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 'WITHOUT A DETERMINATION OF VALUE, JUSTICE 
 IS IMPOSSIBLE" 
 
 VALUE 
 
 AND 
 
 AN INVARIABLE UNIT 
 OF VALUE 
 
 AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN ECONOMICS 
 
 / 
 
 \VM. A. WHITTICK 
 
 r o' 
 
 
 2^? 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 1896 
 
Copyright, 1896, 
 
 BY 
 
 Wm. A. Whittick. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Portrait of the Author Frontispiece. 
 
 Introduction ? 
 
 The Economists on Value 13 
 
 The Gresham Paradoxical Law 29 
 
 The Economic Myth of Land-Value 34 
 
 Our Present Standard 37 
 
 Evils of Our Present Standard 42 
 
 Labor Standards, etc 56 
 
 Standard but not Basis ; also Standard and Time 
 
 Basis 64 
 
 Denials of the Invariable Standard 70 
 
 A Digression 74 
 
 Monet and an Invariable Unit 76 
 
 The Application of the Invariable Unit of 
 
 Value 91 
 
 The Traders of the Town of Commerce 103 
 
 Conclusion ... 114 
 
 A Criticism H9 
 
 The Invariable Unit of Value under Supply 
 
 and Demand illustrated 132 
 
" Of all the economic contradictions, value is that 
 which, dominating the others and summing them 
 up, holds, in a sense, the sceptre of society : I had 
 almost said of the moral world. Until value . . . 
 arrives at its constitution, thine and mine remain 
 fixed arbitrarily ; the conditions of fortune are the 
 effect of chance ; property rests on a precarious title ; 
 everything in social economy is provisional. 
 
 " What should social, intelligent, and free beings 
 have learned from this uncertainty of value ? To 
 make amicable regulation that should protect labor 
 and guarantee exchange and cheapness. What a 
 happy opportunity for all to make up, by honesty, 
 disinterestedness, and tenderness of heart, for the 
 ignorance of the objective laws of the just and the 
 unjust. Instead of that, commerce has everywhere 
 become, by spontaneous effort and unanimous con- 
 sent, an uncertain operation, a venturesome enter- 
 prise, a lottery, and often a deceitful and fraudulent 
 speculation." 
 
 (Proudhon's " System of Economical Contradic- 
 tions," page 421.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The importance of our subject cannot be 
 over-estimated. 
 
 Value has been called the corner-stone of 
 economics, the fundamental idea, the domi- 
 nant category of political economy, and, un- 
 less it be definitely and correctly determined, 
 that science in its entirety is like a house 
 built upon quicksand; it has no solid, 
 abiding foundations. 
 
 Until the commerce of mankind, — until 
 the product of industry can be weighed and 
 balanced in the scales of justice, society in 
 its true sense is impossible, and must in- 
 evitably become " an organized institution 
 for picking pockets," such as it is, to a 
 great extent, to-day. 
 
 The lack of equity and justice in the pro- 
 
8 Introduction. 
 
 cesses of production and distribution so pain- 
 fully manifest at the present time, and so 
 fruitful in evil, has its source in this one fact 
 more than any other, — that there is no just 
 standard measure or unit of value; that which 
 is used as such being simply a disturber of 
 values and a tool of exploitation and injustice 
 through monopoly. 
 
 The wide interest manifested in our sub- 
 ject is a remarkable fact of current literature, 
 hardly a paper or a magazine with any edu- 
 cational pretensions being void of some refer- 
 ence to value or to its intimate relations. 
 
 The Loco-foco party of 1836, which pro- 
 tested against paper and bank-notes, has split 
 into bimetallists and monometallists, and the 
 war of the standards rages from Dan to Beer- 
 sheba, disintegrating political parties and be- 
 coming the bete noir of political saints and 
 sinners. 
 
 Honesty is inscribed on both banners, 
 while with intelligence both banners would 
 vanish from the field. 
 
Introduction. 9 
 
 One writer, pleading for a monopolized 
 gold standard, under which rascality is a fine 
 art, is so enthused with the moral aspect (to 
 him) of his theme of monetary aggrandize- 
 ment, that he makes a national application of 
 the faith that is in him, asking, " Are we a 
 nation of rascals?" 
 
 This Armageddon of ignorance continues as 
 though some Joshua of political economy had 
 halted the sun in its celestial course so that 
 the slaughter of words might continue. 
 
 The economists fight upon questions to de- 
 cide which value must be determined. One 
 seeks his unit or standard of value in gold, 
 the other in silver, and both, being blind 
 leaders of the blind, fall into a pit. 
 
 The economists talk of value as vaguely 
 as the red Indian talks of the Great Spirit. 
 They compare values by means of a shifting 
 point of comparison (worse than none) ; they 
 measure values with an elastic thread ; they 
 confound utility and value; they differen- 
 tiate price and value; they, in one breath, 
 
10 Introduction. 
 
 proclaim the ideality of value, its elusive- 
 ness and mentality ; while, in the next 
 breath, they talk of so many grains of this 
 or that material substance as a standard of 
 the ideal. 
 
 The thing that has the purely mental at- 
 tribute of value, is, to them, the thing that 
 is value; and thus they render substance 
 and ideal homogeneous, and a fraudulent 
 standard of value is raised. 
 
 From this point they revel in ignorance 
 and inconsistency; they jump from crag to 
 crag of absurdity, until upon this vertebrata 
 of ignorance and misconception they string 
 the fossil remains of a science under which 
 the mournful sigh of labor is the song of the 
 nightingale to his exploiter, — to his mur- 
 derer, — for, as Proudhon wrote, " Every 
 error in commutative justice is an immola- 
 tion of the laborer, a transfusion of the blood 
 of one man into the body of another." 
 
 By determining value, as we shall do, 
 political economy is rescued from chaos, and 
 
Introduction. 11 
 
 labor throws off the thief and the murderer. 
 Out of chaos comes order, out of stupidity 
 reason emerges, and out of injustice springeth 
 righteousness. 
 
 The savants tell us that our problem is 
 unsolvable; that an invariable standard of 
 value is unattainable, — yea, inconceivable, — 
 that it is the "squaring of the circle" for 
 economists ; but we brush the savants aside 
 and we give political economy a determina- 
 tion of its " fundamental idea " value, and a 
 standard measure and unit of value, invaria- 
 ble for all time, perfect in its functions and 
 attributes. 
 
 A science of political economy is now pos- 
 sible: we must write, anew, our economic 
 literature, throwing, with here and there a 
 regret, the old apologies for iniquity into the 
 flames of oblivion. 
 
 But, although we have the confidence born 
 of deep conviction necessary for our treatment 
 of this subject, we are not blind to the diffi- 
 culties and intricacies of the subject. 
 
12 Introduction, 
 
 The antagonisms of the economists may 
 well be taken as indicative of the difficulty 
 and transcendent importance of our subject, 
 which we believe underlies all social progress, 
 which, as Proudhon said, " consists in a con- 
 tinuous solution of the problem of the consti- 
 tution of values, or of the proportionality or 
 solidarity of products." 
 
 We ask from our readers patience and un- 
 prejudiced minds. 
 
VALUE 
 
 AND 
 
 AN INVARIABLE UNIT OF VALUE. 
 
 The Economists on Value. 
 
 We give some definitions of value, culled 
 from economic writings, with some explana- 
 tory criticisms thereon. 
 
 Adam Smith wrote as follows : " The word 
 value, it is to be observed, has two different 
 meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility 
 of some particular object, and sometimes the 
 power of purchasing other goods which the 
 possession of that object conveys." 
 
 This definition has led many economists 
 astray by confounding utility with value. 
 Utility is entirely distinct from value. If 
 they were identical, then all useful things 
 would have value, which, we all know, is not 
 
 13 
 
14 Value and an 
 
 the case. Utility helps to determine value ; 
 value is, simply and solely, power in ex- 
 change. We cannot conceive of value sepa- 
 rate from utility ; but utility is frequently 
 separate from value. The utility of a thing 
 is therefore entirely distinct from its value. 
 Utilities are constant, values are inconstant. 
 
 Francis A. Walker says, " Value must be 
 severely distinguished from utility," and again, 
 " Value in use is utility, and nothing else." 
 
 J. R. McCulloch also dissents from Adam 
 Smith. He writes : " The value and utility of 
 commodities are totally distinct qualities." 
 
 Henry Dunning Macleod writes as follows : 
 " The value of any economic quantity is any 
 other economic quantity for which it can be 
 exchanged." Here he confounds value with 
 quantity. He should say the value of any 
 economic quantity is equivalent to the value 
 of any other economic quantity for which it 
 can be exchanged. 
 
 While asserting, as above, that value is an 
 " economic quantity," he, elsewhere in his 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 15 
 
 voluminous writings, describes value as a 
 " ratio in exchange," and also as a " desire of 
 the mind," which leads him to the absurd 
 conclusion that " a single object cannot have 
 value." He has confounded value (power in 
 exchange) with its expression " ratio in ex- 
 change." But before its value is determined, 
 a thing may be known, and be said, to have 
 value. 
 
 Henry Fawcett, M.A., defines value as a 
 comparison of one commodity with another ; 
 and, again, as a " relative expression," but 
 qualifies his definition from the ideal to the 
 material, by saying, that if a sack of wheat 
 exchanges for a ton of coal, then " the ton of 
 coal is the value of a sack of wheat." How 
 a ton of coal can be a " comparison" or a 
 " relative expression" logic does not say. 
 
 This writer also differentiates price and 
 value, owing to the disturbing influences of 
 money upon prices. 
 
 The above material aspect of value is in 
 harmony with that of Hugo Bilgram, of 
 
16 Value and an 
 
 Philadelphia, who says, " If I exchange a 
 book for a dollar, the book is the value of the 
 dollar, and" (he extends Fawcett's scope of 
 value) " the dollar is the value of the book." 
 
 Under this definition, the value of a thing 
 is always some other thing ; and yet Bilgram 
 says that a certain quantity of gold (of no 
 value, per se, by his own definition) may be 
 used as a standard of value. In differen- 
 tiating labor and value, Mr. Bilgram says, 
 " Labor is not a quantity, but an act." To 
 differentiate value and quantity, we say to 
 Mr. Bilgram, " Value is not a quantity, but 
 an idea." 
 
 A good illustration of the false position of 
 Bilgram is afforded by Macleod in his repu- 
 diation of the term currency. He writes : 
 " Nothing is more common than to say that 
 such an opinion or such a report is current, 
 and we speak of the currency of such an 
 opinion or such a report. But whoever 
 dreamt of calling the opinion or the report 
 itself currency ?" 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 17 
 
 So, we speak of the value of a thing, but 
 whoever (outside of learned economists) 
 dreams of calling the thing itself value ? 
 
 Fawcett's illustration should read, " The 
 value of a ton of coal is equal to the value of 
 a sack of wheat." Bilgram's bull should read, 
 " The value of the hat is one dollar, and the 
 one dollar is equal to the value of the hat, and 
 its equivalent values in all vendable com- 
 modities." Note that we do not say the value 
 of the dollar, for the reason that the dollar is 
 the unit of the value scale ; is value, in fact, 
 while the hat has value only. Bilgram's con- 
 ception of value leads him to say, " Strictly 
 speaking, a thing can have a definite value 
 only at the moment at which it is exchanged 
 for another thing." This implies that value 
 is a momentary phenomenon ; which is 
 equivalent to saying that a body has weight 
 only when it is being weighed. Contrary to 
 most of the conclusions of the economists, 
 Bilgram arrives at the strange conclusion 
 that values are constant and utilities vari- 
 
18 Value and an 
 
 able. He says, "The utility of a com- 
 modity is not a fixed quantity, nor has it 
 an objective existence, being dependent upon 
 the judgment of the individual." Proudhon, 
 who adopted the terms value in use and value 
 in exchange, on entirely erroneous premises, 
 realized the " positive and fixed nature of 
 useful value" and the " variable element" in 
 "exchangeable value." It is impossible to 
 conceive of the uses of any thing changing. 
 It is either adaptable for such and such a pur- 
 pose or not. On the other hand, estimates and 
 applications of utility may widely vary. Util- 
 ity is inseparable from the nature of a thing, 
 and variation therefrom is inconceivable. 
 
