Mr. Laboringman: Just what do you mean by the value of anything? That is, what is value anyway?
Mr. Manufacturer: I have been studying over that very thing, and I believe I can give you a definition that will wash. The value of anything is measured by the use to which it is put, and is expressed in anything for which it is exchanged.
Mr. Farmer: I have been mulling over this question of value a little myself, and I think that Mr. Manufacturer has that about right. I worked it out this way: I have an old horse down on the farm that I traded for, giving Hiram Johnson, my neighbor, a mule. That mule was a mighty handy animal. I could do anything with him on the farm, but he was a little too handy with his hind legs occasionally, so I traded him off to let him practice on my neighbor Johnson. Now the value of that mule was that horse that I got in exchange for it; and the value of that horse was the mule. So, too, if I traded a hog for a sheep the value of the hog is the sheep, and the value of the sheep is the hog.
Mr. Merchant: Hold on just a minute before you go any further, as I want to know whether anyone here can tell me what intrinsic value is. We heard so much about that during the campaign of 1896; and I want to know whether there is anything in it or not. I ran up against the same expression in one of the books that I thumbed away back in 1896. And today you sometimes hear men say that gold has intrinsic value. Now, according to your definition, if no one could use gold, or rather did not use it and you could not exchange it for anything else, it would not have value.
Mr. Banker: Precisely so. Nothing is more absolutely true than that. Gold, like everything else, gets its value from the demand for it, which comes from its use and its consequent exchangeability.
Mr. Lawyer: That is undoubtedly true, all the value that gold has arises from its use and exchangeability, and its exchangeability arises from its universal use.
It may be said, possibly, that the value of anything is measured by the use to which it can be put; but I believe that it is all covered by the latter part of the definition given by Mr. Manufacturer: The value of anything is any other thing for which it can be exchanged. Anything has value when it is exchangeable; when it is not exchangeable it has no value. What is really more in keeping with our common everyday language, is the definition of the Roman Law, "The value of anything is what it can be sold for."
Mr. Banker: Yes, that is true in one sense, but I think we had better make a distinction between receiving money and something else. If you exchange anything for money, the amount of money received is more properly called its price.
Mr. Lawyer: You are right; I think we should make just that distinction: "The value of anything is the thing you receive in exchange for it." The price of anything is the money you receive in exchange for it. Of course in everyday conversation, we are constantly using value and price indiscriminately. We ask, what is the value of something, when we want to know the price of it.
Uncle Sam: Well, you have made short work of two topics or points raised already.