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The Quarterly Journal of Economics

Published by Harvard University

Books, periodicals, and manuscript to be addressed, EDITORS of QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Cambridge, Mass.

Business letters to be addressed, HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2 Univeralty Hall, Cambridge, Mass. Subscription, $3.00 a year.

1.

CONTENTS FOR FEBRUARY, 1915

WOMEN'S WORK AND WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES

II. THE CONTEST IN CONGRESS BETWEEN ORGANIZED LABOR

IV. MONOPOLY OR COMPETITION AS THE BASIS OF A GOV-
ERNMENT TRUST POLICY.

V. WAGES BOARDS IN AUSTRALIA
II. Boards Outside Victoria

III. Organization and Procedure

VI. DEPRECIATION AND RATE CONTROL

A Criticism

C. E. Persons

Philip G. Wright

C. Bertrand Thompson

Robert Liefmann
M. B. Hammond

CONTENTS FOR MAY, 1915

I. AMERICAN GOLD AND SILVER PRODUCTION IN THE FIRST
HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Appendix: Monetary Values in Spanish America

II. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN TAXATION IN OHIO

STATISTICAL INDICES OF BUSINESS CONDITIONS
WAGES BOARDS IN AUSTRALIA

III.

IV.

IV. Social and Economic Results of Wages Boards

Joseph S. Davis
Allyn A. Young
Joseph S. Davis
Allyn A. Young

Clive Day

Willard C. Fisher

Thornton Cooke
F. W. Taussig

C. H. Haring

Oliver C. Lockhart Melvin T. Copeland M. B. Hammond

REVIEWS:

Moore's Economic Cycles

Two Biographies of Inventors: Dickinson's Life of Fulton and
Morse's Letters of Morse

NOTES AND MEMORANDA:

The Economic Synthesis: A Reply

Depreciation and Rate Control: A Question of Justice

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Philip G. Wright

F. W. Taussig

Achille Loria
John Bauer

[Entered as Second-class Mail Matter.

THE

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

OF

ECONOMICS

AUGUST, 1915

THE CONCEPT OF VALUE

SUMMARY

Need of enlarged concepts, 663. — The “ratio " argument nonessential, 664. The word "rate" might avoid unnecessary verbal implications, 668. — Relation and quality two phases of one fact, 672.

THE Concept of value is the core of economic thinking, and modern economics is older than American independence, yet the builders of the science are still disputing what value is, or how it shall be conceived. This is altogether necessary and proper, for the concept is by no means in final shape. Indeed, one may hazard the prediction that progress in economic philosophy in the next half century will hinge on the adoption of new and enlarged meanings for its fundamental terms. Only so can we do for the twentieth century as much as our classical forefathers did for their time. It is a question how long nineteenth century formulations will stand the strain of twentieth century development. Our growing mass of economic regulations and social reforms, our general institutional iconoclasm, are a challenge to the values based on free exchange, and the final answer has not yet been given. Theories of conservation and compulsory insurance may be grafted upon the stem of marginal utility, but they will not grow there spon

taneously. They represent clashes of values for which the economist has furnished no adequate common denominator. It is fruitless to claim that these are not economic values but values of some other sort; ethical or what you will. The same is true of the aesthetic value of a picture or the dietetic value of a roast of beef. The test is that the economist must deal with them.

The socialists have a sufficiently clean-cut philosophy covering these vexed questions of reform, and writers like Patten, Veblen, Hobson, and Davenport deal with the fundamental problem, each in his own way. Economists in general cannot afford to become as those who would put new wine in old bottles. There are questions of social interpretation at issue which are real and important. But just for this reason it is peculiarly unfortunate if the discussion runs off upon non-essential matters and is thus side-tracked. Time is worse than wasted which is spent on merely verbal argument, or in disputing the claims of rival concepts which involve a "distinction without a difference," and the excuse for the present excursion into this field is the hope that thereby some of this intellectual waste motion may be saved and real problems be attacked more directly.

It seems to the writer that certain non-essentials have intruded themselves and should be eliminated. One of these is verbal. In the long-standing debate whether value is a quantitative thing or a mere relation, some part of the battle has seemed to hinge on the mere use of the phrase "ratio of exchange." Of those who hold that value is a relation some have called that relation a ratio. And out of this innocent-looking term has grown one of those misunderstandings, those strange failures of mind to connect with mind, which stultify so much good argument.