 J. K. Ingalls gives us a trinity of values, 
 namely, value in utility, invariable; value 
 in service, stable; value in exchange, vari- 
 able. He also says, " Preferably to value I 
 use the term ratio," the latter in line with 
 Jevons and Macleod and elsewhere refuted. 
 
 The varied estimation of utility and its 
 non-identity with value, also the fact that 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 19 
 
 service does not constitute, although it may 
 help to determine, value, leaves us alone with 
 true value, power in exchange, incorrectly 
 expressed by Ingalls as value in exchange. 
 
 The master-mind of Proudhon did not 
 clearly comprehend value. His definition 
 confounds the fact of value with its expression 
 when he says, " Value is the proportional 
 relations of the products which constitute 
 wealth." He might have more truly said 
 value is expressed by the proportional rela- 
 tions of the products which constitute wealth. 
 Even here he would be incorrect, for wealth 
 is a term which covers all that tends to the 
 weal or well-being of mankind, much of 
 which is not possessed of economic value. 
 The simple definition, poiver in exchange, 
 conveys a clear and scientific conception of 
 the term value. 
 
 Proudhon's position as to a standard of 
 value is somewhat uncertain also. He says, 
 " The object of our inquiry is not the stand- 
 ard of value, as has been said so often and so 
 
20 Value and an 
 
 foolishly, but the law which regulates the 
 proportions of the various products to the 
 social wealth." The law for which Proudhon 
 sought, and upon which, he says, " depends 
 the rise and fall of prices," is the law of supply 
 and demand ; but a standard of value is im- 
 peratively necessary, for how can values be 
 regulated, how compared, without a point of 
 comparison ? In another place he wrongly 
 identifies " supply " with " useful value ;" and 
 " demand" with " exchangeable value." Sup- 
 ply and demand, both, have relation to, and 
 always determine, exchange value ; utility is 
 an element affecting demand. 
 
 In a line with those who have based value 
 upon labor, J. R. McCulloch calls real value 
 the cost of any product. Cost is (like utility) 
 totally distinct from value, although it is, 
 always, a prominent factor in determining 
 value under supply and demand. A thing 
 may be very costly (in labor) and yet quite 
 valueless. Misdirected labor has no right to, 
 and does not, determine value. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 21 
 
 His definition of what he calls exchange- 
 able value, in contradistinction to real value, 
 may be here quoted, as follows : " All com- 
 modities which are in demand and which 
 require any portion of voluntary labor to 
 obtain them are possessed of value, — that is, 
 of power or capacity of exchanging for labor 
 or for other commodities." This is verbose, 
 but is, briefly, power in exchange. 
 
 J. E. Cairnes (correctly) defines value as 
 " the power of commanding other things in 
 exchange," and, again (incorrectly), as "the 
 ratio in which commodities in open market 
 are exchanged against one another." His 
 first definition is expressed by his second, — 
 that is, poiver is expressed in ratios. Hence 
 his second definition is inaccurate. 
 
 Henry C. Carey defines value as a measure 
 of resistance in securing the goods we need, 
 which is the obverse of " power in exchange," 
 and a fair definition. 
 
 He also asserts that "the value of every 
 commodity, or thing, must be estimated in 
 
22 Value and an 
 
 some other commodity or thing." He would 
 be more scientific in saying the value of every 
 commodity or thing must be estimated in the 
 value of some other commodity or thing. 
 Values cannot be estimated in commodities ! 
 
 Again he says, " Labor is thus the sole 
 cause of value." He mistakes the producer 
 of value for its cause. Power in exchange is 
 the sole cause of value. 
 
 Again he writes : " The value of commodi- 
 ties, at the time of production, is measured by 
 the quantity and quality of labor required 
 to produce them." A comedy of errors ! 
 The quantity and quality of labor expended 
 determine cost; supply and demand deter- 
 mine value. Value cannot be measured by 
 labor any more than mass can be measured 
 by length. Quoting Francis A. Walker : " It 
 is not because an article has cost labor that 
 it possesses value. It is only because it can- 
 not now be obtained without labor." And 
 again : " Value depends wholly upon the 
 relation between demand and supply." 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 23 
 
 Professor Bonamy Price makes value cover 
 all utilities, and considers it synonymous with 
 attachment and esteem. 
 
 He writes: "The feeling, 'I value,' is 
 always ultimately the dictator of all economic 
 action. It asserts its mastery even when the 
 barbarian sells his children to be slaves." 
 
 But utility, attachment, esteem, or a feel- 
 ing, do not constitute value ; all may exist 
 apart from economic value. The ideality 
 conveyed in the definition is its only merit, 
 but, otherwise, it is not defining value. 
 
 J. S. Mill uses value as implying value in 
 exchange, which is tautological, and no defi- 
 nition of value until amended to read " power 
 in exchange." 
 
 Professor Jevons calls value a ratio in ex- 
 change. " Bearing in mind that value is 
 only the ratio of quantities exchanged." 
 This definition, followed to a logical conclu- 
 sion, annihilates the value of everything, per 
 se, for how can anything possess a ratio ? 
 But by denning value as power in exchange, 
 
24 Value and an 
 
 and the expression of that power as ratios, 
 then the reductio ad absurdtmi of Jevons and 
 his followers vanishes. 
 
 Francis A. Walker, one of the clearest in- 
 . terpreters of value, defines it as power in ex- 
 change, and otherwise in dealing with this 
 subject expresses himself admirably. 
 
 Proudhon makes an admission which im- 
 plies the ideality of value (a point we are 
 most anxious to substantiate) when he says, 
 " Seeing that the variability of value pro- 
 ceeds not from things, but from the mind," 
 etc. 
 
 A. L. Perry calls value " a relation in 
 mutual purchase." This is, again, the sub- 
 stitution of the expression of value for its 
 fact. A relation cannot be a value. 
 
 Bastiat's definition, a service rendered, is 
 not scientific, because many services are not 
 economically valuable. 
 
 Koscher defined it as a quality which 
 makes things exchangeable. This is put- 
 ting the cart before the horse; for it is 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 25 
 
 not value that makes things exchangeable, 
 but exchangeability that makes things valu- 
 able. 
 
 Levasseur defines value as a relation re- 
 sulting from exchange. "Relation," again, 
 which may express value, but is not value. 
 
 J. B. Say : " The valuation of an object 
 is nothing more nor less than the affirmation 
 that it is in a certain degree of comparative 
 estimation with some other specified object." 
 
 This definition involves the expression of 
 power in exchange or value ; it does not 
 define value. 
 
 Edward Kellogg, in his " New Monetary 
 System," makes value depend upon use, and 
 divides it into legal and actual value. 
 These terms suggest his meaning, but they 
 are unscientific. Utility is not the sole de- 
 terminant of value, nor can economy recog- 
 nize legal values. The fact of being able to 
 redeem representatives of value in actual 
 value, does not constitute the representatives 
 the things they represent. 
 
26 Value and an 
 
 The necessity for the minutest discrimina- 
 tions in terminology is manifest by the dif- 
 ferences of the economists ; and by the fact, 
 more and more evident to an inquiring, pro- 
 gressive mind, that this vexed question of 
 value must be solved before political economy 
 can pretend to be an exact science. 
 
 One of the best definitions of value ever 
 outlined is that of W. L. Trenholm, in his 
 work, " The People's Money." He writes : 
 " Value is an abstract term expressing a re- 
 lation; it does not exist in things said to 
 possess it, but is imputed to them by human 
 intelligence; it is not a quality of objects, 
 but only an attribute with which they be- 
 come invested. Value is very different from 
 utility, though utility is generally, but not 
 always, the basis of value. Utility is a physi- 
 cal relation, whereas value is an abstract rela- 
 tion. Brute animals have a conception of 
 utility ; they have no conception of value. 
 Value is a purely human conception. . . . 
 Value being a relation, it must vary by 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 27 
 
 degrees, not by quantities ; and degrees of 
 value, since value is the correlative of desire, 
 must vary with the intensity of the desires 
 to which they are related. But since value 
 attaches only to that which, though desired, 
 is as yet withheld from our possession, then 
 value must vary also with the resistance to 
 appropriation." 
 
 With the exception of the objection that 
 value is always expressed by, instead of being 
 the expression of, relations, the above defini- 
 tion is admirable, especially the admission 
 that value varies by degrees and not by quan- 
 tities, the degrees in turn varying with in- 
 tensity of desire. 
 
 Looking over the foregoing definitions of 
 value, we find that they embody, as a rule, 
 a conception of value as a mental phenom- 
 enon, — an ideality, an abstraction. The posi- 
 tion of those who assert the materiality of 
 value is absolutely indefensible. A com- 
 modity and its value are distinct entities. 
 The value may constantly change with the 
 
28 Value and an 
 
 freaks of the mind, while the commodity is 
 invariable. 
 
 If not entirely distinct one from the 
 other, change of one would imply changes of 
 both. 
 
 A commodity is a material substance of 
 an unvarying quantity and mass ; its value 
 is fugitive and uncertain. 
 
 Those, again, who define value as both 
 material and ideal, concrete and abstract, are 
 condemned out of their own mouths ; and 
 yet that is virtually the position of those 
 who, while defining value as ideal, insist 
 upon some material standard of value. 
 
 Finally, as to value, we claim that it is 
 power in exchange, expressed in ratios, de- 
 termined by supply and demand, ever tend- 
 ing to cost of production under an efficient 
 demand or to non - production under a 
 non-efficient demand ; value, so determined, 
 being significant of a certain difficulty of 
 attainment. 
 
 Labor, the source of all values, creates 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 29 
 
 products — some useful, some useless — which, 
 under supply and demand, have such use or 
 non-use determined, resulting in values and 
 non-values, the former persisting in, the latter 
 desisting from, production ; the former values 
 tending to cost of production, i.e., labor ex- 
 pended. 
 
 Thus, it is clearly shown that value repre- 
 sents a certain difficulty of attainment, and 
 that this difficulty increases under certain 
 conditions and diminishes under other and 
 contrary conditions. 
 
 The modifications of this difficulty of at- 
 tainment can only be indicated by a scale of 
 degrees ; it is impossible to conceive of any 
 commodity so functioning. 
 
 The reader must bear the foregoing in 
 mind : it is very vital to our conclusions. 
 
 The Gresham Paradoxical Law. 
 
 Along in the '80s I wrote as follows in 
 the Denver Individualist : 
 
 " If a general advance in prices occurs 
 
30 Value and an 
 
 under a gold basis, the gold dollar is called 
 upon to perform two opposite functions, 
 namely, to exchange for less as money, and 
 for more as a commodity. Strip off the 
 material incumbrance, and this difficulty 
 vanishes. 
 
 " It is this property of ' metal money' that 
 creates the so-called Gresham paradox, — that 
 poor money drives out good money. 
 
