last analysis is simply what it is in its primitive form of barter, the exchange of commodities for commodities. The carrying on of trade by the use of money does not change its essential character, but merely permits the various exchanges, of which trade is made up, to be divided into parts or steps, and thus more easily effected. When commodities are exchanged for money, but half a full exchange is completed. When a man sells a thing for money, it is to use the money in buying some other thing—and it is only as money has this power that any one wants or will take it."
Well is it said by Mr. Mill:[1] "Almost every speculation respecting the economical interest of a society thus constituted, implies some theory of Value; the smallest error on that subject infects with corresponding error all our other conclusions; and anything vague or misty in our conception of it, creates confusion and uncertainty in everything else. Happily, there is nothing in the law of Value which remains for the present or any future writer to clear up; the theory of the subject is complete. * * * The word Value, when used without adjunct, always means, in political economy, value in exchange. * * * We shall henceforth understand * * * by the value or exchange value of a thing, its general power of purchasing; the command which its possession gives over purchasable commodities in general. * * * The distinction between Value and Price * * * is so obvious, as scarcely to seem in need of any illustration. But in political economy the greatest errors arise from overlooking the most obvious truths. Simple as this distinction is, it has consequences with which a reader unacquainted with the subject would
- ↑ John Stuart Mill, Political Economy, Vol. I, pages 420 to 424.
