NOMINAL VALUE.

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what advance in argument is effected by
telling us, that value estimated in one way is
real, but in another nominal? The value of any
commodity denoting its relation in exchange to
some other commodity, we may speak of it as
money-value, corn-value, cloth-value, according
to the commodity with which it is compared ;
and hence there are a thousand different kinds
of value, as many kinds of value as there are
commodities in existence, and all are equally
real and equally nominal. We gain nothing in
perspicuity or precision by the use of these
latter terms, but, on the contrary, they entail
upon us a heavy incumbrance of vagueness
and ambiguity and unproductive discussion.
Of the latter we have a good exemplification
in the Templars’ Dialogues on Political Economy,
 dialogue the fourth, which contains much
ingenious reasoning, founded altogether on this
distinction. It would not probably have been
written, however, had the author attended to
the simple fact, that value must always imply
value in something, and unless that something