 "The paradox vanishes when we under- 
 stand what is poor money and what is good 
 money. Ideal money, having no intrinsic 
 value, is good money, and, in competition 
 with iron, silver, copper, gold, or any 
 commodity money, must inevitably, and 
 very properly, drive them from circulation. 
 Money, like humanity, is subject to the law 
 of the ' survival of the fittest.' " 
 
 In a recent work I reiterated the above 
 truth, and, so far as I know, am the first writer 
 who has exposed the mythical character of 
 this famed economic law, — the paradox of 
 Sir Thomas Gresham. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 31 
 
 I refer to this law again because it lias 
 been urged by Jevons as a reason why money 
 should not be provided by private manu- 
 facture, against Mr. Herbert Spencer's claim 
 that it should. In other words, the paradox 
 is used as a barrier against liberty, and, like 
 most pleas in that direction, it is entirely 
 false and baseless. The absurd waste of 
 metal in coinage is pointedly shown else- 
 where in these pages ; therefore, the conflict 
 of old with new coins passes out of economics. 
 Money, purely ideal, enters the arena and 
 defies picking, culling, and garbling, — the 
 melting-pot, and Gresham's unscientific law. 
 
 While defending Mr. Spencer's aspirations 
 towards liberty, and while brushing aside 
 Professor Jevons's baseless objection thereto, 
 we are yet compelled to remind Mr. Spencer 
 that, while the private issue of money is per- 
 fectly feasible and should be legitimate, the 
 issue of coin-money or metal-money would 
 never be advocated, under any conditions, by 
 one who understood the theory of value. 
 
32 Value and an 
 
 The Gresham law is, in all its bearings, an 
 apt illustration of the evil of metal coinage. 
 It reveals the fact that the metal is in con- 
 stant antagonism to the money, interfering 
 with and sometimes entirely abrogating the 
 money function, in deference to its commodity 
 value. The best money is that money that 
 performs the money function the best and at 
 the least cost. The use of a valuable metal 
 as a tool of exchange is just as absurd as 
 would be its use in the manufacture of 
 spades and shovels and other tools of indus- 
 try. 
 
 An iron or steel shovel would always drive 
 out a gold shovel ; just as a cheap money 
 drives out a dear money. 
 
 For three centuries this paradox has been 
 the apologist of an absurd system of money, — 
 a system in conflict with the universal law 
 that the fittest survives. 
 
 The money that runs away from its duties 
 — that refuses to circulate — is, according to 
 this absurdity, the best money. The soldier 
 
Invariable TJnit of Value. 33 
 
 who runs away from the field of battle is, by 
 this reasoning, the bravest and best soldier. 
 
 Professors Newcomb and Mill claim that 
 " the value of the dollar varies inversely as 
 the scale of prices." Conflicting values of 
 full and light weight coin are the foundation 
 of the Gresham paradox. 
 
 Under the invariable unit of value, money 
 will never vary in value. Its significance as 
 to quantities, may vary, but, as to value, it 
 never can vary. 
 
 Thus, the invariability of the value of money 
 (of the value scale) destroys this paradox. 
 
 Money should be a value, not a commodity ; 
 it should not have value ; but, I reiterate, it 
 should be value, and a fixed value; being 
 such, its absolute uniformity renders conflict 
 impossible, and the Gresham law disappears. 
 
 If there is any one single fact which con- 
 demns our entire money system, I know of 
 none so potent in that direction as that cod- 
 dled product of ignorance, the Gresham para- 
 doxical law. 
 
34 Value mid an 
 
 The Economic Myth of Land-Value. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau has said, "The 
 first man having an enclosure, a plot of 
 ground, who took it into his head to say, 
 ' This is mine,' was the real founder of civil 
 society. What crimes, misery, and horror 
 would have been spared mankind if some one 
 had pulled away the fences, and filled in the 
 ditches, crying out to his fellows, 'Beware 
 of listening to this impostor ; you are lost if 
 you forget that the fruits of the earth belong 
 to all, and that the land belongs to no one 
 person.' " 
 
 Adam Smith said, " As soon as the land 
 of any country has all become private prop- 
 erty, the landlords, like all other men, love 
 to reap where they never sowed, and demand 
 a rent even for its natural produce." 
 
 The relations of landlord and tenant are 
 the epitome of a huge system of exploitation 
 born of unjust monopoly, such as is suggested 
 by the above quotations. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 35 
 
 We assert that land has no value, and that 
 a true science of political economy demon- 
 strates that fact. 
 
 Value, or exchangeability, can only origi- 
 nate in labor. That which requires no effort 
 to secure it, is economically valueless. 
 
 Proudhon said, "Abolish labor, and you 
 have left only articles of greater or less use- 
 fulness, which, being stamped with no eco- 
 nomic character, no human seal, are without 
 a common measure, — that is, are logically 
 unexchangeable." 
 
 J. K. Ingalls said, " The land, not being 
 movable, cannot be transferred; hence only 
 possession or occupancy can be exchanged. 
 Being no product of labor, it cannot be 
 measured by labor or have a labor price. A 
 money price is therefore fraudulent." 
 
 Again, the economists show that values 
 always tend to cost of production. The ele- 
 ment of labor being eliminated, how can cost 
 be determined ? To speak of the cost of pro- 
 duction of land would be absurd. Therefore, 
 
36 Value and an 
 
 as no other final determinant of value is pos- 
 sible, we assert, as Proudhon did of labor, 
 that the value of land is a figurative expres- 
 sion, an anticipation of effect from cause. 
 
 Even if land-values were legitimized by 
 science, the fact remains that they are purely 
 speculative, — based upon a prospective power 
 of exploitation, upon values not yet pro- 
 duced, and not upon existing values. There- 
 fore, how absurd it is to include land-values, 
 so called, in any estimate of a community's 
 exchangeable wealth. 
 
 And what becomes of the proposition of 
 certain reformers to tax land-values ? 
 
 And, again, what of the proposition, urged 
 by some students of the money question, to 
 make these mythical products of unjust eco- 
 nomic conditions — these so-called land-val- 
 ues — a basis for money issues ? 
 
 The scheme to tax land-values reminds me 
 of the observant shark, which, seeing a man 
 fall overboard, concluded it would be charita- 
 ble to take the poor fellow in, as the whale 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 37 
 
 took in Jonah, in order to save him from 
 death by drowning. 
 
 The grim alternative of private or govern- 
 mental monopoly is offered the poor exploited 
 producer ; anything to help him to secure his 
 just wages, — namely, his entire product, — 
 anything except to get off his back. 
 
 Our Present Standard. 
 
 Professor Jevons voices the chorus of the 
 economists when he writes as follows : " All 
 we can say, then, is that the standard unit of 
 value is some entirely arbitrary weight of the 
 standard metal, the exact amount of which, 
 being a matter of indifference on general 
 grounds, should be fixed as seems most con- 
 venient in reference to the habits of nations 
 or other accidental circumstances." (Italics 
 mine.) 
 
 This faulty theory of the economists may 
 be called the Styx of industry leading straight 
 to Hades. By adopting a weight as a stand- 
 ard of value, the commodity back of the 
 
38 Value and an 
 
 weight becomes king of commodities and 
 autocrat of industry, as we shall clearly show 
 in our next section. 
 
 On this theory stands gold to-day, the 
 vortex of a struggle that gets more intense as 
 time moves on. A struggle intensified, also, 
 by the demonetization of silver, which is all 
 that can be said in favor of silver coinage, 
 one commodity being easier monopolized than 
 two. 
 
 Our present standard of value, so called, is 
 a certain weight of gold of a certain quality. 
 Now, as a standard of anything must be 
 homogeneous with such thing, — as a standard 
 of weight must be weight, as a standard of 
 length must be length, as a standard of color 
 must be color, as a standard of virtue must be 
 virtue, — so, a standard of value must be value. 
 
 As our standard of to-day is simply a 
 certain quantity of gold, how can it be a 
 standard of value ? 
 
 It is actually a standard of quantity and 
 fineness in relation to gold, that is all. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 39 
 
 All of the economists agree as to the im- 
 perfection of this standard ; but, while hunt- 
 ing for some true standard, they have apolo- 
 gized for this as the best obtainable. 
 
 In the words of Professor Laughlin 
 {Forum, February, 1896), "Gold and silver 
 have been used as standards in default of 
 better ones," etc. 
 
 Adam Smith wrote : " Gold and silver, 
 however, like every other commodity, vary 
 in their value, — are sometimes cheaper and 
 sometimes dearer, sometimes of easier and 
 sometimes of more difficult purchase; . . . 
 so a commodity which is itself continually 
 varying in its own value, can never be an 
 accurate measure of the value of other com- 
 modities." Adam Smith did not correctly 
 apprehend value, or he would not so con- 
 found the commodity with its value. A 
 commodity, even if unvarying in its value, 
 could not be a standard of value; it could 
 only be a standard of quantity or quality. 
 A further quotation from A. Smith will 
 
40 Value and an 
 
 make this plain. He says, " But as a meas- 
 ure of quantity, such as the natural foot, 
 fathom, or handful, which is continually 
 varying in its own quantity, can never be an 
 accurate measure of the quantity of other 
 things ; so, a commodity, which is itself con- 
 tinually varying in its own value, can never 
 be an accurate measure of the value of other 
 commodities." Note how harmonious is the 
 use of the word quantity, and how inharmo- 
 nious the interjection of the word commodity 
 in the foregoing. The reference to value 
 should read thus, — "so, a value, which is 
 itself continually varying in its own value, 
 can never be an accurate measure of the 
 value of other things." 
 
 It is easy to prove that our present stand- 
 ard is not a standard of value, for if, in a 
 line with the theory of Jevons heretofore 
 quoted, "some entirely arbitrary weight of 
 the standard metal," say, 25.8 grains of 
 gold, be selected as the standard of value, 
 then the perfect practicability of keeping 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 41 
 
 such quantity invariable is quite manifest; 
 and the fact of the value of 25.8 grains of gold 
 varying would be of no consequence ; that is, 
 if the weight were the standard. If, on the 
 contrary, the value of 25.8 grains of gold is 
 the standard of value, then the variability in 
 the value of gold is most important, and we 
 have an entirely different problem to deal 
 with, — viz., how to arrive at .a standard of 
 value that will be invariable. Therefore, 
 those economists who assert that a certain 
 quantity of some commodity is, or can be, a 
 standard of value, while maintaining the 
 impossibility of the conception of an inva- 
 riable standard, are both ignorant and in- 
 consistent. 
 
 If the commodity were indeed a standard 
 of value, then it would be an invariable 
 standard ; for quantities can be kept con- 
 stant. 
 
 Thus it appears that our present standard 
 is not a standard of value, but a standard of 
 quantity and fineness (25.8 grains of gold, nine- 
 
42 Value and an 
 
 tenths fine) which masquerades as a standard 
 of value, to the infinite derangement of 
 values and everlasting bewilderment of the 
 student of political economy. 
 
 Evils of our Present Standard. 
 
 Our commodity standard has perpetuated 
 the Mercantile or Commercial System, which 
 makes money the master, and exploiter, of 
 industry, instead of its servant and tool; 
 affirming, as it does, that the wealth of a 
 nation consists in its money, — i.e., in the 
 volume of its precious metals. 
 
 The economists reject this system theo- 
 retically, but, in spite of them, it is in force 
 to-day. 
 
 Under it, the pernicious theory of the 
 balance of trade has developed into a con- 
 trolling influence in international commerce, 
 and the money-metals, instead of being free 
 from any artificial restrictions in trade, are 
 the holy of holies, the apex of an inverted 
 pyramid controlled by the high-priests of 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 43 
 
 the Temple of Usury. Being not only- 
 money, but the basis of a huge credit system, 
 the precious metals cannot leave a country 
 without necessitating a contraction of credit 
 and paralysis of business. 
 
