Chapter 3. Wealth and Welfare
1. What is it to be economical of money?
2. Why did Crusoe work at all?
3. When he began to work at one thing, why did he ever stop to work at another?
4. What is the difference in utility between the water in a solid mountain reservoir and the same water when it is flooding the valley?
5. Does it change the utility of a load of powder to touch a match to it?
6. Is water useful? Is dynamite?
7. Is the last bait worth more when the fish are biting well?
8. Are the following wealth: food, tobacco, medicine, whisky, good looks, good health, a wooden leg?
9. Is a book full of useful information, wealth? Is a head full of useful knowledge, wealth?
10. Is a ship at the bottom of the ocean, or gold in the mine, wealth?
11. Is well-being in proportion to wealth? Why?
12. Are services, music, a theatrical performance, a gambler's pack of cards, wealth?
Note.—The theory of marginal utility broadly outlined in chapters 3-5 has been worked out in detail by the group of writers called the Austrian economists. The mechanism, or the technique, of marginal utility and exchange as they conceive of it, is essentially what this text seeks to explain. Our application and development of the conception of marginal utility differs from theirs, however, in ways that will appear as the text advances.
For more detailed discussion of many points in chapter 3, see Smart, Introduction to the Theory of Value, pp. 9-17; Wieser, Natural Value, pp. 3-16; Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital, pp. 129-153.