There are several other cases of interdependence to which the new school has drawn attention, as, for example, that of certain complementary goods whose values cannot vary independently. What is the use of one glove or one stocking without another, of a motor-car without petrol, of a table service without glasses? Not only is this true of consumption goods; it also applies to production goods. The value of coke is necessarily connected with the value of gas, for you cannot produce the one without the other, and this applies to all by-products. The possibility of utilising a by-product always lowers the price of the main commodity.
IV: CRITICISM OF THE HEDONISTIC DOCTRINES
The triumph of the new doctrines has been by no means universal. England, Italy, and Germany, and even the United States, where one would least expect enthusiasm for abstract speculation, have supplied many disciples, and several professorial chairs and learned reviews have been placed at their disposal. But up to the present France seems altogether closed to them. Not only was Walras, the doyen of the new school, forced to leave France to find in foreign lands a more congenial environment for the promulgation of his ideas, but until recently it would have been quite impossible to mention a single book or a single course of lectures given either in a university or anywhere else in which these doctrines were taught or even criticised.[1131]
We might have understood this antipathy more easily if France, like Germany, had already been annexed by the Historical school. There would have been some truth in a theory of incompatibility of tempers under circumstances of that kind. But the great majority of French economists were still faithful to the Liberal tradition, and one might naturally have expected a hearty welcome for a school that is essentially Neo-Classical and pretends nothing more than to give a fuller demonstration of the theories already taught by the old masters.[1132]
The mere fact, however, that they presumed to draw fresh lessons or to deduce new principles from those already formulated by the older writers appeared an unwarranted interference with doctrines that had hitherto seemed good enough for everyone. Criticism of that kind, of course, is not worth serious attention.
An easier line of criticism, and one very frequently adopted, is to maintain that the wants and desires of mankind are incapable of measurement and that mathematical causations can never be reconciled with the doctrine of free will. But such claims as these were never put forward by the Mathematical school. On the contrary, it has always recognised that every man is free to follow his own bent—trahit sua quemque voluptas—merely inquiring how man is to act if he is to obtain the maximum satisfaction out of the means at his disposal and to overcome the obstacles that stand in his way. Neither has it ever ventured to say that such and such a man is forced to sell corn or to buy it, but simply that if he does buy or sell it will be with a determination to make the best of the bargain, and that such being the case the buying or selling will take place in such and such a fashion. It further claims that the action of a number of individuals under similar circumstances is equally calculable. So is the movement of the balls on the billiard-table, but that does not interfere with the liberty of the players.[1133]
Nor do they pretend to be able to measure our desires. What they do—and it is not so absurd after all, because we are all doing it—is to express in pounds, shillings, and pence the value we put upon the acquisition or loss of an object that satisfies our desire. Moreover, the Mathematical school does not make much use of numbers, but confines itself to algebraical notation and geometrical figures—that is, to the consideration of abstract quantities. To write down a problem in the form of a mathematical equation is to show that the problem can be solved and to give the conditions under which solution is alone possible. Beyond this the economist never goes. He never tries to fix the price of corn, whatever it may be; he leaves that to the speculators.[1134]
From the other side—that is, from the historians, interventionists, solidarists, socialists—comes criticism which is quite as bitter and not a whit easier to justify. The Hedonistic doctrine appears to them simply as a fresh attempt to restore the optimistic teaching of the Manchester school, with its individualism and egoism, its free competition and general harmony, its insidious justification of interest, rent, and starvation wages—in the name of some imaginary entity which they call marginal utility. In short, it looks just like another proof of the thesis that the present economic order is the best possible—a proof that is all the less welcome seeing that it claims to be scientific and mathematically infallible.
This sort of criticism is nothing less than caricature. It would be futile to deny that the new school has undertaken the task of carrying on the work of the Classical writers, but what possible harm can there be in that? The royal road of science often turns out to be nothing better than a very narrow path—but it does lead somewhere. There would be no progress in economic science or in any other if every generation were to throw overboard all the work done by its predecessors. What the Hedonistic school has tried to do is to distinguish between the good and the bad work of the Classical writers and to retain the one while rejecting the other.