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Chapter VII

Value

It is impossible to escape the conclusion that there have been, in the past, many hazardous barriers in the way of a frank consideration of economic value. Stating the case very mildly, if the definition of economic value fell properly under the jurisdiction of political economy, then anything in the way of questioning could hardly fail to be impolitic. This, of course, is happily no longer so.

Nevertheless, the dead-line of tradition is still honored to some extent; and it takes a little boldness to step over it, and traverse a territory so long guarded by game-keepers.

We have had inklings in regard to value from the philosophers, who, by dealing in abstract terms, were able to indulge in trespass, and yet, even though these essays in elucidation could be made without political offense, it was one thing to fly a philosophic kite over the areas of economic privilege, and quite another thing to break down the fences.

Whether we look to the Platonic conception of reason guiding will, and of man being the measure of things, or to the Christian conception of impulse enriched by self-restraint, we find that the same fundamental idea of value is expressed,—namely, that it lies in the individual and is due to the striking of a just balance between impulse and order.

Will, impulse, individuality; reason, self-restraint, order;—these are obviously philosophical groupings of the cause and condition of value, if man is, in fact, the measure of things.

These intimations should have provided the economist with the final clue to value, and laid bare a principle which is common to pure kinetics and all other effort toward self-expression, whether we think in terms of the formal arts or that comprehensive art which includes them all—the art of living—the technology of which we call economics. All these

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