The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 313 somewhat plainer language, labour is the sole source of value, and the amount of time during which labour of average efficiency, making use of the best methods known to the age, must be exerted to produce a useful commodity is the measure of the exchange-value of that commodity. The leading error in this theory is that it ignores the part played by utility in determining value. It admits, indeed, that an article to have any value must be useful, but it asserts that value is in propor tion to labour and to nothing else ; whereas, as M. de Laveleye has pointed out, value really springs from utility, including in that term the element of rarity. It is not easy to express the law of value, as usually explained by Economists to-day, in a few words, but perhaps it may be said with sufficient accuracy that where the element of rarity exercises little influence, where the commodity can be multiplied indeflnitely, its normal value will tend to equal the expenses of its production, in which expenses the wages of labour, including earnings of management, are an important but not the sole element ; but even in this case these expenses of production, owing to the laws of increasing and of diminishing return, will be partly determined by the extent of the demand : a gradually increasing demand reducing the expenses of production, where the former law applies, as in the case of those manufactured articles in which raw material is a small element, and augmenting them, where the latter applies as in the case of agricultural produce ; and this demand is itself determined by the relative utility of the com modity in existing social conditions. When, however, the commodity is one that cannot be reproduced, its value will depend solely upon the demand for it, that is, upon its relative social utility. Next, we meet with the famous theory of “Surplus Value,” on which great stress is laid, and which, summarizing Mr. Hyndman's account, may be briefly stated as follows ;—Labour- force, alone of commodities, has the remarkable quality of being the source of additional exchange-value : its consumption, in fact, creating more than its own value or cost of production. I'he labourer, being divorced from the means of production, is obliged to sell his labour-force for what it will fetch. The capi-

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