Introduction to the Theory of Value

118 Pages·1966·4.278 MB·English

by  William Smart

AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
THEORY OF VALUE
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AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
THEORY OF VALUE
ON THE LINES OF
MENGER, WIESER, AND BOHM-BAWERK
BY
WILLIAM SMART, M.A., D.PHIL., LL.D.
ADAM SMITH PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1891.
Second Edition 1910.
Third Edition 1914.
Fourth Edition 1920.
Reprinted 1923, 1926, 1931.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
W. S. H.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION,
1910
THIS little book was written in 1891, when I was
fresh from my translations of Bohm-Bawerk and
somewhat overborne, perhaps, by the ideas of his
school. It has been out of print for many years, and,
although often pressed to republish it, I refrained,
for the reason that a busy life had prevented me
returning to the later developments of that school.
But I still feel, as I did when I wrote it, that my
English-speaking colleagues have never given suffi-
cient attention to that side of the one Theory of Value
(for there is only one, however much individuals may
emphasise the demand side or the supply side) which
Jevons first laid stress on. Having now mortgaged
my life to what seems to me the greater claim of
writing the Economic Annals of the Nineteenth
Century, the most I can do is to reprint the edition
of 1891, with a few verbal alterations, submitting
it as no more than it originally professed to be—an
Introduction to the theory which lies at the centre of
vffi PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
Political Economy, and must occupy the mind of
the young economist for many years of his appren-
ticeship. The few who may be interested to know
what place I give, after many years of teaching, to
doctrines which had so great a part in forming my
economic views, will find it suggested, perhaps, in
Appendix II., entitled " Theory of Value: the
Demand Side." It is a summary of lectures, which
I put into the hands of my students to be studied
along with Book III. of the classic which has
moulded modern economic thought, Professor
Marshall's Principles.
WILLIAM SMART.
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW,
November, 1910.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
THIS book has few pretensions to originality. The
theory is that enunciated by Menger and Jevons, and
worked out by Wieser and Bohm-Bawerk. I have
done little more than take it out of its German setting,
and pass it through my own mind. As the translator
of Bohm-Bawerk's Capital and Interest and The
Positive Theory of Capital, I may claim to have more
than a superficial acquaintance with the work of the
Austrian school, and this must form my credentials
for the present Introduction. At the same time I
must emphasise that it claims to be no more than an
introduction. I do not consider that the last word
on Value has been said by the Austrian school, but
that seems to me no reason why the principles of
the new theory should remain any longer beyond
the reach of the ordinary English student. And in
case it be said that I have stopped short of the
most interesting part of the Naturlicher Werth, the
application of the Value theory to the theory of