Social Value Part 9

[151] Even Professor H. J. Davenport finds a quant.i.tative value concept necessary in places. For example, on page 573 of his _Value and Distribution_, he speaks of capital, considered as a cost concept, as standing "for the total invested fund of value, inclusive of all instrumental values, and of all the general purchasing power devoted to the gain-seeking enterprise." It might be unkind to remind him of his definition of value on page 569, and ask him what a "fund" of "ratio of exchange" might mean! And the notion of value as a quant.i.ty, instead of a ratio, is involved, as indicated in the text, in the term, "purchasing power," which he also uses in the pa.s.sage quoted. This term, "purchasing power," as apparently a subst.i.tute for value, Professor Davenport uses in several instances, where the ratio notion clearly will not work: on page 561, "distribution of purchasing power," page 562, "redistribution of purchasing power," and page 571. I say "apparently," for I do not think Professor Davenport anywhere in the volume gives a formal definition of "purchasing power."

[152] "Grundzuge," etc., Conrad's _Jahrbucher_, 1886, pp. 5 and 478, n.

[153] This line of argument, drawn from the usage of the economists in the treatment of other terms, and in the handling of problems, might be almost indefinitely expanded. Almost everybody has a quant.i.tative value concept in mind when he is reasoning about practical problems. The trouble comes only when a value theory has to be constructed! _Cf._ the discussion of production as the "creation of utilities," _infra_ chap. XVIII.

CHAPTER XII

SOCIAL VALUE: THE THEORIES OF URBAN AND TARDE

Our point of view will be more adequately defined if we consider briefly the theories of social value, set forth from the angle of a general (as opposed to a specifically economic) conception of value, by Professor W. M.

Urban and Gabriel Tarde. These theories contain some elements which we shall need, and our criticism of them will bring into clearer light the need for the distinctive point of view of this book.

Professor Urban's conception as to the nature of value, in its individual manifestation, has been already indicated, in part, in chapter X. Stressing the organic nature of the relations of a value to other phases of the mental life, insisting on a recognition of the "presuppositions" of value, and recognizing that both feeling and desire (or desire-disposition) are involved in value--our cursory account cannot begin to do justice to the subtlety and exhaustiveness of his masterly a.n.a.lysis--he still insists on finding the fundamental nature of value in a phase of its _structure_ (rather than in its function), namely, in the _feeling_. From this part of his doctrine we have found it necessary to differ. When he comes to the problem of social value, he carries over the same conception of value, and he finds that social values appear when many individuals, through "sympathetic partic.i.p.ation," _feel_ the same value. With our conclusion (chapter VIII) that we can share each other's emotional life he is in thorough accord. His argument in this connection is admirable.[154] His interest is primarily in moral social values, and he attempts no detailed treatment of economic social values, seeming to hold that the Austrian treatment of objective value is adequate.[155] Both moral and economic values are "objective and social."[156]

Collective desire and feeling, when it has acquired this "common meaning," when the object of desire and feeling is consciously held in common, we may describe as Social Synergy; and the objective, over-individual values may be described as the resultants of social synergies. The introduction of this term has for its purpose the clearest possible distinction between social forces as conscious and as subconscious. It is with the former that we are here concerned.[157]

Conscious collective feeling is thus insisted upon as an essential in social values, and Professor Urban insists[158] that the value ceases to be a value as this conscious feeling wanes--even though conceding[159] that it retains the power of influencing the _felt_ values, after it has pa.s.sed into the realm of "things taken for granted."

