34 SEVENTEENTH REPORT. 



will be the quantitative equivalent, in productiveness^ of that neces- 

 sarily attendant upon the task of producing the other. 



This being true, — and under normal conditions, involving free 

 competition, anj' marked departure from this rule would be sug- 

 gestive of inequity, — it must follow that each party to an equitable 

 exchange does for the other as much as the other does for him. That 

 is to say, each party to the exchange renders the other a service 

 that, measured by the gravity of the obstacles encountered, the 

 hindrances surmounted, is the quantitative equivalent in helpfulness 

 of the service the other renders him. Then, too, must the service 

 each renders the other prove fair and equitable convpensation for 

 the other's service in his behalf. 



Under such conditions, and under no other, can we have an 

 equitable division of labor by and through an exchange of Labor's 

 products. Then, and only then, does each party to an equitable ex- 

 change get value received for his labor, in producing and supplying 

 the other with the product parted with. In the usefulness of a ser- 

 vice, whose sole function it is to relieve another of the specific cost 

 impairment that otherwise must have attended his acquisition of a 

 needful but not freely available product, do we find that form of 

 ntilit}' known as value, which, it has been erroneously assumed, can- 

 not be dissociated from the utility of the product itself, considered 

 purely as a means of ministering to some specific need. That the 

 utility of a service that supplies a needful product cannot exceed the 

 utility of the product supplied is as apparent as the fact that a 

 ^'stream cannot rise above its fountain." 



For convenience in considering the economic phenomena involved 

 in an equitable division of labor, by and through the only fair and 

 equitable, if not the only practicable, method, namely, that of com- 

 petitive equivalence in the gravities of the two hindrances it has 

 been or will be necessary for labor to surmount in order to render 

 the two products necessarily involved in every complete exchange, 

 available for that purpose, let us introduce one X, who will stand 

 for or be named to represent one who, as a consequence of both like 

 experience and like ajjtitude in the two lines of endeavor repre- 

 sented by any two products whose equitable exchange is under con- 

 sideration, is endowed with equal capacity to produce both; that 

 is to say, one whose capacity to surmount one of any two competi- 

 tivelij equivalent hindrances is on such perfect parity with his ca- 

 pacity to surmount the other that the labor cost attendant upon 

 the production of one of the products involved is identical in gravity 

 with that attendant upon his production of the other. 



When we rcilect that the ranks of labor in every important line 



