Silvio Gesell - The NATURAL ECONOMIC ORDER
weight and value are simply marks of substance. One kilogram of gold is one kilogram of value: the value of the substance equals the substance containing the value. The presence of value can be demonstrated on the weighing-machine: "fully-valued". Whether there are any other processes for detecting value has not yet been established. Litmus paper seems to be insensitive to value, the magnetic needle is not deflected by it; it withstands the highest known temperatures. Indeed our whole knowledge of value is still somewhat meagre, we only know that it exists. This is unfortunate, considering the "fundamental importance" of value in science and in life. New possibilities are, however, opened up by Dr. Helfferich's discovery that with some "substances containing value" (Wertstoffe) the value is not always proportionate to the Substance. The substance containing the value is greater or smaller than the value of the substance. He has discovered that the value of silver money is twice the value of the silver used in its manufacture. Silver money thus contains value in double concentration, and we have therefore an extract of value. This important discovery gives a quite new insight into the nature of value. It shows that value can be extracted, concentrated and, as it were, separated from its substance. We may therefore hope that science will at some future date be able to produce chemically pure value. But here again we have a contradiction. In a roundabout way we have reached the theory of a paper-money standard. But this theory is based solely on price and leaves the theory of value severely alone. Value is, then, a fantasy (* In trade the word value means an estimate of the price that can be obtained for a product. The value of a product is its probable price, allowing for the state of the market. Stocktaking is dependent on " value " in this sense. Whether the estimate was correct appears later in the selling price.), and this explains the pronouncement of Zuckerkandl: "In the theory of value almost everything is still in the stage of controversy, beginning with the terminology employed" (* Since the matter is of " fundamental importance," it would have been well if Zuckerkandl had informed us what the word " almost " is meant to exclude. Is the only non-controversial matter in the theory of value the alphabet used to write it down). And, of Boehm-Bawerk: "In spite of numberless efforts, the theory of
value was and is one of the darkest, most confused and controversial parts of our science." Fantasies are cheap. Examined by themselves they may form a closed system and so appear acceptable to our understanding. Like miracles they are above nature, they grow and thrive in the brains of men. Translated into reality, however, they at once come into collision with facts. Fantasies have no place in the world of reality; they vanish into thin air. And nothing is more real than economic life, whether of the community or of the individual. Matter and energy - anything unconnected with these can be nothing more than a cheap product of the imagination. Such is value. A science sprung from the illusion of value can only engender illusion and is doomed to sterility. Elsewhere science fructifies practice, elsewhere science is the pole-star of practice; but practical economic life is even today left to its own devices. Science is here inarticulate, since beginning with the terminology employed, almost everything is still in the stage of controversy". The science based upon doctrines of value possesses as yet no theory of interest, no theory of wages, no theory of economic rent, no theory of crises and no theory of money, although attempts to construct them have not been lacking. It is incapable of giving the scientific explanation of the simplest daily occurrences, it can foresee no economic event, nor can it predict the economic effect of any legal measure (such as for instance, the possibility of shifting the burden of the wheat-duty or land-tax). Neither merchant, nor speculator, nor banker, nor employer, nor journalist, nor deputy, nor statesman, can avail himself of this science as weapon or shield; no single German commercial undertaking, not even the Reichsbank, is guided by theoretical considerations. In parliament the science that has taken value as its foundation is passed by unnoticed, not even one of its theories can boast of having influenced legislation. The characteristic of this science is its complete sterility. Only among those whom fate has excluded from commercial life so that they know of commerce, speculation, profit, merely by hearsay - only amongst wage-earners has the theory of value found disciples. The wage-earners allow themselves to be guided in practical affairs, particularly in their political activities and their wage-policy, by a theory of value. This phantom haunts the brains of our socialists. In the rayless depths of the coal-mine, in the roar and dust of the factory, in the smoke and vapour of the furnaces, the naive belief that something called value really exists and is of practical importance has gained a hold on men's minds. If this sterility were the only drawback of the matter, we might put up with it. Thousands of our best intellects have wasted their time in futile theological speculation, so if their number is swollen by a few dozen men who cannot extricate themselves from speculation upon the idea of value we may lament the waste, but the loss, in a nation of many millions, hardly amounts to much. The belief in value costs 66