But this stressing of the conscious element of feeling--which as I have previously shown is a variable element even within the individual psychology, and has no necessary quant.i.tative relation to the functional significance, the amount of _motivating power_, of the value--makes it really impossible for him to resolve the question of how the _strength_ of a social value is to be determined. He does, indeed, undertake something of the sort[160] (he is speaking of ethical values), making the quant.i.ty of value depend on "supply and demand," the supply depending on the number of people willing to supply a given moral act, and the intensity of their willingness to do it--extension and intention both being recognized. And demand is similarly determined. The thing seems to be nothing more than an arithmetical sum of intensities of individual feelings, or, most justly, individual values. But this leaves us no wiser than before as to the social _weight_, the social _validity_, of these social values. An infinite deal would depend, both in the case of supply and demand, on _who_ the individuals are. A demand for a given act from a poor group of fanatics, however intense, might count for little, while such a demand coming from a group with great prestige, with great social _power_, might have a very great significance. If we are trying to get an objective quant.i.ty of social value, which shall have a definite weight in determining social action--the function of social values--we are as poorly off as we were with the Austrian a.n.a.lysis which, in order to get an objective quant.i.ty of economic value out of individual "marginal utilities," has to a.s.sume value in the background as the validating force behind these individual elements. The error here, as there, comes from an abstraction, from centring attention upon the conspicuous conscious elements. And it comes in stressing the structure, the content, of social values, to the exclusion of their functional _power_. Here is our real problem, if we would determine the social validity of values. This lurking element of social power remains an unexplained residuum.

This residuum of _power_, backing up the conscious psychological factors, gets explicit recognition, even though no real explanation, at the hands of Gabriel Tarde,[161] to whose theory of social value we now turn. I quote chiefly from his _Psychologie economique_, and the numerals which follow refer to pages in volume I. (63-64) Value understood in its largest sense, takes in the whole of social science. It is a quality which we attribute to things, like color,[162] but which, like color, exists only in ourselves.... It consists in the accord of the collective judgments ... as to the capacity of objects to be more or less, and by a greater or less number of persons, believed, desired, or admired. This quality is thus of that peculiar species of qualities which present numerical degrees, and mount or descend a scale without essentially changing their nature, and hence merit the name of quant.i.ties.

There are three great categories of value: "_valeur-verite_,"

"_valeur-utilite_," and "_valeur-beaute_." To ideas, to goods (in a generic sense of the term), and to things considered as sources "_de voluptes collectives_," we attribute a truth, a utility, a beauty, greater or less.

Quite as much as utility, beauty and truth are children of the opinion of the ma.s.s, in accord, or at war, with the reason of an _elite_ which influences it.

(It may be noted in pa.s.sing that Tarde's "trinitarian" conception of value is not as artificial as it seems. It is simply a method of cla.s.sification, and there are many subdivisions under each head. Economic value, e.g., is a subspecies within the group of utility values--"goods" include "_pouvoirs_," "_droits_," "_merites_," and "_richesses_" (66). Our own conception is, of course, that values are thoroughly "pluralistic" as to their structure, and are "monistic" in their function.)

(64) The greater or less truth of a thing signifies three things diversely combined: the greater or smaller number, the greater or less social importance ("_poids_," "_consideration_," "_competence_," "_reconnue_") of the people who believe it, and the greater or less intensity of their belief in it. The greater or less utility of an object expresses the greater or less number of people who desire it in a given society at a given time, the greater or less social "_poids_" ("_ici poids veut dire pouvoir et droit_") of the persons who desire it, and the greater or less intensity of their desire for it. And so with beauty.

Here is, then, an explicit recognition of the element of the social _weight_ of those who create a social value, as a factor coordinate with their number and the intensity of their desires, etc. Toward resolving it, however, Tarde makes no real contribution. If enough be read into the parenthetical expressions given above, following the word "_poids_" in each case, they would be found to harmonize with the theory of the writer, shortly to be set forth. As it happens, however, Tarde attempts to resolve this factor of the social weight of a partic.i.p.ant in a social value, in an a.n.a.logous case, and gives us a different sort of explanation. He is seeking a "_glorio metre_," or measure of glory--for glory is a social value too.

He finds that to determine a man's glory we must take account of two things: one his notoriety, and the other, the admiration in which he is held (71-72). The first is simple: we will count the number who watch him and talk about what he does. The second is harder, for we must not merely count the number who admire him, but also determine the importance of each as an admirer. But how get at this? Tarde suggests that the study of the cephalic index will throw light upon the problem--no satisfactory solution, I think!--but says that anyhow the problem is practically solved every day in university and administrative examinations.

