12. Are services, music, a theatrical performance, a gambler's pack of cards, wealth?
Note.—The theory of marginal utility broadly outlined in chapters 3-5 has been worked out in detail by the group of writers called the Austrian economists. The mechanism, or the technique, of marginal utility and exchange as they conceive of it, is essentially what this text seeks to explain. Our application and development of the conception of marginal utility differs from theirs, however, in ways that will appear as the text advances.
For more detailed discussion of many points in chapter 3, see Smart, Introduction to the Theory of Value, pp. 9-17; Wieser, Natural Value, pp. 3-16; Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital, pp. 129-153.
Chapter 4. The Nature of Demand
1. Give illustrations of the difference between desire and demand.
2. Do people actually expend their incomes so as to get the maximum utility judged by a standard they would admit to be morally sound?
3. What causes a demand for an additional supply of food? Of books?
4. If you never eat corn-bread, will the failure of the corn-crop affect your grocery bill?
5. Give examples you have seen of a higher price of one thing causing an increasing use of another.
6. Do you buy what you most desire?
7. Give examples of cases where supply is fixed, and demand varies.