in the theory of value and prices. 87 



isfaction by similar gestures, language, facial ex^^ression, and gen- 

 eral conduct we speak of their satisfaction as very much the same. 

 What however this may mean in the " noumenal " world is a mys- 

 tery. If on the other hand differences of age, sex, temperament, etc. 

 enter, comparison becomes relatively diiRcult and inappropriate. 

 Very little could be meant by comparing the desire of a Fuegian for 

 a shell-fish with that of a college conchologist for the same object 

 and surely nothing is meant by comparing the desires of the shellfish 

 itself with that of either of its tormentors. 



When statistics becomes a developed science it may be that the 

 wealth of one age or country will be compared with that of another 

 as '* gain " not money value. If the annual commercial product of 

 the U. S. was in 1880 ^9,000,000,000* and by increased facilities for 

 production prices are lowered so much that the product in 1890 is 

 only valued at (say) $8,000,000,000 it proves a gain not a loss. The 

 country would be the richest possible when all things were as plenti- 

 ful as water, bore no price, and had a total valuation of zero. Now 

 money value simply measures utility by a marginal standard which 

 is constantly changing. Statistical comparison must always be rough 

 but it can be better than that. The statistician might begin with 

 those utilities in which men are most alike — food utilities — and those 

 disutilities in which they are most alike — as the disutilities of de- 

 finite sorts of manual labor. By these standards he could measure 

 and correct the money standardf and if the utility curves for vari- 

 ous classes of articles were constructed he could make rough sta- 

 tistics of total utility, total disutility, gain, and utility-value which 

 would have considerable meaning. Men are much alike in their di- 

 gestion and fatigue. If a food or a labor standard is established it 

 can be easily ap])lied to the utilities in regard to which men are 

 unlike as of clothes, houses, furniture, books, works of art, etc. 



These inquiries however do not belong here. Let us instead of add- 

 ing to the meaning of utility do the very opposite and strip it of all 

 attributes unessential to our purpose of determining objective prices 



* Edward Atkinson, Distribution of products, p. 141. 



f Cf. Edgeworth, On the method of ascertaininp; and measuring variations in 

 the value of the monetary standard, Report of the British Ass(K'iation ior the 

 Advancement of Science, 1887. 



