[53] Cours d'Économie Politique, vol. i, pp. 1-40. The numerals in the text refer to pages in this volume.
[54] Value and Distribution, p. 444.
[55] Professor Davenport's attitude on this point we shall discuss more fully in chapter viii.
[56] Ibid., pp. 184, n., and 330-31.
[57] It is not wholly clear whether or not Böhm-Bawerk means his "objective value in exchange" to be considered as an absolute or as a relative concept. His formal definition ("Grundzüge der Theorie des wirtschaft lichen Güterwerts," Conrad's Jahrbücher, N. F., xiii, 1886, p. 5) is as follows: "Hierunter ist zu verstehen die objective Geltung der Güter im Tausch, oder mit anderen Worten, die Möglichkeit für sie im Austausch eine Quantität anderer wirtschaftlicher Güter zu erlangen, diese Möglichkeit als eine Kraft oder Eigenschaft der ersteren Güter gedacht." The concluding phrase would seem to point to an absolute conception, as would also his criticism of the expressions, "ratio of exchange," "Austauschverhältnis," and "Tauschfuss" (Ibid., p. 478, n.): "Diese Ausdrücke haben nämlich eine Nüance an sich, die es unmöglich macht, sie sprachlich den Gütern als Eigenschaft beizulegen, oder von einer grösseren oder geringeren Höhe derselben zu sprechen." But, on the other hand, his identification of the concept, "objective value in exchange," with the term "power in exchange" of the English economists (in both the passages referred to) would seem to make the relative implication in the concept unavoidable, and perhaps there is no point to raising the question. His criticism of Hermann in the Capital and Interest (p. 203) is based on the relative conception of value. Cf. our discussion of the practical usage of the Austrians in chapters xi and xviii.
[58] Whether price be defined as a quantity of goods given for a good, or as the ratio between the two quantities of goods exchanged, is for present purposes immaterial.
[59] Positive Theory, p. 132.
[60] See chapter vi, infra.