do. If we were self-sufficing and made everything that we wanted for ourselves, value would still be determined by the same principle, because we should still have to decide how much of our work and exertion was worth putting into the production of any article that we desired. It would still be a question of the degree of desirability and the amount of effort that we were prepared to give in exchange for an object that we wanted.
If then the value of everything that has to be exchanged is the sum of things that we can get for it, how is the basis of exchange to be arrived at? Capitalism leaves the question to be decided by competition, so putting the ultimate decision concerning the price of any article of common use into the hands of the average consumer. The consumer cannot, of course, say that he will have an article at a price at which it is impossible to produce it. But he can, under Capitalism, say that if he cannot have it at a price he will take something else instead. "Whoever ultimately fixes Prices," said the New Age of August 14, 1919, "controls thereby the distribution of the wealth of the world." Under Capitalism this power is given to the average consumer, and this is an enormous advantage on the side of Capitalism
