[48] Leading Principles, ch. on "Supply and Demand."
[49] Cf. Social Value, pp. 29-30, and 64-71.
[50] Cf. the discussion, infra, of "T" in the "equation of exchange."
[51] Cotton is chosen for this illustration because it has actually happened, more than once, that a large crop has sold for a smaller aggregate price than a smaller one. Thus, not to take an extreme illustration, the crop of 1910-11 was 11,568,334 bales. That of 1911-12 was 15,553,073 bales. The average price of spot cotton at New York from Oct. 1910 to June, 1911, inclusive, was almost 15c. per lb.; the average price of spot cotton in New York during the same months in 1911-12 was not quite 10 cents per lb. On this basis, the eleven million odd bales of 1910-11 sold for substantially more than the fifteen million odd bales of 1911-12.
[52] Nor is there anything in the hypothesis to reduce the number of times any good needs to be exchanged against money. Rather there would be an increase of exchanging, as speculation took place to bring about the needed readjustments. For the present, I abstract from this. Cf. infra, the chapter on "Volume of Money and Volume of Trade."
[53] I shall recur to this point in the chapter on "The Quantity Theory and International Gold Movements."
[54] Quart. Jour. of Economics, 1894-95, p. 372.
[55] Cf. Davenport, Value and Distribution, and Whitaker, Labor Theory of Value.
[56] Cf. Social Value, pp. 29-30; 64-71.
[57] I incline to the view that the explanation of costs by foregone positive values needs supplementing by a recognition of the rôle of negative social values, and that thus interpreted, "real costs" have a minor part to play. But I have not thought the matter through satisfactorily, and shall find no occasion to use the doctrine in the present volume.