Apart from the fact that conscious desire (or conscious belief, etc.), rather than functional power, is made the basis of Tarde's social value, and apart from the failure to give any real account of the origin of this "social weight," of the individuals in the group which creates the social value, there is a further defect in Tarde's a.n.a.lysis which cannot be strongly objected to. It is his effort to treat organic processes as if they were an arithmetical sum of elements. A sum of abstractions will not give you a concrete reality. A man's social weight is not a thing independent of relations, a thing which can be thrown now here and now there with the same results in each case. And two men, each with a definite social weight, do not have precisely twice that social weight when they combine with each other. Two great leaders of opposing, evenly balanced political parties, combining their influence, may secure wonderful results, leading both parties to agree on a programme, and carrying it through. Two equally great leaders, but both within the same party, may be unable to accomplish anything by combining their efforts. And it may happen that two men, each with great weight in his own sphere, would be so incongruous if they tried to cooperate, that their joint weight would be less than the weight of either alone. It is not a matter of arithmetical addition. Social power can be used in certain ways, and in certain organic connections. If we care to use a mechanical phrase, the effort to use it out of organic connections is apt to result in so much "friction" that much of the power is lost.

The objection to the insistence on the amount of conscious desire or feeling as a criterion of the amount of value holds for social values quite as much as for individual values. The social value of the gold standard, judging by the amount of desire and feeling involved, by the degree to which it was a factor in consciousness, was vastly greater during the campaign of 1896, while its validity was still in question, than it was after it had been validated, and made a really effective fact. Social value depends, not on conscious intensity, but on motivating power. The social consciousness, as the individual consciousness, is economical. And the need for conscious feeling, for conscious desire, in connection with social, as with individual, values, arises when values must be compared, when they are in question, when they must show themselves for what they are, that they may be brought into equilibrium with antagonistic values. And the amount of consciousness will not be greater than the need for it--and, alas, is rarely as great as the need! When a value becomes accepted, when its place is secure, when the equilibrium is established, conscious feeling and desire with reference to it tend to pa.s.s away, and peace comes.

Tarde seems to recognize this, indeed, when he says (72, n.):--

Of n.o.bility, as of glory, it is proper to remark that it is a force, a means of action, for him who possesses it, but that it is a faith, a peace, for the people who accept it, and who, in believing in it, create it.

FOOTNOTES:

[154] _Op. cit._, chap. VIII, esp. p. 243.

[155] _Ibid._, p. 319.

[156] _Ibid._, p. 312.

[157] _Ibid._, p. 318.

[158] _Ibid._, pp. 333-36.

[159] _Ibid._, p. 335.

[160] _Op. cit._, pp. 329-30.

[161] "La croyance et le desir: possibilite de leur mesure," _Rev.

philosophique_, vol. X (1880), pp. 150, 264. "La psychologie en economie politique," _Ibid._, vol. XII (1881), pp. 232, 401. "Les deux sens de la valeur," _Rev. d'economie politique_, 1888, pp. 526, 561. "L'idee de valeur," _Rev. politique et litteraire (Rev. Bleue)_, vol. XVI, 1901.

_Psychologie economique_, Paris, 1902.

[162] _Cf._ Conrad, _Grundriss zum Studium der politischen Oekonomie_, Jena, 1902, Erster Teil, p. 10.

CHAPTER XIII

ECONOMIC SOCIAL VALUE

How are we to get out of our circle:[163] The value of a good, A, depends, in part, upon the value embodied in the goods, B, C, and D, possessed by the persons for whom good A has "utility," and whose "effective demand" is a _sine qua non_ of A's value? The most convenient point of departure seems to be the simple situation which Wieser has a.s.sumed in his _Natural Value_.[164] Here the "artificial" complications due to private property and to the difference between rich and poor are gone, and only "marginal utility" is left as a regulator of values. But what about value in a situation where there are differences in "purchasing power"? How a.s.similate the one situation to the other?

