Value and the Invariable Unit of Value

From the INTRODUCTION. The importance of our subject cannot be over-estimated. Value has been called the corner-stone of economics, the fundamental idea, the dominant category of political economy, and, unless it be definitely and correctly determined, that science in its entirety is like a house built upon quicksand; it has no solid, abiding foundations. Until the commerce of mankind, -until the product of industry can be weighed and balanced in the scales of justice, society in its true sense is impossible, and must inevitably become "an organized institution for picking pockets," such as it is, to a great extent, to-day. The lack of equity and justice in the processes of production and distribution so painfully manifest at the present time, and so fruitful in evil, has its source in this one fact more than any other, -that there is no just standard measure or unit of value; that which is used as such being simply a disturber of values and a tool of exploitation and injustice through monopoly. The wide interest manifested in our subject is a remarkable fact of current literature, hardly a paper or a magazine with any educational pretensions being void of some reference to value or to its intimate relations. The Loco-foco party of 1836, which protested against paper and bank-notes, has split into bimetallists and mono-metallists, and the war of the standards rages from Dan to Beersheba, disintegrating political parties and becoming the bète noir of political saints and sinners. Honesty is inscribed on both banners, while with intelligence both banners would vanish from the field. One writer, pleading for a monopolized gold standard, under which rascality is a fine art, is so enthused with the moral aspect (to him) of his theme of monetary aggrandizement, that he makes a national application of the faith that is in him, asking, "Are we a nation of rascals?" This Armageddon of ignorance continues as though some Joshua of political economy had halted the sun in its celestial course so that the slaughter of words might continue. The economists fight upon questions to decide which value must be determined. One seeks his unit or standard of value in gold, the other in silver, and both, being blind leaders of the blind, fall into a pit. The economists talk of value as vaguely as the red Indian talks of the Great Spirit. They compare values by means of a shifting point of comparison (worse than none); they measure values with an elastic thread; they confound utility and value; they differentiate price and value; they, in one breath, proclaim the ideality of value, its elusiveness and mentality; while, in the next breath, they talk of so many grains of this or that material substance as a standard of the ideal.