Two men agree that ice is a good thing in summer, and coal a [p144] still better thing in winter. They supply two of our wants—the one cools, the other warms us. We do not fail to remark that the Utility of these commodities consists in certain material properties suitably adapted to our material organs. We remark, moreover, that among those properties, which physics and chemistry might enumerate, we do not find value, or anything like it. How, then, have we come to regard value as inherent in matter and material?
If the two men we have supposed wished to obtain the satisfaction of their wants, without acting in concert, each would labour to provide for himself both the articles wanted. If they came to an understanding, the one would provide coal for two from the coal-mine, the other ice for two from the mountain. This presupposes a bargain. They must then adjust the relation of the two services exchanged. They would take all circumstances into account—the difficulties to be overcome, the dangers to be braved, the time to be spent, the pains to be taken, the skill to be displayed, the risks to be run, the possibility of providing for their wants in some other way, etc., etc. When they came to an understanding, the Economist would say, The two services exchanged are worth each other. In common language, it would be said by metonymy—Such a quantity of coal is worth such a quantity of ice, as if the value had passed physically into these bodies. But it is easy to see that if the common form of expression enables us to state the results, the scientific expression alone reveals to us the true causes.
In place of two services and two persons, the agreement may embrace a greater number, substituting a complex Exchange for simple Barter. In that case, money would intervene to facilitate the exchange. Need I say that the principle of value would be neither changed nor displaced?
But I must add here a single observation àpropos of coal. It may be that there is only one coal-mine in a country, and that an individual has got possession of it. If so, this man will make conditions; that is to say, he will put a high price upon his services, or pretended services.
We have not yet come to the question of right and justice, to the distinction between true and loyal services, and those that are fraudulent and pretended. What concerns us at this moment is, to consolidate the true theory of value, and to disembarrass it of one error with which Economical science is infected. When we say that what nature has done or given, she has done or given gratuitously, and that the notion of value is excluded, we are answered by an analysis of the price of coal, or some other natural product. It is acknowledged, indeed, that the greater part of this [p145] price is the remuneration of the services of man. One man has excavated the ground, another has drained away the water, another has raised the fuel to the surface, another has transported it to its destination; and it is the aggregate of these works, it is allowed, which constitutes nearly the entire value. Still there remains one portion of the value which does not correspond with any labour or service. This is the value of the coal as it lies under the soil, still virgin, and untouched by human labour. It forms the share of the proprietor; and, since this portion of Value is not of human creation, it follows necessarily that it is the creation of nature.
I reject that conclusion, and I premonish the reader that, if he admits it to a greater or less extent, he cannot proceed a single step farther in the science. No; the action of nature does not create Value, any more than the action of man creates matter. Of two things one: either the proprietor has usefully co-operated towards the final result, and has rendered real services, and then the portion of value which he has conferred on the coal enters into my definition; or else he obtrudes himself as a parasite, and, in that case, he has had the address to get paid for services which he has not rendered, and the price of the coal is unduly augmented. That circumstance may prove, indeed, that injustice has entered into the transaction; but it cannot overturn the theory so as to authorize us to say that this portion of value is material,—that it is combined as a physical element with the gratuitous gifts of Providence. Here is the proof of it. Cause the injustice to cease, if injustice there be, and the corresponding value will disappear, which it assuredly would not have done had the value been inherent in matter and of natural creation.[30]
Let us now pass to one of our most imperious wants, that of security.
A certain number of men land upon an inhospitable coast. They begin to work. But each of them finds himself constantly drawn away from his employment by the necessity of defending himself against wild beasts, or men still more savage. Besides the time and the exertion which he devotes directly to the work of defence, he has to provide himself with arms and munitions. At length it is discovered that, on the whole, infinitely less power and effort would be wasted if some of them, abandoning other work, were to devote themselves exclusively to this service. This [p146] duty is assigned to those who are most distinguished for address, courage, and vigour—and they improve in an art which they make their exclusive business. Whilst they watch over the public safety, the community reaps from its labours, now no longer interrupted, more satisfactions for all than it loses by the diversion of ten men from other avocations. This arrangement is in consequence made. What do we see in it but a new progress in the division of occupations, inducing and requiring an exchange of services?
Are the services of these soldiers, guards, militiamen, or whatever you may call them, productive? Undoubtedly they are, seeing that the sole object of the arrangement is to increase the proportion which the aggregate Satisfactions of the community bear to the general efforts.
Have they Value? They must have it, since we esteem them, appreciate them, estimate their worth, and, in fine, pay for them with other services with which they are compared.