John says to Peter, I want a cup. I could make it for myself, but if you will make it for me, you will render me a service, for which I will pay you by an equivalent service.
Peter accepts the offer, and, in consequence, sets out in quest of suitable materials, mixes them, manipulates them, and, in fine, makes the article which John wants.
It is very evident that here it is the service which determines the value. The dominant word in the transaction is facio. And if, afterwards, the value is incorporated with the product, it is only because it flows from the service, which combines the labour executed by Peter with the labour saved to John.
Now, it may happen that John may make frequently the same proposal to Peter, and that other people may also make it; so that Peter can foresee with certainty the kind of services which will be demanded of him, and prepare himself for rendering them. He may say, I have acquired a certain degree of skill in making cups. Experience tells me that cups supply a want which must be satisfied, and I am therefore enabled to manufacture them beforehand.
Henceforth John says no longer to Peter, facio ut facias, but facio ut des. If he in turn has foreseen the wants of Peter, and laboured beforehand to provide for them, he can then say do ut des. [p175]
But in what respect, I ask, does this progress, which flows from human foresight, change the nature and origin of value? Does service cease to be its foundation and measure? As regards the true idea of value, what difference does it make whether Peter, before he makes the cup, waits till there is a demand for it, or, foreseeing a future demand, manufactures the article beforehand?
There is another remark which I would make here. In human life, inexperience and thoughtlessness precede experience and foresight. It is only in the course of time that men are enabled to foresee each other’s wants, and to make preparations for satisfying them. Logically, the facio ut facias must precede the do ut des. The latter is at once the fruit and the evidence of a certain amount of knowledge diffused, of experience acquired, of political security obtained, of a certain confidence in the future,—in a word, of a certain degree of civilisation. This social prescience, this faith in a future demand, which causes us to provide a present supply; this sort of intuitive acquaintance with statistics which each possesses in a greater or less degree, and which establishes a surprising equilibrium between our wants and the means of supplying them, is one of the most powerful and efficacious promoters of human improvement. To it we owe the division of labour, or at least the separation of trades and professions. To it we owe one of the advantages which men seek for with the greatest ardour, the fixity of remuneration, under the form of wages as regards labour, and interest as regards capital. To it we are indebted for the institution of credit, transactions having reference to the future, those which are designed to equalize risk, etc. It is surprising, in an Economical point of view, that this noble attribute of man, Foresight, has not been made more the subject of remark. This arises, as Rousseau has said, from the difficulty we experience in observing the medium in which we live and move, and which forms our natural atmosphere. We notice only exceptional appearances and abnormal facts, while we allow to pass unperceived those which act permanently around us, upon us, and within us, and which modify profoundly both individual men and society at large.
To return to the subject which at present engages us. It may be that human foresight, in its infinite diffusion, tends more and more to substitute the do ut des for the facio ut facias; but we must never forget that it is in the primitive and necessary form of exchange that the notion of value first makes its appearance, that this primitive form is that of reciprocal service; and that, after all, [p176] as regards exchange, the product is only a service foreseen and provided for.
But although I have shown that value is not inherent in matter, and cannot be classed among its attributes, I am far from maintaining that it does not pass from the service to the product, so as (if I may be allowed the expression) to become incorporated with it. I hope my opponents will not believe that I am pedant enough to wish to exclude from common language such phrase as these—gold has value, wheat has value, land has value. But I have a right to demand of science why this is so? and if I am answered, because gold, wheat, and land possess in themselves intrinsic value, then I think I have a right to say—“You are mistaken, and your error is dangerous. You are mistaken, for there are gold and land which are destitute of value, gold and land which have not yet had any human labour bestowed upon them. Your error is dangerous, for it leads men to regard what is simply a right to a reciprocity of services as a usurpation of the gratuitous gifts of God.”
I am quite willing, then, to acknowledge that products are possessed of value, provided you grant me that it is not essential to them, and that it attaches itself to services, and proceeds from them.