§ 1. Definitions of Value in Use, Exchange Value, and Price.

It is evident that, of the two great departments of Political Economy, the production of wealth and its distribution, the consideration of Value has to do with the latter alone; and with that only so far as competition, and not usage or custom, is the distributing agency.

The use of a thing, in political economy, means its capacity to satisfy a desire, or serve a purpose. Diamonds have this capacity in a high degree, and, unless they had it, would not bear any price. Value in use, or, as Mr. De Quincey calls it, teleologic value, is the extreme limit of value in exchange. The exchange value of a thing may fall short, to any amount, of its value in use; but that it can ever exceed the value in use implies a contradiction; it supposes that persons will give, to possess a thing, more than the utmost value which they themselves put upon it, as a means of gratifying their inclinations.

The word Value, when used without adjunct, always means, in political economy, value in exchange.

Exchange value requires to be distinguished from Price. Writers have employed Price to express the value of a thing in relation to money—the quantity of money for which it will exchange. By the price of a thing, therefore, we shall [pg 250] henceforth understand its value in money; by the value, or exchange value of a thing, its general power of purchasing; the command which its possession gives over purchasable commodities in general. What is meant by command over commodities in general? The same thing exchanges for a greater quantity of some commodities, and for a very small quantity of others. A coat may exchange for less bread this year than last, if the harvest has been bad, but for more glass or iron, if a tax has been taken off those commodities, or an improvement made in their manufacture. Has the value of the coat, under these circumstances, fallen or risen? It is impossible to say: all that can be said is, that it has fallen in relation to one thing, and risen in respect to another. Suppose, for example, that an invention has been made in machinery, by which broadcloth could be woven at half the former cost. The effect of this would be to lower the value of a coat, and, if lowered by this cause, it would be lowered not in relation to bread only or to glass only, but to all purchasable things, except such as happened to be affected at the very time by a similar depressing cause. Those [changes] which originate in the commodities with which we compare it affect its value in relation to those commodities; but those which originate in itself affect its value in relation to all commodities.

There is such a thing as a general rise of prices. All commodities may rise in their money price. But there can not be a general rise of values. It is a contradiction in terms. A can only rise in value by exchanging for a greater quantity of B and C; in which case these must exchange for a smaller quantity of A. All things can not rise relatively to one another. If one half of the commodities in the market rise in exchange value, the very terms imply a fall of the other half; and, reciprocally, the fall implies a rise. Things which are exchanged for one another can no more all fall, or all rise, than a dozen runners can each outrun all the rest, or a hundred trees all overtop one another. A general rise or a general fall of prices is merely tantamount to an alteration [pg 251] in the value of money, and is a matter of complete indifference, save in so far as it affects existing contracts for receiving and paying fixed pecuniary amounts.

Before commencing the inquiry into the laws of value and price, I have one further observation to make. I must give warning, once for all, that the cases I contemplate are those in which values and prices are determined by competition alone. In so far only as they are thus determined, can they be reduced to any assignable law. The buyers must be supposed as studious to buy cheap as the sellers to sell dear.

§ 2. Conditions of Value: Utility, Difficulty of Attainment, and Transferableness.

That a thing may have any value in exchange, two conditions are necessary. 1. It must be of some use; that is (as already explained), it must conduce to some purpose, satisfy some desire. No one will pay a price, or part with anything which serves some of his purposes, to obtain a thing which serves none of them. 2. But, secondly, the thing must not only have some utility, there must also be some difficulty in its attainment.

§ 4. Miscellaneous Cases falling under this Law.

There are but few commodities which are naturally and necessarily limited in supply. But any commodity whatever may be artificially so. The monopolist can fix the value as high as he pleases, short of what the consumer either could not or would not pay; but he can only do so by limiting the supply. Monopoly value, therefore, does not depend on any peculiar principle, but is a mere variety of the ordinary case of demand and supply.

Again, though there are few commodities which are at all times and forever unsusceptible of increase of supply, any commodity whatever may be temporarily so; and with some commodities this is habitually the case. Agricultural produce, for example, can not be increased in quantity before the next harvest; the quantity of corn already existing in the world is all that can be had for sometimes a year to come. During that interval, corn is practically assimilated to things of which the quantity can not be increased. In the case of most commodities, it requires a certain time to increase their quantity; and if the demand increases, then, until a corresponding supply can be brought forward, that is, until the supply can accommodate itself to the demand, the value will so rise as to accommodate the demand to the supply.

There is another case the exact converse of this. There are some articles of which the supply may be indefinitely increased, but can not be rapidly diminished. There are things so durable that the quantity in existence is at all times very great in comparison with the annual produce. Gold [pg 258] and the more durable metals are things of this sort, and also houses. The supply of such things might be at once diminished by destroying them; but to do this could only be the interest of the possessor if he had a monopoly of the article, and could repay himself for the destruction of a part by the increased value of the remainder. The value, therefore, of such things may continue for a long time so low, either from excess of supply or falling off in the demand, as to put a complete stop to further production; the diminution of supply by wearing out being so slow a process that a long time is requisite, even under a total suspension of production, to restore the original value. During that interval the value will be regulated solely by supply and demand, and will rise very gradually as the existing stock wears out, until there is again a remunerating value, and production resumes its course.

§ 5. Commodities which are Susceptible of Indefinite Multiplication without Increase of Cost. Law of their Value Cost of Production.

When the production of a commodity is the effect of labor and expenditure, whether the commodity is susceptible of unlimited multiplication or not, there is a minimum value which is the essential condition of its being permanently produced. The value at any particular time is the result of supply and demand, and is always that which is necessary to create a market for the existing supply. But unless that value is sufficient to repay the Cost of Production, and to afford, besides, the ordinary expectation of profit, the commodity will not continue to be produced. Capitalists will not go on permanently producing at a loss. When such profit is evidently not to be had, if people do not actually withdraw their capital, they at least abstain from replacing it when consumed. The cost of production, together with the ordinary profit, may, therefore, be called the necessary price or value of all things made by labor and capital. Nobody willingly produces in the prospect of loss.

§ 6. The Value of these Commodities confirm, in the long run, to their Cost of Production through the operation of Demand and Supply.

The latent influence by which the values of things are made to conform in the long run to the cost of production is the variation that would otherwise take place in the supply of the commodity. The supply would be increased if the thing continued to sell above the ratio of its cost of production, and would be diminished if it fell below that ratio.

There is no need that there should be any actual alteration of supply; and when there is, the alteration, if permanent, is not the cause but the consequence of the alteration in value. If, indeed, the supply could not be increased, no diminution in the cost of production would lower the value; but there is by no means any necessity that it should. The mere possibility often suffices; the dealers are aware of what would happen, and their mutual competition makes them anticipate the result by lowering the price.

It is, therefore, strictly correct to say that the value of things which can be increased in quantity at pleasure does not depend (except accidentally, and during the time necessary for production to adjust itself) upon demand and supply; on the contrary, demand and supply depend upon it. There is a demand for a certain quantity of the commodity at its natural or cost value, and to that the supply in the long run endeavors to conform.