L' Industrie cotonnière en Allemagne

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 84539584X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-36509

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Koechlin, Armand

Title:: L' Industrie cotonnière en Allemagne

Place of publication:: Paris

Publisher:: Pelletier

Year of publication:: 1906

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (387 S)

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statistique

Collection:: Economics Books

TO DISCOVER A STABLE STANDARD 185 But the fact that currency is a variable or unstable stan- dard does not only follow from the mere statement that the average price of commodities and therefore the purchasing power of the currency has varied from one period to another. We must try to define those cases in which, having observed a variation in purchasing power, we may attribute it to the currency. But it should be observed in the first place that a standard of values is not in every respect similar to any other standard of measure, and that it cannot be used in the same way. It is true that a mone- tary unit, like a unit of length, will enable us to determine the relation between the said unit and any objects, and to deduce therefrom the relation between the different objects. A monetary unit makes it possible to determine variations in the exchange value of a commodity in relation to that unit itself, e.g., in the case of a hat, as between one date and another, or the exchange ratio between a hat and an over- coat at a given date, just as a unit of length will enable us to demonstrate by how much a wall in process of building has been raised between two different periods or to establish the ratio existing at a given moment between the height of a wall and the height of a tree. This kind of relation is given by the franc just as well as by the metre; but there are important differences between the nature of these two standards. As M. Bourguin says : “When we measure the length or the weight of some object by means of the metre or the gramme, we are demonstrating a mere ratio be- tween two lengths or weights which exist independently of this ratio. The situation is quite different in the case of money ; and if we say that a hectolitre of corn is worth 20 francs we are not comparing two ‘intrinsic’ values inde- pendent of each other, we are setting up a ratio which is of the essence of the idea of (exchange) value, since it is in this ratio that value essentially resides.””? Indeed there is reason to hold that the idea of exchange value corresponds to that of a reciprocal measure, of a ratio of value, and does not necessarily imply anything more. It will now be 1 “La mesure de la valeur et la monnaie,” Revue & économie politique, 1895, p. 235.

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