 When we consider that the available sup- 
 ply of gold (silver is now out of the ques- 
 tion) is hardly sufficient for the reserve re- 
 quirements of the banks, it is evident that 
 we are always near financial trouble. A 
 slight outflow of gold creates uneasiness, a 
 large, continuous drain causes a panic. For 
 instance, prior to the panic of 1893, one of 
 the worst this country has experienced, 
 there was a steady outflow of gold, necessi- 
 tating a fearful contraction of credit (esti- 
 mated $800,000,000). No wonder industry 
 was paralyzed ! 
 
 The evil of gold exports, adverse ex- 
 changes, born of a commodity standard, forms 
 the basis of a discovery of a principle govern- 
 ing such conditions. Macleod formulated it 
 thus : " When exchange is against a country 
 
44 Value and an 
 
 through excessive indebtedness, equilibrium 
 is restored by excess of exports over imports 
 or by raising the rate of interest." This 
 principle, he proudly asserts, " is universally 
 adopted by every bank in the world." Un- 
 fortunately it is, and industry suffers eter- 
 nally, because a commodity, naturally of 
 little importance industrially, has usurped 
 functions and privileges not rightfully be- 
 longing to it. Under a proper money sys- 
 tem, the export of gold would be no more detri- 
 mental to a nation than the export of potatoes ; 
 or, in the words of a writer in the American 
 Magazine of Civics (December, 1895), "Our 
 gold would simply compete with our grain 
 and cotton for the foreign market. We 
 should enjoy the splendid advantage of caring 
 nothing for the fluctuations of gold itself ex- 
 cept as they affected the price of bullion sent 
 abroad, and, thereby, our foreign debts and 
 trade; while, now, the flow of gold, by its 
 depletion or expansion of our money volume, 
 deranges, as well, all our domestic exchanges, 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 45 
 
 twenty times more important." Let us hope 
 that the time will come when political econ- 
 omy will seek to cure radical evils instead of 
 formulating superficial treatment into prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 The Mercantile System teaches that every- 
 thing must be encouraged to leave a country 
 before the precious metals, and that to this 
 end industry must, unhesitatingly, be sacri- 
 ficed upon the altar of money. 
 
 Its foundation is the commodity standard, 
 the use of which, in exchange, keeps money 
 and industry perpetually in battle array, the 
 interests of the banks and of industry being 
 diametrically opposed to each other instead 
 of being perfectly and continuously harmo- 
 nious. 
 
 The Commercial System creates obstacles 
 to the progress of national and international 
 prosperity, checking, by means of tariffs and 
 custom-houses, the natural trend to union of 
 interests and fraternal relations, producing, 
 instead, discord, jealousy, and animosity. 
 
46 Value and an 
 
 The fluctuations of the commodity stand- 
 ard cause the conflict between price and 
 value observed by Adam Smith, J. S. Mill, 
 and others, which introduces into economy 
 elements of uncertainty, disintegration, and 
 contradiction, leading able writers into error. 
 The point is thus explained by Smith : " The 
 same real price is always at the same value, 
 but on account of the variations in the value 
 of gold and silver the same nominal price is 
 sometimes of very different values." (Italics 
 mine.) Now, by real price, A. Smith means 
 " the quantity of the necessaries and con- 
 veniences of life which are given for it." In 
 other words, real price refers to quantities of 
 commodities, which he claims are " always of 
 the same value." He is wrong, for value is 
 not an expression of quantity, but of difficulty 
 of attainment, and that constantly varies. 
 Hence, if money is a true measure of value, 
 contracts for the future should always be 
 made in money, if it is desired to insure an 
 equivalent value. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 47 
 
 If supply and demand were the only in- 
 fluences modifying prices, the apparent con- 
 flict between money and values or prices and 
 values would be eliminated. Price would 
 then be synonymous with value, and (Mr. 
 Mill to the contrary notwithstanding) even 
 then there might be a general rise or a gen- 
 eral fall in values. If any one commodity 
 may be produced cheaper from any cause, 
 and thus decline in value (as Mill admits it 
 may), then other and all values may decline 
 under like influences. 
 
 This, indeed, should be the goal of indus- 
 trial progress, — viz., a general decline in cost 
 of production (value), facilitating the acquisi- 
 tion of all that tends to the comfort and well- 
 being of the producer. 
 
 On the other hand, famine, or undue and 
 baseless money issues, might intensify the 
 struggle for existence by raising values uni- 
 versally. 
 
 Under present conditions, a rising market 
 is deemed prolific of good and a falling mar- 
 
48 Value and an 
 
 ket, of evil. But under right conditions this 
 would be reversed. Here appears the ab- 
 surdity of high wages and high prices. The 
 true criterion of wages is purchasing power, 
 consequently, under right conditions, decreased 
 cost of 'production would be constantly ad- 
 vancing wages. Under this natural law, 
 tariffs, by increasing cost, are a perpetual 
 enemy of labor. 
 
 Under present conditions, the natural in- 
 crease of wages by decreased cost of pro- 
 duction is diverted from labor by a monopo- 
 lized money. And the process by which this 
 infamous end is accomplished is invisible, be- 
 cause the fluctuation of a standard with itself 
 cannot be observed. 
 
 This invisible but persistent nianijnilation 
 of the commodity standard has diverted 
 from the producer his cheapened product 
 and the vast general benefits flowing from 
 that great principle so beautifully elaborated 
 by that great economist, Adam Smith, — the 
 principle of the division of labor. This prin- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 49 
 
 ciple, under which such play is given to the 
 inventive capacity of mankind, and all the 
 influences tending to perfect and cheapen 
 and render accessible to the producer his 
 product, is diverted from labor by the monop- 
 oly of money, — of the commodity standard. 
 
 As fast as labor is eased of the burden of 
 production, the burden of distribution is in- 
 creased. Facility in production meets diffi- 
 culty in distribution. The acquisition by 
 him of his cheapened product is blocked by 
 a requisition for a monopolized and restricted 
 medium of exchange. 
 
 Whichever road he takes, he falls among 
 thieves. Maledicite ! 
 
 Again, the commodity standard fails to 
 guarantee, on time contracts, the exchange of 
 equivalent values. By the time any such 
 contract matures, the money or commodity 
 in which liquidation is obligatory may have 
 become more or less difficult of attainment, 
 consequently injustice enters into the liqui- 
 dation. Being a variable standard of pay- 
 
50 Value and an 
 
 ment or settlement, it cannot insure justice in 
 contracts. 
 
 Again, the fictitious, or legal, value of the 
 commodity standard renders it extremely 
 sensitive to danger ; just when most needed 
 in exchange it may crawl into the nooks and 
 corners of banks or into the stocking of the 
 miser. 
 
 Every nation that uses a commodity stand- 
 ard has been endangered by its evanishment 
 or plundered by its impudence. 
 
 It vanishes in danger, and reappears when 
 the danger passes, to curse and enslave the 
 many in the interests of a few. Under re- 
 sumption processes, contraction of currency 
 into bonds takes place, fathering perpetual 
 debts upon the people and ruining merchants 
 by thousands. It is in such times that 
 
 " 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth increases, and where men decay." 
 
 England, under Peel's Resumption Act of 
 1820, presented the picture of congested 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 51 
 
 wealth and general poverty. The elder Peel 
 said to his son, " My son, you have enriched 
 your family and your class, but you have 
 nearly ruined your country." In this coun- 
 try from 1865 to 1879, under Resumption 
 processes, a plutarchy was created with its 
 capital in Wall Street and its obedient ser- 
 vants in Washington. And this resumption, 
 what is it ? It is simply the ignorant alle- 
 giance to a commodity standard, from which, 
 under more or less trying circumstances, 
 both countries had escaped. 
 
 England's progress in material well-being 
 during her struggle with Napoleon, and this 
 country's like progress during the war of the 
 Rebellion, give the lie to the specie basis, and 
 loudly affirm the vast possibilities of industry 
 under ideal standards. 
 
 Under an imperfect commodity standard a 
 safe and adequate banking system is an im- 
 possibility. On the one hand is the need for 
 a tool of exchange, and on the other hand is 
 the necessity for redemption in gold. Such 
 
 4 
 
52 Value and an 
 
 redemption cannot be adequately guaranteed, 
 and it is absurd to attempt it. Values cre- 
 ated by industry are monetized by bank 
 credits redeemable in specie, so that every 
 issue of credit, while apparently indicating 
 growing industry and increasing wealth, is in 
 inverse proportion to its security. 
 
 At the zenith of apparent enterprise and 
 real prosperity gold vanishes and bank 
 credits are called in. People have borrowed 
 credit upon a pan-commodity basis and must 
 now pay in one commodity (gold). The 
 pyramid of industry based on gold, propped 
 by credit, topples over, and the crop sown 
 by enterprise and labor is reaped by idleness. 
 No banking system based upon gold can pos- 
 sibly meet the demands of expanding industry, 
 it can never be other than a wrecker of in- 
 dustry. 
 
 It is not wild-cat banking that we must de- 
 nounce, but a wild-cat standard. 
 
 Again, a commodity standard is a very 
 expensive toy. It diverts from their natural 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 53 
 
 uses valuable metals ; and, if the use of iron 
 as money by the Lacedemonians excited the 
 surprise of a visiting barbarian (whose name 
 I have forgotten), how much more senseless 
 might well appear the wade of gold for such 
 a purpose. 
 
 Adam Smith wrote : " Money, therefore, is 
 the only part of the circulating capital of a 
 society of which the maintenance can occa- 
 sion any diminution in their net revenue." 
 
 Certainly, then, it would be in a line with 
 true economy to discard such an expensive 
 standard. 
 
 Probably the most gigantic evil based upon 
 the commodity standard is the funding 
 system, which in its malevolent influence 
 upon the destinies of mankind has more to 
 answer for to the eternal Nemesis of wrong 
 than any other evil ; we might almost say, 
 than the aggregate of all other evils. 
 
 It is passing over the nations of the earth 
 like a plague, leaving abandoned homes and 
 the desolation of despair in its track. It is 
 
54 Value and an 
 
 an invisible chain from which escape is hope- 
 less. It is ruining nations and enslaving 
 mankind. It is absurd to talk of self-gov- 
 ernment under a funding system. The 
 following words of prophecy were written by 
 Adam Smith, in 1776, in his immortal and in- 
 valuable work : " The progress of the enor- 
 mous debts which at present oppress, and will 
 in the long run probably ruin all the great 
 nations of Europe, has been pretty uniform." 
 Ruin or repudiation, which? The funding 
 system wipes out all frontier lines, all jmtri- 
 otism, all classes but two, "the sticker and 
 the stuck !" 
 
 It seeks the guarantee of enslaved humanity 
 on its investments, and encourages official ex- 
 travagance and rascality. 
 
 The fundamental causatory evil of the 
 commodity standard is its monopoly. It is 
 useless to deny a monoply of gold ; if it 
 were not monopolized by a comparatively 
 few money-kings, how could a syndicate of 
 bankers agree to control exchange as was 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 55 
 
 done recently in one of those masterly (?) 
 deals in bonds of the Cleveland administra- 
 tion. 
 
 This monopoly is like a devil-fish, its 
 stomach in Threadneedle Street, London, its 
 suckers spread over all the world, absorbing 
 the fruits of industry and reducing the in- 
 dustrious to pauperism. It needs constant 
 new fields of exploitation, or it would die. 
 It is distinctively English in origin and has 
 reduced every seventh inhabitant of England 
 to pauperism. It throttles industry by debt, 
 and then picks its pocket. 
 
