Made and Printed by the Replika Process in Great Britain by 3 Amen Corner, London, E.C.4 U of M Binderv 330 PREFACE. THE subject of the following Dissertation is generally allowed to be one, both of high importance and of great difficulty. "From no source," says Mr. Ricardo, "do so many errors, and so much difference of opinion in the science of political economy proceed, as from the vague ideas which are attached to the word value." And the same eminent writer, in the preface to the third edition of the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, emphatically terms it a difficult subject. "In this edition," says he, "I have endeavoured to explain more fully than in the last, my opinion on the difficult subject of VALUE." 523662 It is remarked by another author, that "he who is fully master of the subject of Value is already a good political economist." "Even for its own sake," he adds, "the subject is a matter of curious speculation: but in relation to Political Economy it is all in all for most of the errors (and, what is much worse than errors, most of the perplexity) prevailing in this science take their rise from this source*." : Although much has been written and many efforts have been made to overcome the obstacles, which present themselves in this part of economical science, it may be affirmed with little risk of contradiction, that the success has not been in proportion to the labour bestowed. There appears to have been too little circumspection at the outset. The groundwork of the subject has not been examined The Templars' Dialogues on Political Economy, in the London Magazine for April, 1824, pages 341 and 342. with that minuteness and closeness of attention which are due to its importance. Writers on political economy have generally contented themselves with a short definition of the term value, and a distinction of the property denoted by it into several kinds, and have then proceeded to employ the word with various degrees of laxity. Not one of them has brought into distinct view and discussion the nature of the idea represented by this term, or the inferences which a full perception of its meaning immediately suggests; and the neglect of this preliminary labour has created differences of opinion and perplexities of thought, which otherwise could never have existed. There has been still more laxity, both of thought and expression, regarding the measurement of value. The vague manner in which the word measure, necessarily of frequent occurrence in the pages of the political economist, is constantly employed, would surprise even the metaphysician, who is well aware of the extensive prevalence and unbounded influence of the chameleon-like properties of language. No writer (as far as the author of the following pages is acquainted with works on economical science) has ever taken the trouble to analyse the meaning involved in the phrase. To measure value is an expression apparently so simple, so precise, so free from obscurity, that it seems superfluous to bestow a single inquiry on its import. The consequence has been what it generally proves on such occasions: the term has been used without any clear perception of a definite sense; several ideas have been unconsciously and indiscriminately interchanged, and analogies, which had merely an imaginary existence, have been assumed as incontrovertible premises or universally conceded postulates. |