lotka: objective standard of value 411 



We see, then, that, as a general rule, things (inchiding actions) 

 valued must be things beneficial to the individual and the race. 

 The modification as a general rule is necessary, owing to the fact 

 that the perfect adjustment of the individual to his environment 

 has not yet been brought about. 



These reflections give us the key to a quantitative and objective 

 measure of value: Relative to a given coinmunity, let us call 

 those the true or objective values Vi V2 . . . of commodities 

 A1A2 . . . , the adoption of which by the community would 

 make the adjustment of feelings to actions perfect, and would 

 therefore, in Spencer's words, make ''survivals most numerous." 

 Let us see just what this implies. 



Distribution of labor in several activities. In the mathematical 

 development of the concept of objective value defined above, I 

 will take for my basis a modification of the treatment applied by 

 W. Stanley Jevons- to the discussion of the distribution of labor 

 in the production of several commodities. Following, then, in 

 the main, the line of argument given by Jevons, w^e consider a 

 representative individual, who has the choice of distributing his 

 energies as follows : 



Let labor Li per unit of time be spent in the production of mass 

 Wi per unit of time of a commodity Ai, with a marginal pro- 



ductivity— r- =Pi, and with a concomitant production of fatigue 

 dLi 



/i per unit of time with a marginal productivity—^ =p'i' Simi- 



dLi 



larly, let labor Lo per unit of time be spent in the production of 

 mass nio per unit of time of a commodity Ai, etc. 



The individual considered, whom we suppose to reap the bene- 

 fits of his activity by consuming the products thereof,^ seeks to 

 make the total pleasure of his activities a maximum. If oiidvii 



role of the hedonic factor in determining the reaction, but natural selection would, 

 of course, tend to the survival of those organisms in which the hedonic and bene- 

 ficial factors were best combined." 



2 W. S. Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy, 183. 1911. 



^ This supposition is tacitly implied, though not explicitly stated, in the devel- 

 opment given by Jevons, loc. cit. 