 Its missionaries are everywhere proclaiming 
 the virtue of this devil-fish of finance, shout- 
 ing for honest money and making whole 
 nations converts. It spreads its capital over 
 the earth, encouraging industry but capturing 
 the harvest. It encourages only to devour. 
 It devours, and, in return, gives periodical 
 panics and industrial paralysis. And the 
 civilized fools of many nations struggle on 
 year by year, frantically competing with one 
 
56 Value and an 
 
 another to determine which can squeeze the 
 most hog into the English sovereign. Oh, 
 fools, when will ye get wisdom ? 
 
 I have not exhausted the category of evils 
 of a commodity standard, but this must 
 suffice. 
 
 Whatever line of economic inquiry we 
 follow, the mammoth evils of our present 
 money system are revealed like a veritable 
 Pandora's Box. 
 
 Labor Standards, etc. 
 
 Realizing the great truth that labor is the 
 source of all wealth, Adam Smith, Ricardo, 
 Karl Marx and other economists, including 
 even the great Proudhon, have concluded 
 that labor is not only the producer but the 
 measure of all values. 
 
 Adam Smith says, " Labor, it must always 
 be remembered, and not any particular com- 
 modity or set of commodities, is the real 
 measure of value, both of silver and all other 
 commodities." 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 57 
 
 This proposition, as J. S. Mill observes 
 truly, " whether in itself admissible or not, 
 discards the idea of exchange value alto- 
 gether." And yet, while not scientifically 
 true, Adam Smith's proposition is a part of 
 the truth, and we shall find cost of production 
 or labor expended in production figuring as a 
 prominent factor in the determination of 
 value, and in fact, indirectly, becoming the 
 ultimate measure of value. 
 
 We say indirectly, for a labor standard of 
 value is totally inadmissible in view of the 
 law which asserts, with regard to all measures 
 and standards, that they must be homogeneous 
 with the thing measured or gauged, and that 
 therefore labor only can be a standard or 
 measure of labor. Another disability of 
 labor, preventing its use as a measure of 
 value, is that scientifically labor has no value. 
 
 Proudhon discerned this truth when he 
 wrote, " The value of labor is a figurative 
 expression, an anticipation of effect from 
 cause. ... It is a fiction by the same 
 
58 Value and an 
 
 title as the productivity of capital. Labor 
 produces, capital has value ; and when, by a 
 sort of ellipsis, we say the value of labor, we 
 make an enjambement, which is not at all 
 contrary to the rules of language, but which 
 theorists ought to guard against mistaking 
 for a reality. Labor, like liberty, love, am- 
 bition, genius, is a thing vague and inde- 
 terminate in its nature, but qualitatively de- 
 faced by its object, — that is, it becomes a 
 reality through its product. When, therefore, 
 we say, This man's labor is worth five francs 
 per day, it is as if we should say, The daily 
 product of this man is worth five francs." 
 
 In this relation labor is analogous with 
 utility. All utilities are not valuable, but 
 yet value is inconceivable apart from utility. 
 So all labor products are not valuable, but 
 value apart from a labor product is incon- 
 ceivable. 
 
 Therefore, labor as a standard of value is 
 impossible. We next encounter the product 
 of labor, which passing through the crucible 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 59 
 
 of human estimation is pronounced valuable 
 or non-valuable. The necessity for this re- 
 fining process is beautifully expressed by 
 Proudhon : 
 
 " But society preserves itself only so far as 
 it avoids solidarity with private speculations, 
 and leaves every innovation absolutely to the 
 risk and peril of individuals. It would take 
 but a few pages to contain the list of useful 
 inventions. The enterprises that have been 
 carried to a successful issue may be num- 
 bered. No figure could express the multi- 
 tude of false ideas and imprudent ventures 
 which every day are hatched in human 
 brains." 
 
 Thus it is essential that each labor product 
 pass through the crucible of supply and de- 
 mand, while its producer retires to await the 
 verdict which shall warrant or not its con- 
 tinued production. When its value is de- 
 termined, we can then logically hunt for our 
 standard of value. 
 
 The advocates of a labor standard of value 
 
60 Value and an 
 
 have never discovered its unit. Ricardo con- 
 fessed that an invariable standard of value 
 was unattainable. 
 
 J. K. Ingalls wrote : " I know of but one 
 invariable standard, and that is labor ; but 
 what is its unit?" We shall show that it 
 virtually is some value taken at cost of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Various other impossible standards have 
 been suggested. J. B. Say, hunting with the 
 rest of the economists for a concrete standard 
 of the abstract, — i.e., a commodity standard 
 of value, — finally concluded that a measure 
 of value was an ignis fatuus. He advocated 
 the rejection of money terms (franc, etc.) ; 
 the adoption of a standard of quantity and 
 exchanges of quantities. He said, " When 
 the law says five grammes of silver shall be 
 equivalent to a franc, it is singly saying 
 that a franc is five grammes of silver." 
 He asks, " Why not call it five grammes of 
 silver?" This proposition of Say is for a 
 restricted barter, worse than barter pure and 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 61 
 
 simple. But the suggestion involved the 
 perception by the economist of a great evil, 
 — viz., a variable monopolized standard. He 
 writes : " The whole monetary system would 
 thenceforth fall to the ground, — a system re- 
 plete with fraud, injustice, and robbery ; and 
 moreover so complicated as rarely to be 
 thoroughly understood, even by those who 
 make it their profession." 
 
 The system he justly denounces is in force 
 to-day. Other economists, awake to the evils 
 of our present standard, have advocated 
 standards based upon and governed by sta- 
 tistics and inventories — multiple and compos- 
 ite commodity standards. But such schemes 
 are based upon a false conception of value. 
 For instance, an advocate of a multiple stand- 
 ard recently wrote as follows : " Money itself 
 should be kept at the commodity standard, — 
 that is, so that the same money shall always 
 buy the same average amount of commodi- 
 ties." And again : " Good money must al- 
 ways measure the same average amount of 
 
62 Value and an 
 
 the commodities it is commonly used to pur- 
 chase." This embodies the very common error 
 that money should express unvarying quanti- 
 ties, while, on the contrary, it should express 
 unvarying values. If I give a promissory 
 note for $500, due in ten years, and at the time 
 of giving it $500 will buy five hundred bushels 
 of wheat, a piano of a certain quality, or one 
 thousand bushels of corn, and if by the date 
 of maturity the cost of production has been 
 so diminished that $500 will buy one thousand 
 bushels of wheat, two pianos of the same 
 quality as specified above, and two thousand 
 bushels of corn, my money covers precisely the 
 same value or difficulty of attainment at both 
 periods mentioned. Whereas, to insist that 
 my $500 shall only buy the same quantities 
 ten years from now would be absolutely unjust. 
 
 A standard embodying this injustice is the 
 goal of the advocates of a multiple and other 
 commodity standards of which late literature 
 has so much to say. 
 
 The significance of a standard of value 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 63 
 
 must be varying as to commodities, invariable 
 as to value. 
 
 Proudhon makes this important point very- 
 clear. He says, " Suppose, then, that sud- 
 denly, by a fortunate combination of efforts, 
 by the division of labor by the use of some 
 machine, by better management of the natural 
 resources, — in short, by his industry, — Pro- 
 metheus finds a way of producing in one day 
 as much of a certain object as he formerly 
 produced in ten, what will follow ? The 
 product will change its position in the table 
 of the elements of wealth ; its power of 
 affinity for other products, so to speak, being 
 increased, its relative value will be propor- 
 tionately diminished, and, instead of being 
 quoted at one hundred, it will thereafter be 
 quoted only at ten. But this value will still, 
 and always, be none the less accurately deter- 
 mined, and it will still be labor alone which 
 will fix the degree of its importance. Thus 
 value varies and the law of value is unchange- 
 able. Further, if value is susceptible of vari- 
 
64 Value and an 
 
 ation, it is because it is governed by a law 
 whose principle is essentially inconstant, — 
 namely, labor measured by time." 
 
 And yet the plan of the multiple standard 
 advocate referred to is to increase or diminish 
 the volume of money to counteract the most 
 triumphant fact of civilization, — reduced cost 
 of production, lessened difficulty of attain- 
 ment. 
 
 A standard of value must be a standard of 
 difficulty of attainment; of value, not of 
 quantity. It should insure for its owner a 
 service equivalent to that which he has ren- 
 dered. Such service can only be determined 
 by value (which is the measure of service), 
 not by quantity. 
 
 A truth is here revealed which is a revolu- 
 tion in political economy. 
 
 Standard but not Basis ; also Standard 
 and Time Basis. 
 
 There are some writers who think that 
 gold may be retained as the money standard, 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 65 
 
 but that the "basis privilege" should be 
 abolished. In other words, they believe it 
 possible to have a commodity standard of 
 value independent of a commodity basis. 
 Benjamin R. Tucker, editor of Liberty 
 (New York), says ("Instead of a Book," 
 p. 253), "Moreover there is no danger in 
 a standard. The whole trouble disappears 
 with the abolition of the basis privilege." 
 
 In the first place, as we have clearly 
 demonstrated, a commodity cannot be a stand- 
 ard of value. Further proof of this is 
 needless. Again, to say that 25.8 grains of 
 gold shall be a dollar, and yet that gold, in 
 that quantity, and dollars, shall not be inter- 
 convertible, is to theorize idly. Intercon- 
 vertibility on demand is indispensable. A 
 gold standard implies a gold basis ; they are 
 inseparable. Tucker, when asked, "What 
 becomes of the standard or measure of value 
 during suspensions of specie payment?" re- 
 plied, "Nothing. It remains what it was 
 before. Certain parties have refused to pay 
 
66 Value and an 
 
 their debts; that's all." He is right; but 
 when he advocates the repudiation of this 
 basis, he should include the standard also, 
 for they are inseparable. 
 
 If he owes $100 on a standard of 25.8 
 grains of gold per dollar, no matter if he 
 can pay his debt in other commodities than 
 gold, they must be equivalent in value to 
 25.8 grains of gold, to determine which they 
 must be convertible into gold on demand. 
 Thus, indirectly, the basis is perpetuated 
 with the standard, and we are still in the 
 bonds of iniquity. Suspension of specie 
 payments sets the commodity (metal) free 
 from money, and the dollar then becomes 
 truly a standard of value (as we shall see 
 later on). The money then measures the 
 fluctuations in value of the commodity of 
 which it was theretofore supposed to be com- 
 posed as well as of all other commodities. 
 The payment of debts in money then be- 
 comes as just, as their payment in an inflated 
 monopolized commodity would be unjust. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 67 
 
 The quantity standard has vanished and the 
 standard of value has appeared. Under re- 
 sumption of the specie basis the dollar be- 
 comes an invariable unit of quantity, mas- 
 querading as a unit of value. Payment of 
 debts in this commodity standard is the very 
 embodiment of rascality. 
 
 Hugo Bilgram, of Philadelphia, in a 
 j)amphlet on the money question, advocates 
 the gold standard in connection with a 
 promise to redeem in such standard on time 
 notice, instead of, as now, on demand. By 
 this plan the same quantity of gold may be 
 used "repeatedly in the process of redemp- 
 tion." But, apart from the absurdity of a 
 commodity standard of value, the facts of 
 history condemn his plan as impossible. 
 Adam Smith tells us that along in 1762, 
 1763, 1764, "the different banking com- 
 panies of Scotland were in the practice of 
 inserting into their bank-notes what they 
 called an optional clause, by which they 
 promised payment to the bearer, either as 
 
68 Value and an 
 
 soon as the note should be presented, or, in 
 the option of the directors, six months after 
 such presentment, together with the legal 
 interest for the said six months." 
 
