALUE AND THE THEORY OF PRICES (_concluded_)

Great work of Austrians really done in field of price
theory--They have, without logical right, but with
excellent results, assumed and used a quantitative,
objective value concept--Distribution in relation to
theory of value and theory of prices--Mill's treatment
primarily from standpoint of fundamental value theory;
later theories, as a rule, chiefly concerned with more
superficial, but also more exact, price analysis of
distributive problems--Theory of value not a substitute
for detailed price analysis, but, rather, a
presupposition of it--Prices have _meanings_, which only
theory of value can explain 188

CHAPTER XIX

THE THEORY OF VALUE AND THE SOCIAL OUTLOOK--SUMMARY

Belief that social optimism and social pessimism are
connected with theory of value--Views of Fetter,
Schumpeter, Wieser, and Davenport--No such implications,
either optimistic or pessimistic, in theory here
maintained--Theory of value does not contain
justification of existing social order--Summary of main
argument of book 194

INDEX OF NAMES 201