Functional socialism

134 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

value and assuming water to have little or no exchange value, then the only possible conclusion is that economic doctrine is based on false values. If we examine political economy, not to find explanation or justification for present commercial practice, but in search of the permanent economic factors, no light is shed upon the one vital thingvalue in relation to life and not to exchange.

‘That is why, in my view, Condillac’s definition is to be commended. “Value,” he says, “is not an attribute of matter, but represents our sense of its usefulness, and this utility is relative to our need. It grows or it diminishes according as our need expands or contracts.”” How does our “need” for bread or water compare with our “need” for diamonds? Might we not affirm that true wealth is the satisfaction of our needs? I wonder if Ruskin thought or knew of Condillac when he drew his famous distinction between wealth and “‘illth”. Observe that a need may meet either effective or natural demand. Our problem—and destiny—is to supply all needs subject to their accepted social vaiue.

It is life or death to any movement aiming at a reconstruction of society to understand the meaning of value. We must assert that, whatever Marx may have written, labour is not the measure of value. It is the source of all wealth—a widely different concept. The classical economists had, of necessity, to bring labour into their estimate of value because they all accepted the commodity valuation of labour. In this respect, Marx was as great a sinner as the others.