 Under this abuse, sometimes the exchange 
 between London and Carlisle was at par, 
 while that between London and Dumfries 
 would be four per cent, against Dumfries, 
 " though this town is not thirty miles distant 
 from Carlisle." 
 
 Uncertainty of demand redemption de- 
 graded the time notes four per cent, below 
 coin. 
 
 The same writer speaks of the paper cur- 
 rencies of the North American Colonies pay- 
 able several years after issuance, which in 
 spite of legal enactments varied in their 
 value in proportion to " the distance and 
 probability of the term of their final dis- 
 charge and redemption." 
 
 This all goes to show that Bilgram's 
 scheme of time redemptio?i and Tucker's 
 scheme of no basis are both fallacious and 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 69 
 
 impracticable ; or, to be more explicit, Tucker 
 cannot have a standard of value that is not 
 a basis of value ; and Bilgram cannot have a 
 standard that is not redeemable on demand. 
 We will also remind Mr. Bilgram that, if 
 the same quantity of gold can be used over 
 and over again in the process of redemption, 
 logic insists on carrying the j^rocess to in- 
 finity, rendering no redemption necessary. 
 
 What we need is an enlargement of both 
 the standard and basis of value, and that is 
 obtained by our invariable unit, standard, 
 basis, and measure of value, as we shall prove 
 later on ! Under our system we arrive at a 
 pan-value standard and basis. All values 
 monetized upon a basis of all values, — and 
 redeemable on demand in that basis, — that is 
 our programme. So long as the value of a 
 single commodity furnishes the standard, real 
 or alleged, so long will that commodity be " 
 subject to monopoly ; and even redemption of 
 money in all commodities at par with some 
 single specified commodity would be no pro- 
 
70 Value and an 
 
 tection to industry, for, if the value of the 
 standard commodity is the criterion for the 
 values of other commodities, we are still left 
 in the power of the monopolists of the stand- 
 ard commodity. 
 
 Reformers may well cry, " Save us from 
 the friends of reform." 
 
 Denials of the Invariable Standard. 
 
 Charles Gide, of the University of Mont- 
 pellier, France, concludes that " the attempt 
 to discover a measure of value would seem to 
 be an insoluble, nay, a contradictory problem, 
 — a very squaring of the circle for political 
 economists." He adds : " This, in truth, is 
 the almost unanimous opinion of econo- 
 mists." 
 
 J. Marcet, another French economist, says, 
 in his " Conversations," " There is no point 
 so difficult to ascertain as a variation of value, 
 because we have no fixed standard measure 
 of value. Neither nature nor art furnishes 
 us with a commodity whose value is incapable 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 71 
 
 of change, and such, alone, would afford us 
 an accurate standard of value." 
 
 J. B. Say wrote : Value " cannot be meas- 
 ured, — that is to say, compared with any 
 known and invariable measure of intensity, 
 for no such measure has yet been discov- 
 ered." 
 
 J. S. Mill said, " A measure of exchange 
 values therefore being impossible," etc. 
 
 Macleod writes : " An invariable standard 
 of value is impossible." 
 
 E. L. Rector, American Journal of Poli- 
 tics, November, 1894 : " There neither is nor 
 can be any fixed and absolute standard of 
 values." 
 
 The economist Malthus said, " That a cor- 
 rect measure of real value [he divides values 
 into real and nominal] in exchange would 
 be very desirable cannot be doubted, . . . 
 and all that we can hope for is an approxi- 
 mation to the measure which is the object of 
 our search." 
 
 Professor Bonamy Price writes : " In a 
 
72 Value and an 
 
 world of daily life a universal measure of 
 value does not exist." 
 
 And, again : " There is no other standard 
 for value but feeling, and feeling is, by 
 its nature, disqualified for being a stand- 
 ard." 
 
 It is strange that intelligent men should be 
 so obtuse. It is very evident that if a certain 
 intensity of feeling could be expressed by a 
 point in a scale, say X, then increase or dimi- 
 nution of intensity could be easily ascer- 
 tained by variations from X. Of course, 
 feeling cannot be a standard of value, but an 
 intensity of value denoted by the word dollar 
 can be adopted as a standard by means of 
 which increase or diminution of intensity of 
 value may be observed. There is no con- 
 ceivable thing or idea that may not find its 
 invariable standard, given the possibility of 
 expression. ' 
 
 Benjamin R. Tucker (" Instead of a 
 Book," p. 254) : " The claim that a standard 
 of value varies, and inflicts damage by its 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 73 
 
 variations, is perfectly sound." But he thinks 
 it better than nothing. 
 
 Ricardo (Section VI.) : " When commodi- 
 ties varied in relative value, it would be de- 
 sirable to have the means of ascertaining 
 which of them fell and which rose in value, 
 and this could be effected only by comparing 
 them, one after another, with some invariable 
 standard measure of value, which should 
 itself be subject to none of the fluctuations to 
 which other commodities are exposed. Of 
 such a measure it is impossible to be pos- 
 sessed," etc. 
 
 J. Laurence Laughlin, head professor of 
 Political Economy, Chicago University, in 
 the Forum, February, 1896 : "A perfect 
 standard of value, as every economist knows, 
 is unattainable." 
 
 The foregoing quotations from leading 
 writers indicate the universal failure to dis- 
 cover a standard measure and unit of 
 value. 
 
 They also inferentially emphasize the im- 
 
74 Value and an 
 
 portance of the discovery of an invariable 
 measure of value, if it should be made. 
 We have made that discovery. 
 
 A Digression. 
 
 Professor Laughlin, in the Forum, Feb- 
 ruary, 1896, writes as follows : " A correct 
 analysis of the situation, therefore, in my 
 judgment, discloses the fact that the cause of 
 all our monetary disturbances is not one con- 
 nected with a medium of exchange, but one 
 concerning the maintenance of a definite 
 measure or common denominator, in which 
 prices and contracts are expressed." 
 
 How he fails to see that the " definite 
 measure" or " common denominator" is other 
 than a " medium of exchange," it is hard to 
 determine. 
 
 Again he writes : " Knowing the necessity 
 of fixity in the standard for business pros- 
 perity," etc. 
 
 Again : " All tampering with the stand- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 75 
 
 ard should be as much dreaded as Asiatic 
 cholera." 
 
 These are important admissions by such a 
 high authority. The Professor is appealing 
 for his imperfect gold standard, unaware that 
 it embodies the very evils he condemns. 
 
 His standard is a quantity standard not a 
 "value standard, therefore values cannot be 
 determined by its use. 
 
 He admits that three influences are con- 
 stantly modifying prices, namely, " First, an 
 increase or diminution in the supply of 
 money. Second, an increase or diminution in 
 the demand for the money material. Third, 
 an increase or diminution in the cost of pro- 
 ducing the goods exchanged against money." 
 
 The first two of these influences are inevi- 
 table under a commodity standard. The 
 control of the volume of money and of the 
 material of money rests with the monopolists 
 of the commodity standard. 
 
 These are abnormal influences which would 
 vanish under a scientific money system. 
 
76 Value and an 
 
 The third influence is perfectly normal, 
 and if we can discover a standard of value 
 free from all but this last influence, namely, 
 "The increased or diminished cost of pro- 
 duction," then we shall have, what Professor 
 Laughlin admits we do not now possess, a per- 
 fect standard of value. In our next section we 
 shall accomplish this task, and we hope the 
 Professor will be among the first to recognize 
 the fact. 
 
 Money and an Invariable Unit. 
 
 " Nolens volens, then, the measure of value 
 must be sought for : logic commands it, and 
 her conclusions are adverse to economists and 
 socialists alike. The opinion which denies 
 the existence of this measure is irrational, 
 unreasonable. Say as often as you please, on 
 the one hand, that political economy is a 
 science of facts, and that the facts are con- 
 trary to the hypothesis of a determination of 
 value ; or on the other, that this troublesome 
 question would not present itself in a system 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 77 
 
 of universal association which would absorb 
 all antagonism, I will reply still, to the right 
 and to the left : 
 
 " 1. That, as no fact is produced which has 
 not its cause, so none exists which has not its 
 law, and that, if the law of exchange is not 
 discovered, the fault is not with the facts, but 
 with the savants. 
 
 " 2. That, as long as man shall labor in 
 order to live, and shall labor freely, justice 
 will be the condition of fraternity and the 
 basis of association ; now, without a deter- 
 mination of value, justice is imperfect, impos- 
 sible." (Proudhon, "System of Economical 
 Contradictions," page 91.) 
 
 For several years we have called attention, 
 through various mediums, to the conflict ex- 
 isting between money and the material of 
 money. We have shown that money acted 
 as a common denominator of values, being 
 affected inversely by every modification of 
 values. Correcting John Stuart Mill, we 
 say, Values vary inversely as to quantities, 
 
78 Value and an 
 
 — falling as they rise and rising as they fall. 
 That, therefore, money could not be both 
 numerator and denominator, — fluctuations in 
 values affecting the money and the commodity 
 in diametrically opposite ways. 
 
 We have demonstrated that value is an 
 abstraction, depending mainly upon a mental 
 conception or estimate of utilities ; appearing, 
 fluctuating, and disappearing without any 
 material manifestation. And that, therefore, 
 the standard of the abstract must be an ab- 
 straction, and that it must indicate a fixed 
 value or difficulty of attainment. It is the 
 length of the stick which is the standard of 
 length, and not the stick ; so the value of a 
 commodity may be used to arrive at a standard 
 of value ; but it must be the value, and not 
 the commodity, which is the standard. 
 
 These points involve great exactness. To 
 illustrate how easily misconceptions arise, let 
 us quote Professor Jevons, a clever writer. 
 He says, "The expression standard unit of 
 value will indeed be almost inevitably mis- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 79 
 
 understood as implying the existence of some- 
 thing of a fixed value" (last italics mine). 
 He goes on to explain that fixed value is not 
 implied. But it is exactly the fixed value, and 
 nothing else, that should be implied by the 
 term standard of value ; not something of a 
 fixed value, but the fixed value itself regard- 
 less of the something. Length need not be 
 attached in perpetuity to any stick, nor need 
 value be attached in perpetuity to any com- 
 modity. But the length and the value re- 
 spectively must be constant and invariable. 
 Some there are who say they cannot con- 
 ceive of value apart from a commodity ; but 
 how wrong they are is easily proved. If 
 wheat is quoted at one dollar per bushel, then 
 one dollar is the value of a bushel of wheat. 
 If the value drops to seventy-five cents per 
 bushel, is not the change purely a change in 
 value, — the commodity remaining unchanged ? 
 Quantities are invariable ; their values are 
 variable ; but a standard value would always 
 be invariable. A standard of anything must 
 
80 Value and an 
 
 be homogeneous with such thing, and conse- 
 quently a material standard of ideal value is 
 an unscientific conception, is impossible. 
 
 To distinctly define this antagonism be- 
 tween the material and the ideal standards, 
 let us take the gold standard of to-day of 
 25.8 grains of gold. If that quantity of gold 
 is a standard, how can it be other than invari- 
 able ? But it is said, it is not the gold, but its 
 value that is the standard, and that is vari- 
 able. Then you have a variable and an in- 
 variable standard conjoined ; a quantity and 
 a value. 
 
 But you do not want a standard of quan- 
 tity ; therefore you should reject the com- 
 modity. You do want a standard of value; 
 therefore you should accept the value. The 
 moment you divorce your quantity from its 
 value, the value must of necessity become in- 
 variable. For fluctuations of value are im- 
 possible when there is nothing to be in- 
 fluenced by supply and demand. 
 
