That, however, is contrary to your hypothesis. You say that all the human services are remunerated with fourteen francs, and that the two francs which make up the price of the corn correspond to the value created by nature. In that case, I repeat my question—By what title does any one present himself to receive them? Is it not, unfortunately, too clear that if you give specially the name of proprietor to the man who claims right to these two francs, you justify the too famous saying that Property is theft?
And don’t imagine that this confusion between utility and value shakes only the foundation of landed property. After having led you to contest the rent of land, it leads you to contest also the interest of capital.
In fact, machines, the instruments of labour, are, like the soil, producers of utility. If that utility has value, it is paid for, for the word value implies right to payment. But to whom is the payment made? To the proprietor of the machine, without doubt. Is it for a personal service? Then say at once that the value is in the service. But if you say that it is necessary to make a payment first for the service, and a second payment for the utility produced by the machine independently of the human action, which has been already recompensed, then I ask you to whom does this second payment go, and how has the man who has been already remunerated for all his services a right to demand anything more?
The truth is, that the utility which is produced by nature is gratuitous, and therefore common, like that produced by the instruments of labour. It is gratuitous and common on one condition, that we take the trouble, that we render ourselves the service of appropriating it; or, if we give that trouble to or demand that service from another, that we cede to him in return an equivalent service. It is in these services, thus compared, that value resides, and not at all in natural utility. The exertion may be more or less great—that makes a difference in the value, not in the utility. When we stand near a spring, water is gratuitous for us all on condition that we stoop to lift it. If we ask our neighbour to take that trouble for us, then a convention, a bargain, a value makes its appearance, but that does not make the water otherwise than gratuitous. If we are an hour’s walk from the spring, the basis of the transaction will be different; but the difference is one of degree, not of principle. The value has not, on that account, passed into [p165] the water or into its utility. The water continues still gratuitous on condition of fetching it, or of remunerating those who, by a bargain freely made and discussed, agree to spare us that exertion by making it themselves.
It is the same thing in every case. We are surrounded by utilities, but we must stoop to appropriate them. That exertion is sometimes very simple, and often very complicated. Nothing is more easy, in the general case, than to draw water, the utility of which has been prepared by nature beforehand. It is not so easy to obtain corn, the utility of which nature has equally prepared. This is why these two efforts differ in degree though not in principle. The service is more or less onerous; therefore more or less valuable—the utility is, and remains always, gratuitous.
Suppose an instrument of labour to intervene, what would be the result? That the utility would be more easily obtained. The service has thus less value. We certainly pay less for our books since the invention of printing. Admirable phenomenon, too little understood! You say that the instruments of labour produce Value—you are mistaken—it is Utility, and gratuitous Utility, you should say. As to Value, instead of producing it, they tend more and more to annihilate it.
It is quite true that the person who made the machine has rendered a service. He receives a remuneration by which the value of the product is augmented. This is the reason why we fancy we recompense the utility which the machine produces. It is an illusion. What we remunerate is the services which all those who have co-operated in making and working the machine have rendered to us. So little does the value reside in the utility produced, that even after having recompensed these new services, we acquire the utility on easier and cheaper terms than before.
Let us accustom ourselves to distinguish Utility from Value. Without this there can be no Economic science. I give utterance to no paradox when I affirm that Utility and Value, so far from being identical, or oven similar, are ideas opposed to one another. Want, Effort, Satisfaction: here we have man regarded in an Economic point of view. The relation of utility is with Want and Satisfaction. The relation of Value is with Effort. Utility is the Good, which puts an end to the want by the satisfaction. Value is the Evil, for it springs from the obstacle which is interposed between the want and the satisfaction. But for these obstacles, there would have been no Effort either to make or in exchange; Utility would be infinite, gratuitous, and common, without condition, and the notion of Value would never have [p166] entered into the world. In consequence of these obstacles, Utility is gratuitous only on condition of Efforts exchanged, which, when compared with each other, give rise to Value. The more these obstacles give way before the liberality of nature and the progress of science, the more does utility approximate to the state of being absolutely common and gratuitous, for the onerous condition, and, consequently, the value, diminish as the obstacles diminish. I shall esteem myself fortunate if, by these dissertations, which may appear subtle, and of which I am condemned to fear at once the length and the conciseness, I succeed in establishing this encouraging truth—the legitimate property of value,—and this other truth, equally consoling—the progressive community of utility.
One observation more. All that serves us is useful (uti, servir), and in this respect it is extremely doubtful whether there be anything in the universe (whether in the shape of forces or materials) which is not useful to man.
We may affirm at least, without fear of mistake, that a multitude of things possess a utility which is unknown to us. Were the moon placed either higher or lower than she is, it is very possible that the inorganic kingdom, consequently the vegetable kingdom, consequently also the animal kingdom, might be profoundly modified. But for that star which shines in the firmament while I write, it may be that the human race had not existed. Nature has surrounded us with utilities. The quality of being useful we recognise in many substances and phenomena;—in others, science and experience reveal it to us every day,—in others, again, it may exist in perfection, and yet we may remain for ever ignorant of it.