CHAPTER I 
Methodological Foundations of the Theory of Marginal Utility 
and of Marxism 
1. OBJECTIVISM AND SUBJECTIVISM IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
2. THE HISTORICAL POINT OF VIEW AND THE UNHISTORICAL 
POINT OF VIEW. 
3. THE POINT OF VIEW OF PRODUCTION, AND THE POINT OF VIEW 
OF CONSUMPTION. 
4. CONCLUSIONS. 
Any fairly well organized theory must present a definite 
whole whose parts are united by a sound logical bond. There- 
fore a consistent criticism must inevitably deal with the basis 
of the theory, with its method, for it is this and nothing else 
which unites the various parts of the theoretical structure. We 
are therefore beginning with a criticism of the methodological 
presuppositions of the theory of marginal utility, by which we 
do not understand its deductive character, but its characteristic 
traits within the frame of the abstract deductive method. In 
our opinion, any theory of political economy—if it be a theory 
at all—is an abstract thing; to this extent Marxism completely 
agrees with the Austrian School.** But this agreement is only 
formal in character; if there were no such agreement, there 
would be no means of comparing the Austrian theory with 
that of Karl Marx. For we are interested here in the concrete 
contents of the abstract method peculiar to the Austrian School, 
and making it so strikingly different from Marxism. 
Political economy is a social science and its: presupposition 
—whether the theorists of political economy are conscious of 
this fact or not—is some conception or other as to the essence 
of society and its laws of evolution. In other words, any 
economic theory depends on certain presuppositions having a 
sociological character and serving as the basis of an investiga- 
tion of the economic phase of social life. Such presuppositions 
may be clearly expressed or may remain unformulated; they 
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