 For instance, we will take accepted facts. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 81 
 
 We will say that to-day 25.8 grains of gold 
 is worth one dollar. The term dollar is a 
 purely arbitrary point in a value scale. The 
 dollar then represents a certain difficulty of 
 attainment, as related to 25.8 grains of gold, 
 at a given moment. If the difficulty is less- 
 ened, that quantity of gold may then be pur- 
 chased with less than one dollar ; if the 
 difficulty is increased, that quantity of gold 
 will be worth more than one dollar. The 
 value of 25.8 grains of gold at a given time 
 is our standard : the value only ; and value, 
 being an abstraction, cannot fluctuate in 
 itself, or in its own value. The thought is 
 absurd. Hence the value, free from all 
 modifying influences, becomes perfectly in- 
 variable as a unit of value. 
 
 We will now see how this harmonizes with 
 a scientific conception of a money unit. A 
 book published in 1805, written by Sir James 
 Steuart, Bart., of Coltness, Scotland, edited by 
 his son, General Sir James Steuart, Bart., con- 
 tains ideas as to money worth reproducing 
 
82 Value and an 
 
 here. We read : " Money, which I call of ac- 
 count, is no more than an arbitrary scale of 
 equal parts, invented for measuring the re- 
 spective value of things vendable." 
 
 Again : " Money of account performs the 
 same office with regard to the value of 
 things that degrees, minutes, seconds, etc., 
 do with regard to angles, or as scales do to 
 geographical maps, or to plans of any kind. 
 In all these inventions there is constantly 
 some denominator taken for the unit. In 
 angles it is the degree, in geography it is the 
 mile or league, in plans, the foot, yard, or 
 toise, in money the pound, livre, florin, etc. 
 
 " The degree has no determinate length, so 
 neither has that part of the scale upon plans 
 which marks the unit, the usefulness of all 
 these inventions being solely confined to the 
 marking of proportions." 
 
 " Just so the unit in money can have no 
 invariable determinate proportion to any 
 part of value, that is to say, it cannot be 
 fixed to perpetuity to any particular quan- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 83 
 
 tity of gold, silver, or any other commodity 
 whatever." 
 
 Again : " Money, strictly and philosophi- 
 cally speaking, is, as has been said, an ideal 
 scale of equal parts. If it be demanded 
 what ought to be the standard value of one 
 part? I answer by putting another ques- 
 tion. What is the standard length of a 
 degree, a minute, a second ? It has none ; 
 and there is no necessity of its having any 
 other than what, by convention, mankind 
 think fit to give it. But as soon as one part 
 becomes determined in the nature of a scale, 
 all the rest follow in proportion." 
 
 "The first step being perfectly arbitrary, 
 people may adjust one or more of these parts 
 to a precise quantity of the precious metals ; 
 and so soon as this is done, and that money 
 becomes realized, as it were in gold and 
 silver, then it requires a new definition : it 
 then becomes the price as well as the measure 
 of value." 
 
 "It does not follow from the adjusting of 
 
84 Value and an 
 
 the metals to the scale of value, that they, 
 themselves, should therefore become the scale, 
 as any one must readily perceive." 
 
 " That money, therefore, which constantly 
 preserves an equal value, which poises itself, 
 as it were, in a just equilibrium between the 
 fluctuating proportion of the value of things, 
 is the only permanent and equal scale by 
 which value can be measured." 
 
 Again : " Money of account, therefore, 
 cannot be fixed to any material substance, 
 the value of which may vary with respect 
 to other things." 
 
 The above quoted definition of money, 
 given to the world about thirty years after 
 the appearance of Adam Smith's great work, 
 stands alone, so far as we can ascertain after 
 some research, in its clearness and origi- 
 nality, but it has had no apparent influence 
 in shaping financial legislation or policy. 
 
 It grasps some very vital facts : (1) Money 
 should be simply a scale of value, (2) its unit 
 entirely arbitrary, (3) free from any com- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 85 
 
 modity incumbrance, and (4) it must be 
 poised " in a just equilibrium between fluc- 
 tuating values." 
 
 True scientific money {honest money, if 
 you please) should be an arbitrary scale of 
 value, whose unit, its fractions and multi- 
 ples, should be used as a medium of ex- 
 change. 
 
 This money should be entirely valueless, 
 per se, just as in vulgar fractions the de- 
 nominator has no significance when the nu- 
 merators vanish. 
 
 Our numerators are the vendable values 
 seeking markets ; our money their tool of 
 exchange, — their common denominator. 
 
 Money should express and measure values, 
 its significance depending upon the volume of 
 such values and the demand for the same, 
 just as the degree of a circle depends upon the 
 radius. 
 
 The unit must denote an unvarying value 
 or proportion in relation to the volume of 
 values, just as the degree is constant as to the 
 
86 Value and an 
 
 circumference of a circle. The unit of value 
 will adapt itself to the varying proportions of 
 values, but it will unvaryingly represent a 
 certain difficulty of attainment in relation to 
 such values. Its power as to quantities will 
 vary with prices, but its power as to value 
 will remain invariable. 
 
 " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ?" 
 A money system could be built upon this 
 starting-point. If two sparrows are sold for 
 a farthing, prices of all commodities whose 
 values were determinable could be expressed 
 in farthings. The farthing might be a myth, 
 and yet from it the proportions of all wealth 
 might be determined. How absurd it would 
 be to attach the sparrows in perpetuity to the 
 farthing ! How absurd it would be to at- 
 tempt to define, in perpetuity, the length of 
 a degree in an alternately expanding and 
 contracting circle. If we wished to use the 
 height of a certain man as a standard (say) 
 of medium height, how foolish it would be 
 to attach the man in perpetuity to his meas- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 87 
 
 urement. By freeing the man, his subsequent 
 growth, if any, may be ascertained by com- 4 
 parison with the adopted scale. 
 
 This absurd, this foolish thing is persisted 
 in to-day in our money system. We attach 
 a value in perpetuity to 25.8 grains of gold 
 instead of taking the value of the gold at a 
 given time, then releasing gold, and observing 
 its fluctuations in value thereafter by com- 
 parison with the value at said given time. 
 
 Changes in variable things can always be 
 noted by getting their exact condition at a 
 given time, and using them as a standard 
 from which to determine subsequent changes. 
 
 Values of all commodities being variable, 
 we can only discover variations by' taking 
 their values at a given time as a fixed standard. 
 
 A standard of value so determined is in- 
 variable, because the only influences that can 
 then affect prices are the normal ones of sup- 
 ply and demand of commodities. 
 
 The unit of value becomes absolutely free 
 from all modifying influences. 
 
88 Value and an 
 
 The invariable unit, standard, measure, and 
 scale of value thus appears, measuring and ex- 
 pressing values as they are determined by the 
 perfectly normal, and only normal, influence of 
 the supply of, and demand for, commodities. 
 
 The rule applicable to our discovery may be 
 thus stated : The value of a definite quantity 
 of any vendable commodity, and its implied 
 value equivalents in the whole range of vend- 
 able commodities, may be expressed in a purely 
 arbitrary term as a starting-point or money 
 unit in a scale of values at a given moment of 
 time. Fluctuations from such values subse- 
 quent to the adoption of such money unit or 
 value-scale to be noted by deviations therefrom. 
 
 To apply this rule to present commercial 
 conditions is a very simple process. 
 
 We can use as our money unit the value 
 of 25.8 grains of gold, which, to-day, is 
 legally one dollar. We can imagine a dollar 
 line running through the entire line of com- 
 modities, like the equatorial line around our 
 earth, because it follows, that if 25.8 grains 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 89 
 
 of gold is, at a certain time, worth one dollar, 
 then a certain quantity of every vendable 
 commodity is also worth one dollar. No de- 
 tailed specification is necessary. We must 
 take these values at a certain time, because 
 they are variable in their nature. Now, hav- 
 ing established our dollar line, and detaching 
 our dollar from any commodity, we place it 
 alongside the entire line as a common de- 
 nominator of values. 
 
 As values fluctuate from day to day, they 
 rise above, or fall below, this line, but the 
 dollar line never changes, the unit of value 
 is invariable. 
 
 Under our present system we attempt to 
 hold the dollar to a certain quantity of gold ; 
 why we should do so with one value more 
 than with the thousand and one other values, 
 can only be explained by an ignorant con- 
 ception of money. 
 
 If, at the time of the adoption of our unit, 
 wheat be quoted at one dollar a bushel, and 
 if, on the following day, wheat declines in 
 
90 Value and an • 
 
 value to seventy-five cents per bushel, the 
 change is at once perceived. Why should 
 not the changes in the value of gold be 
 equally perceptible? The invisible fluctu- 
 ations of gold are constantly deranging the 
 entire range of values, and yet some people say 
 " the dollar never changes in value ; it is the 
 values of commodities that change." But Mr. 
 Giffen, an English statistician, said, " View- 
 ing a long period, dynamically, it is beyond all 
 question that the commodities are compara- 
 tively steady, and only money changes." 
 
 The invisible fluctuations of a monopolized 
 commodity standard leave society to effect 
 a comparison of values without a point of 
 comparison. The " daily, hourly equity be- 
 tween man and man are forever a foot-ball to 
 be kicked hither and thither in the unreason- 
 ing play of geology on the one hand, and 
 credit on the other." 
 
 Then is it not of the greatest importance 
 that the secret mischiefs of the gold basis be 
 revealed ? The one and only way to accom- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 91 
 
 plish this is to note the changes in the value 
 of gold precisely as we note the changes in 
 the value of all other commodities. 
 
 The secret of our financial chaos is the 
 arbitrary and unscientific effort to determine 
 value by fiat of law ; that is, by the decree that 
 25.8 grains of gold shall always be one dollar. 
 
 The separation of the scale from the com- 
 modity, of the common denominator from 
 the numerator, is essentially the solution of 
 the money question. 
 
 The Application of the Invariable Unit 
 of Value. 
 
 How can this unit be used as money to 
 supply commerce with an adequate tool of 
 exchange ? 
 
 In the first place, it must be rendered easy 
 and inexpensive to monetize all exchange- 
 able wealth into these units of value. 
 
 The amount so monetized must be deter- 
 mined by business needs untrammelled by 
 government hinderances. 
 
92 Value and an 
 
 Gold must be republicanized ; its divine 
 right to act as money must be denied, and 
 it will then fall into the ranks of the com- 
 modities, where its value will be determined, 
 as are the values of all other commodities, by 
 supply and demand. 
 
 Bimetallism and monometallism, and all 
 forms of metallism, will vanish like the 
 heathen gods under the light of intelligence. 
 
 Fiat money, and its twin absurdity, fiat 
 value, will no more persist in their ridiculous 
 pretensions. 
 
 The world-wide superstition, that money 
 should be based upon the bond-enslavement 
 of the people, — upon public debts, — must die 
 out; and the broad expanse of the ex- 
 changeable products of industry shall furnish 
 basis and redeemer. 
 
 Money based upon the power of tax-ex- 
 ploitation, issued by government regardless 
 of business needs, is to be forever con- 
 demned. 
 
 The ridiculous and mischievous article in 
 
Invariable TJnit of Value. 93 
 
 the Constitution of the United States, that 
 Congress shall coin money and regulate the 
 value thereof, must be erased as nonsensical, 
 mischievous, and tyrannical. To coin a 
 scale of value is absurd ; to decree values is 
 lunacy. Ajax defying the lightning and 
 Congress defying the law of value are on a 
 par. 
 
