The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

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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36 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. can easily replace it, because it is found everywhere, the utility of possessing it will be very small ; it will be equal, in fact, to the trouble involved in procuring a similar article. Water, it is said, is of the highest utility, and yet it has no value ; therefore it is not utility that makes value. This objection, always repeated, depends on an ambiguity of language which has never been exposed, because it sounds very plausible. The mistake lies in this : by water in the first sense is meant water in general, the element, and in this sense it is of the greatest utility, but it is also of the greatest value ; for a person lost in the desert, a besieged town, a country ruined by drought, would give anything to obtain some water. When it is said that water has no value, a specific portion of water is intended ; and in this sense it has also very little utility. What is the value of a pail of water at the river bank ? Nothing beyond the trouble of fetching it At the fourth story of a house it is worth, perhaps, a penny or two, representing the pay of the servant who has carried it up. In the middle of Sahara, to the traveller who cannot at any price obtain it elsewhere, it would be worth all the money in the world. Thus its value would increase in the measure of its scarcity or in proportion to the difficulty of replacing it. We may say, then, using words in their usual sense, that an article has so much the more value the more useful it is, whether as answering to an existing want, or as dispensing with the expenditure of money or labour necessary to procure a similar article. All value presupposes some labour, for a man must at least gather the fruit that nature offers to him ; but the value is not in proportion to the labour, for if he picks a nut he will have a much less valuable article than if he detaches a branch of bananas. Marx asserts that the value of the labour-force {arbeitskraft) of the wage-earner is equal to the cost of its production, that is to say to the maintenance of the labourer, and consequently to the hours of labour “socially” necessary for the repro duction of this maintenance. If that be so, it is not easy to see why Marx should attack capital, inasmuch as it pays labour at its just value in giving it the “ necessary wages ” of Ricardo.

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