FOOTNOTES:
[45] This statement must be qualified, as subsequently appears. Even in Wieser's "natural" community, there are psychic factors in value other than mere utility. See chap. xiii, infra.
[46] For further discussion of this doctrine, see chapters iv and viii of this book. Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory, p. 149, n., says: "One gives donations, charities, and the like, when the importance of such, measured by their marginal utility, is very much higher as regards the well-being Footnote: of the receiver than as regards that of the giver, and almost never when the converse is the case." The assumption that emotional states in different minds can be compared is very clear in this passage. Cf. Veblen, Thorstein, "Professor Clark's Economics," Q. J. E., Feb., 1908, p. 170, n.: "Among modern economic hedonists, including Mr. Clark, there stands over from the better days of the order of nature a presumption, disavowed, but often decisive, that the sensational response to the like mechanical impact of the stimulating body is the same in different individuals. But, while this presumption stands ever in the background, and helps to many important conclusions,... few modern hedonists would question the statement in the text" [i.e., that comparison of emotional intensity in one man's mind with emotional intensity in another man's mind is impossible]. In the light of the psychological doctrine which I shall maintain in the chapter on the psychology of value, this whole question will seem beside the point, considered as a psychological question. But my interest here is in making clear the psychological implications of the Austrian theory, as I wish for the present to consider their theory on their own ground.
[47] Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser are certainly seeking an objective value, but Jevons and Pareto are concerned simply with the ratio. See Wieser, Natural Val., p. 53, n. Jevons, Pareto, and Böhm-Bawerk are discussed, with reference to this point, in chap. iv.
[48] This law is first set forth by Professor Clark in an article in the Q. J. E., vol. viii, "A Universal Law of Economic Variation." See also, The Distribution of Wealth, pp. 210-45. A brief exposition of the doctrine is found in Seligman, Principles, 1905, pp. 185-88.