A temporal _regressus_, back to the first piece of wealth, which, we might a.s.sume, depended for its value solely upon the facts of utility and scarcity, and the existence of which furnished the first "purchasing power"

that upset the order of "natural value," might be interesting, but certainly would not be convincing. In the first place, there is no unbroken sequence of uninterrupted economic causation from that far away hypothetical day to the present, in the course of which that original quant.i.ty of value has exerted its influence. The present situation does not differ from Wieser's situation simply in the fact that some, more provident than others, have saved where others have consumed, have been industrious where others have been idle, and so have acc.u.mulated a surplus of value, which, used to back their desires, makes the wants of the industrious and provident count for more than the wants of others. And even if these were the only differences, it is to be noted that private property has somehow crept in in the interval, for Wieser's was a communistic society. And further, an emotion felt ten thousand years ago could scarcely have any very direct or certain quant.i.tative connection with value in the market to-day. Even if there had been no "disturbing factors" of a non-economic sort, the process of "economic causation" could not have carried a value so far. It is the living emotion that counts! Values depend every moment upon the force of live minds, and need to be constantly renewed. And there would have been, of course, many "non-economic" disturbances, wars and robberies, frauds and benevolences, political and religious changes--a host of historical occurrences affecting the weight of different elements in society in a way that, by historical methods, it is impossible to treat quant.i.tatively.[165]

What is called for is, not a _temporal regressus_, which, starting with an hypothesis, picks up abstractions by the way, and tries to synthesize them into a concrete reality of to-day, but rather a _logical a.n.a.lysis_ of existing psychic forces, which shall abstract from the concrete social situation the phases that are most significant. This method will not give us the whole story either. Value will not be completely explained by the phases we pick out. But then, we shall be aware of the fact and we shall know that the other phases are there, ready to be picked out as they are needed, for further refinement of the theory, as new problems call for further refinement. And, indeed, we shall include them in our theory, under a lump name, namely, the rest of the "presuppositions" of value.

Our reason for choosing a logical a.n.a.lysis of existing psychic forces instead of a temporal _regressus_--instead, even, of an accurate historical study of the past--is a twofold one: first, we wish to coordinate the new factors we are to emphasize with factors already recognized, and to emerge with a value concept which shall serve the economists in the accustomed way--it is illogical to mix a logical a.n.a.lysis with a temporal _regressus_.

But, more fundamental than this logical point, is this: the forces which have historically _begot_ a social situation are not, necessarily, the forces which _sustain_ it. The rule doubtless is that new inst.i.tutions have to win their way against an opposition which grows simply out of the fact that we are, through mental inertia, wedded to what is old and familiar. We resist the new _as_ the new. Even those who are most disposed to innovate are still conservative, with reference to propaganda that they themselves are not concerned with. The great ma.s.s of activities of all men, even the most progressive, are rooted in habit, and resist change. When, however, a new value has won its way, has become familiar and established, the very forces which once opposed it become its surest support. Or, waiving this unreflecting inertia of society, as things become actualized they are seen in new relations. What, prior to experiment, we thought might harm us, we find beneficial after it has been tried, and so support it--or the reverse may be true. The psychic forces maintaining and controlling a social situation, therefore, are not necessarily the ones which historically brought it into being.[166]

