50 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
buying other things with the twelve pence, 
namely 120 units. The clear loss is 90 units. 
Most psychologists (who are scientists 
devoted to the study of mental phenomena) 
would maintain that you cannot add the 
consumer's surplus of one person to the con 
sumer’s surplus of another person, because no 
relations subsist between the utilities enjoyed 
by different persons. There is no common 
denominator to connect my preference for 
golf, when the alternative is cricket, with the 
preference of somebody else for pictures as 
compared with statuary. Utility in economics, 
it is argued, should be regarded simply 
as an objective representation of the fact of 
choice and not as implying that a choice of 
mine can be brought into preferential relation 
ship with a choice expressed by anybody else. 
We must not assume that choice is measurable 
in units of utility that are the same for all. 
This consideration affords sure foothold for 
the opinion commonly held that price, while it 
measures the marginal utilities of things to one 
individual, does not measure marginal utilities 
as between different individuals. But, in 
support of this opinion, considerations can 
also be adduced from the utilitarian point 
of view which, given that point of view, 
are unassailable. Even were there such