And there is no fault in the deduction granted the existence of the scale of values, which we have just illustrated by an example. Granted the existence: but, supposing this to be an illusion of ours? If the man in the example, instead of being the homo œconomicus were the homo utopicus or heterocosmicus, not to be found even in imaginative constructions?
This is precisely my opinion. The supposed scale of values is an absurdity. When the homo œconomicus in the given example, selects a, all the other actions (b, c, d, e, f, ...) are not for him values smaller than a; they are merely non-a; they are what he rejects; they are non-values.
If then the homo œconomicus could not have a, he would be acting under different conditions: under conditions without a. Change the conditions and the economic action—as is well known—changes also. And let us suppose that the conditions are such that, for the individual acting, b represents the action selected by him; and c, d, e, f, ... those which he omits to do, and which are all non-b, i.e. have no value.
If the conditions change again and it is supposed that the individual decides on c, and then on d, and then on e, and so on. These different economic actions, each arising under particular conditions, are incommensurable amongst themselves. They are different; but each is perfectly adapted to the given conditions, and can only be judged in reference to these conditions.
But then what are these numbers, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 ...? They are symbols, symbols of what? What is the reality beneath the numerical symbol? The reality is the alteration in the actual conditions; and these numbers show a succession of changes: neither more nor less than is indicated by the alphabetic series, for which they are substituted.
The absurdity involved in the notion of greater or smaller values is, in short, the assumption that an individual may be at the same moment under different conditions. The homo œconomicus is not at the same moment in a, b, c, d, e, f ... but when he is in b, he is no longer in a; when he is in c he is no longer in b. He has before him only one action, approved by him; this action rules out all the others which are infinite, and which for him are only actions not preferred (non-values).
Certainly physical objects form part of the data of economics; and these, just because they are physical, are measurable. But economics does not consider physical things and objects, but actions. The physical object is merely the brute matter of an economic act: in measuring it we remain in the physical world, we do not pass over to that of economics, or else, when measured, the economic fact has become volatile. You say that 'political economy only concerns itself with choices, which fall on things that are variable in quantity and capable of measurement'; but pardon me, dear friend, you would be much perplexed if you had to justify this wholly arbitrary limitation; and if you had to show that the attribute measurabilility influences in any way the attribute of belonging to economics.
I think that I have explained, shortly, but adequately for a wise man like yourself, the reasons why the mechanical conception of the economic principle is untenable. If calculations and measurements come into problems that are called economic they do so just in so far as these are not problems in pure economics.
This non-mechanical datum, which is an economic datum, you call choice. And this is all right. But to choose means to choose consciously. A choice made unconsciously, is either not a choice or not unconscious. You speak of the unconscious actions of man; but these cannot be the actions of the man in so far as he is man but movements of man in so far as he is also animal. They are instinctive movements; and instinct is not choice except metaphorically. Hence the examples you bring forward of dogs, of cats, of sparrows, of rats, and of asses from Buridano, are not facts of choice; and hence are not economic facts. You consider animal economics as an unfruitful science, which exhausts itself in descriptions. Look more closely and you will see that this science does not exist. An economics of the animals, understood in the sense of the naturalists, has not been written, not because it is not worth while, but because it is impossible to write it. Whence could it be obtained unless from books such as the Roman de Renart and the Animali parlanti?
This analysis ought to lead us to conceive of an economic datum as an act of man; i.e. as a fact of human activity.