We turn, therefore, to a logical a.n.a.lysis of existing social psychic forces for our explanation of social economic value, and for the explanation of the motivation of the economic activity of society. It will still pay us, however, to halt for a moment in Wieser's hypothetical "natural" community, for we shall find there that many of the concrete complexities which he sought to eliminate have really persisted in slight disguise. Really there is no such simplicity as Wieser supposes. The "natural" society has, indeed, no private property, or differences between rich and poor, but it has, none the less, _legal_ and _ethical_ standards of _distribution_, which are just as efficient in the determination of economic values as are the results of our present system of distribution. The term, "natural," has misled Wieser, when it leads him to say that marginal utility alone will rule. For "natural" here means, not "simple," but "ethically ideal." The word has--as Wieser and others who have used it often fail to see--a positive connotation of its own: a definite set of legal and ethical values are bound up in it in this case. That such a society should exist, and that in it "marginal utility" should be the only _variable_ affecting value (apart from the limitations of physical nature), implies the legal rule of equality in distribution, and such a set of moral values actually ruling the behavior of the people as to make this legal rule effective,--or else the most extraordinary activity on the part of the government to maintain the rule. Wieser himself fails to see this, for he concedes that the "moral" principle of distribution in such a society would recognize the superior merits of the leaders who furnish ideas and direction, as ent.i.tling them to a higher reward than the merely mechanical laborers.[167]

But this, it is evident, would give them an excess of that same vexatious "purchasing power"[168]--whether embodied in gold or commodities or labor-checks matters little--and so would destroy the efficiency of the principle of "marginal utility" as the ruler of values.

As phases in the "presuppositions" of economic value, then, coordinate with "marginal utility," our theory puts the legal and ethical values concerned with distribution, which rule in a community at a given time. Reinforcing and validating the values of _goods_ are the social values of _men_.

President F. A. Walker[169] defines value as "the power an article confers upon its possessor _irrespective of legal authority or personal sentiments_, of commanding, in exchange for itself, the labor, or the products of the labor, of others." [Italics are mine.] In our view, this definition is precisely wrong. A change in laws or in morals respecting the social ranking of men, respecting property rights, will at once affect economic values. Earlier economists often wrote as if distribution were primarily a physically determined matter, and so we got from them an "Iron Law of Wages," etc. But it is pertinent to quote from one who, though in many ways allied to the older school, and in value theory avowedly their follower, still stands as a bridge between the theories I am criticizing and my own. John Stuart Mill[170] says:--

The laws and conditions of the production of wealth, partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them.... It is not so with the Distribution of Wealth. That is a matter of human inst.i.tution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like. They can place them at the disposal of whomsoever they please, and on whatever terms. Further, in the social state, in every state except total solitude, any disposal whatever of them can only take place by the consent of society, or rather of those who dispose of its active force. Even what a person has produced by his individual toil, unaided by any one, he cannot keep, unless by the permission of society. Not only can society take it from him, but individuals could and would take it from him, if society only remained pa.s.sive; if it did not either interfere _en ma.s.se_, or employ and pay people for the purpose of preventing him from being disturbed in the possession.

The distribution of wealth, therefore, depends on the laws and customs of society. The rules by which it is determined, are what the opinions and feelings of the ruling portion of the community make them, and are very different in different ages and countries; and might be still more different, if mankind so chose.

The distribution of wealth, then, depends on social psychic forces. And among these are the social, ethical and legal values of men and of social cla.s.ses. Economists of an earlier school took these factors for granted, when they thought of them at all, and a.s.sumed that they are constant, relatively unchangeable things, a sort of fixed framework within which the forces of a Malthusian biology, or the forces of "self-interest" might work. Commonly, indeed, they thought of them not at all, and wrote as if the factors which they allowed to vary told the whole story. Such is, indeed, still the procedure, in our present day "pure economic" theories of distribution, which either exclude the non-economic factors,[171] or else relegate them to the "pound of '_caeteris paribus_.'"[172] If ours were a stagnant civilization, this procedure might be safe, but in a highly "dynamic" society, where laws, morals, cla.s.s relations, the very fundamentals of organization, are being made the subjects of scrutiny, agitation, cla.s.s struggle, etc., are being subjected to "transvaluations,"

and are continually changing them with the principles, machinery and results of distribution, and so one of the biggest factors lying back of economic values, no study of value can afford to ignore them.

It is of course recognized that a purely ethical and legal theory of distribution would be as much an abstraction as the "_reinwirtschaftlich_"