The other service of value, -- and one usually quite overlooked, -- concerns the economical balancing or weighing of goods against goods, and of employment of goods against employment, without regard to distribution among persons, and simply with a view to reach the greatest possible economic results. To this service of value belong e.g, those principles which are absolutely indispensable to any economy; -- that every production should be directed so as to obtain the greatest possible return, that no more be spent upon any product than can be made good by its value, that in consumption the good suited to satisfy urgent wants, and therefore the more valuable, should not be spent on a trifling satisfaction, that, generally speaking, the limits of supply and demand, as given in marginal value, should be observed, and so on.
What would the socialists have? They wish a related economy, in no way worse, and possibly better regulated than that of to-day; but with this peculiarity that labour shall be the only source of personal income. The value of land and capital -- or the value of the rents of land and capital -- shall no longer be imputed to any individual as his outlay or stake; shall no longer serve any one individual as a title to personal income. Is there in this claim -- the justice of which we shall not here discuss -- any force which can abrogate the economical service of value as well as the personal service? Because land and capital are no longer to belong to individuals but to the state, must they therefore be regarded by the state as valueless, and be employed in production without regard to the principles of value? Because labour is to be the only basis of personal income -- measured possibly by the length of time which each man has worked -- is labour alone to be considered in production, and is the only measure of its value to be its duration? Because there is to be a new order in the distribution of goods among persons, must there be a complete disorganisation in the whole industrial conduct of goods?
Of course socialists are very far from desiring such a result. They wish to have a related economy, but they expect at the same time to secure that goods are used and employed according to their usefulness. Does this mean that the usefulness of goods is really the only thing to be considered -- not quantity and its changes, not demand with its rise and fall, not the mutual connection of means of production, with all the vicissitudes of favourable and unfavourable coincidence? But if usefulness, supply, demand, complementarity are combined, what is this but to value goods according to the utility imputable to them in the given case, instead of according to their general usefulness -- in other words, to estimate them according to their value?
The natural principles of valuation are indispensable, because they serve indispensable economic purposes. Consequently where these principles are observed, they serve these purposes, and are, in so far, good. In so far as exchange value corresponds with natural value, it is right that it should regulate the economic conduct and disposal of goods, and that in every department, whether as regards land, capital, or even labour. And although the labourer may suffer severely under this law of value, although society generally may suffer with him, although the recompense of the labourer may require to be adjusted, in his own interest and that of society, by a different law; -- still labour cannot be valued according to any other law where its employment is concerned. When it comes to employ labour, the communistic state must retain the same law in force, or its economy will become chaos.
Not only the question of payment, but, beyond that, the question of labour in the future, must be kept distinct from its employment. Wherever common labour power is disproportionally abundant, it can, and must, be employed only in producing returns of very trifling value. None the less will it be regarded as an evil that there should be available labour power of such trifling productive capacity, and all efforts towards increasing the services of labour and thus securing it a higher value, are worthy of praise; all the more so if the small capacity brings a small payment, and thus results, over wide circles of workers, in insufficient satisfactions of wants and wretched conditions.
