THE THEORY OF VALUE Cd 
planful relation at all between the various phases of produc- 
tion, in which the relation is regulated in the last instance by 
the social consumption, will inevitably lead to a condition of 
affairs that may in a certain sense be designated as “produc- 
tion for production”. This circumstance has its effect, on the 
one hand, on the psychology of the agents of the capitalist 
mode of production (an analysis of this psychology is a 
part of Bohm-Bawerk’s task) in a quite different manner than 
is assumed by Bohm-Bawerk. Let us now begin with the 
estimates of the sellers of the means of production. They are 
capitalists whose capital is invested in the branches of produc- 
tion which produce means of production. Whereby is the 
estimate of the resulting means of production determined on 
the part of the owner of the specific enterprise? He by no 
means estimates his commodity (“productive commodities”) 
by the marginal utility of the product manufactured with its 
aid; rather, he estimates his commodity on the basis of the 
“price” he can get for it in the market; in Bohm-Bawerk’s 
terminology, he values it according to its subjective exchange 
value '** Let us now assume that the above-mentioned “pro- 
ducer” introduces a new technique and increases production; 
he is now in a position to throw a greater number of goods— 
means of production—on the market. In what direction will 
the evaluation of the individual unit commodity be altered 
thereby? It will of course go down. But this decline will 
not, in his eyes, be effected by the decline in the prices of the 
products manufactured from his wares, but rather by his own 
effort to lower prices in order thus to win his competitors’ 
customers and thus attain higher profits. 
Let us now turn to the other party to the transaction, the 
purchasers, in the present instance, the capitalists of the branch 
of production, producing articles of consumption with the aid 
of production commodities purchased from the capitalists of 
the first category (production of production commodities). 
Their evaluation will of course take into consideration the price 
at which the product is offered; yet this assumed price of the 
product may at best serve as an upper limit. Actually the 
estimate of the production commodities is always lower; and 
the amount by which the estimate of the production com- 
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