 W. Dodsworth, in a pamphlet issued by 
 the "Sound Currency Committee" of the 
 Reform Club of New York, entitled " Our 
 Paper Currency," says, " It is scarcely pos- 
 sible to conceive of a more vicious perver- 
 sion of the functions of government than the 
 issuing of a paper currency based upon the 
 mere credit of the central power. The issue 
 of a circulatory credit is distinctively a bank- 
 ing function, and, as such, cannot properly 
 be assumed by a government which has no 
 right to assume fiduciary resj^onsibility on 
 behalf of private interests." 
 
 The invention of money arises out of the 
 desire to freely and easily effect exchanges 
 
94 Value and an 
 
 of values. Therefore such values should be 
 the basis of and redeemer of money issued 
 for such purpose. The owners of such 
 values are the naturally competent issuers of 
 such money, and the entire range of such 
 values should furnish a choice of redemption ; 
 not one or two values, monopolized and re- 
 stricted in volume, robbing industry per- 
 petually under legal tender laws and fiat 
 values. 
 
 Some devotees of governmental paternal- 
 ism claim that our present National Bank 
 system is worthy of commendation and con- 
 tinuance. But the basis of the system is a 
 national debt, or, as Jefferson called it, a 
 " national canker," and it can only exist by 
 the perpetuation of such debt. There is 
 hardly a single feature of the system that 
 should be tolerated by a civilized nation. 
 Not debt, but exchangeable wealth should call 
 money into existence ! 
 
 In another " Sound Currency" pamphlet, 
 entitled "The Currency Famine of 1893," 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 95 
 
 John De Witt Warner, after showing how 
 the National Banks failed to relieve the con- 
 gestion in the money market at the worst 
 period of the famine, says, " The only result 
 was to demonstrate the worthlessness of the 
 National Banking system itself." 
 
 The system is based upon privilege, and, 
 under the plea that it furnishes a currency 
 for business needs, it sells to necessity the use 
 of credit founded upon debt. 
 
 Freedom from legislative interference is 
 all that is necessary to insure a proper mone- 
 tary system responsive to business needs. 
 Especially is this true now that a standard of 
 value is discovered. 
 
 The panic of 1893 demonstrated, in a re- 
 markable way, that business interests may be 
 safely left in the hands of the people, without 
 any attempt at governmental protection or 
 regulation. 
 
 In the pamphlet last quoted from, John 
 De Witt Warner writes : " Such was the crisis 
 of 1893, a situation brought about by the 
 
96 Value and an 
 
 wanton interference of government with 
 business not its own ; aggravated by legis- 
 lation which had to be broken before the 
 people could help themselves ; relieved by- 
 enterprise evading and overriding restrictive 
 law, and turned into a theme for the gayety 
 of nations by the grotesque exhibition thus 
 afforded of how depraved was the elaborate 
 bank-note currency system upon which had 
 been lavished so much of thankless labor." 
 
 Again he writes : " In this way, after the 
 machinery so carefully adjusted by govern- 
 ment had utterly failed to work, the business 
 common sense of our people readjusted its 
 finances, and in every part of the land busi- 
 ness started up again, manufacture continued, 
 the laborer received his hire, and the mer- 
 chant disposed of his goods. In not an in- 
 stance, so far as I have been able to learn, 
 did any community find any trouble in the 
 use of what in the absence of all restrictive 
 laws would have been, and in defiance of 
 them actually was, a perfectly natural bank- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 97 
 
 note currency. The whole American people 
 promptly accepted, each locality upon its 
 knowledge of the conditions there, the paper 
 of individuals and institutions. And as a 
 result of this experience, most wide-spread 
 and had under conditions least favorable to 
 security other than the integrity of those 
 who issued the notes and the intelligence of 
 those who were asked to accept them, there 
 was not a single dollar lost." 
 
 But we do not learn by experience; we 
 refuse to apply the lessons of history to our 
 financial system ; and, such is the force of 
 tradition, that when object-lessons galore 
 point the way to reform, we stick like a fool 
 to his folly and return like a dog to his 
 vomit. 
 
 The foregoing pointed testimony of Mr. 
 Warner to the superiority of private over 
 governmental methods is only one of legion. 
 Freedom from governmental restriction and 
 control appears, from abundant testimony and 
 the facts of history, to be the chief essential 
 
98 Value and an 
 
 to progress in any direction. If the Con- 
 stitution of these United States made no 
 reference to the money question, and legis- 
 lation had not meddled therewith, it would 
 have been solved long ago. Legislation 
 is essentially stationary, while society is 
 naturally evolutionary. Hence, legislation 
 should be very reluctantly and sparingly 
 indulged in. 
 
 We find in Mr. Warner's pamphlet the 
 primal steps to the solution of the currency 
 problem, namely, issues of the credits of in- 
 dividuals and institutions. 
 
 Such issues would, naturally, be local and 
 limited, being non-circulatory at any consid- 
 erable distance from their points of issue. 
 This inconvenience would suggest co-ope- 
 ration and association in banking, in order 
 that widely known credits might be obtain- 
 able where and when necessary for business 
 or travel. A system of Mutual Banking 
 would probably evolve out of necessity, under 
 which, gaining perfection with experience, 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 99 
 
 the evils of our present robber system would 
 ultimately vanish and all exchangeable wealth 
 easily find a tool of transfer at trifling cost. 
 Until now the all-important question of value 
 has been undetermined, and the suggested 
 basis for money more or less fictional or 
 empirical. With an invariable unit of value 
 all values may be monetized to the extent of 
 the needs of exchange. It may take many 
 years to perfect a system of Mutual Bank- 
 ing, but under freedom, difficulties are the 
 sign-posts of progress, while under restric- 
 tion and authority, they are the graveyards 
 of progress. 
 
 The importance of our discovery of the 
 invariable unit of value is emphasized in the 
 fact that, lacking such unit, even the advo- 
 cates of money reform are hopelessly at sea. 
 As an instance, we will refer to Henry Sey- 
 mour, of the Free Currency propaganda of 
 London, England. He asserted, quite re- 
 cently, in a letter to the London Weekly 
 Times and Echo (copied by Liberty, New 
 
 7 
 
100 Value and an 
 
 York), that the "ridiculous" proposition 
 " that a commodity standard or monetary 
 unit is both impossible and unnecessary" has 
 " no longer any economic significance," and 
 is as dead as a " door-nail." We have shown 
 conclusively that a commodity (material) can- 
 not be a unit of value (ideal). He also said 
 " that money or credit is unthinkable apart 
 from a commodity unit." If Mr. Seymour 
 will take his thermometer and watch the rise 
 and fall of the mercury under the influences 
 of a varying temperature, he will get an exact 
 analogy of the action of money under supply 
 and demand. A simple scale of degrees of 
 heat mark the thermometrical changes, a 
 simple scale of degrees of value may be used to 
 record changes in value, both scales being 
 entirely disassociated from any material. 
 And so, in the name of reform, the propa- 
 ganda of error goes on in the mighty city of 
 London, and its prophets see through a glass 
 darkly. 
 
 The free monetization, by our invariable 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 101 
 
 unit, of all values, offers emancipation from 
 the evils of our present rascally money sys- 
 tem. 
 
 In the advocacy of reform, a strict ad- 
 herence to the line of justice is naturally 
 expected, and, in the suggestion and advocacy 
 of the repudiation of a gold standard and 
 basis of value, we are certainly beyond criti- 
 cism. 
 
 The history of finance, even in the short 
 life of our republic, is replete with fraud and 
 blunders. Credit strengthening acts changing 
 currency bonds into coin bonds ; other acts 
 changing coin bonds into gold bonds; the 
 funding system ; artificial and conspired con- 
 traction and paralysis of industry ; crafty 
 demonetization of silver, and the long line of 
 conspiracies of the money-power, are warrant 
 enough for the change we advocate. As a fact, 
 which will sooner or later be generally real- 
 ized, the rascality and greed at the root of the 
 world's funding system would divest general 
 repudiation of the stigma of dishonesty. In- 
 
102 Value and an 
 
 dustry is staggering to-day under debts of 
 one hundred and fifty billions of dollars, 
 which since 1873 have increased in pur- 
 chasing power fully thirty per cent., repre- 
 senting billions of unearned increment. 
 
 With the steady contraction of the field of 
 exploitation, and the steady decline in the 
 earning capacity of capital, the time must 
 come when the evil of usury will itself be 
 exhausted or its victims be beyond further 
 exj^loitation. 
 
 The invariable unit, in its application, 
 would ultimately kill usury (by usury we 
 mean legal or illegal interest) ; but it would 
 open up such vast opportunities to labor and 
 capital that instead of, as now, the one being 
 idle, the other depending upon taxing powers 
 of corrupt governments, both would spring 
 into the industrial arena, producing universal 
 well-being and happiness. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 103 
 
 The Traders of the Town of 
 Commerce. 
 
 At certain seasons there came to the market- 
 town of Commerce, on the borders of Millen- 
 nia, farmers and planters with loads of hay, of 
 vegetables, of wheat, of corn, and of cotton ; 
 miners came with coal, silver, and gold ; and 
 merchants came with bread, clothing, hard- 
 ware, wines, and watches. 
 
 Farmers, planters, miners, and merchants 
 gathered together in the public inn or hotel, 
 and, after much handling of wares and dick- 
 ering as to quantities equitable in exchange, 
 finally came to trading terms. 
 
 " A chiel amang them takin' notes" found 
 that a ton of hay would exchange for a quarter 
 of a ton of vegetables, ten bushels of wheat, 
 twenty bushels of corn, a ton of coal, four 
 ounces of silver, four pennyweights of gold, 
 one hundred loaves of bread, one gallon of 
 wine, or one watch. 
 
 They had thus gathered, and bargained, 
 
104 Value and an 
 
 and traded from time immemorial ; but it 
 happened that on this occasion a thought of 
 much moment occurred to one of the mer- 
 chants, and he begged the other merchants, 
 and the planters, and miners to listen to him, 
 which they very willingly consented to do. 
 
 He thus addressed them : " My friends, we 
 are all producers of exchangeable wealth ; 
 we desire to effect just exchanges one with 
 another, but our present system is crude and 
 cumbersome. 
 
 " When one is asked what is the value of 
 any commodity, he must, to reply fully, 
 specify the ratios in exchange between such 
 commodity and all other vendable commodi- 
 ties, an almost interminable and a very tedious 
 response. 
 
 " We may obviate this indefiniteness or diffi- 
 culty by inventing a value scale, or language 
 of values, in this way, namely, — First ascer- 
 tain the exchange relations of a number of 
 commodities (and by inference all) in small 
 and convenient quantities suitable as the basis 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 105 
 
 of a scale of values. For instance, from the 
 proportions in exchange, already determined, 
 we deduce that one-fifth of a ton of hay is the 
 equivalent in exchange for one-twentieth of a 
 ton of vegetables, or two bushels of wheat, or 
 four bushels of corn, or one-fifth of a ton of 
 coal, or four-fifths of an ounce of silver, or 
 four-fifths of a pennyweight of gold, or twenty 
 loaves of bread, or one-fifth of a gallon of wine, 
 or one-fifth of a watch. Certain quantities 
 of all other vendable commodities, whose 
 values are determined, are also the equivalents 
 in exchange of each of the above quantities 
 at a given moment of time. Values are being 
 continually modified, but, by taking the above 
 values at a given moment as a standard of 
 values, it is very evident that subsequent 
 fluctuations may be easily determined; just 
 as we may take the height of a man at a given 
 time, and by it ascertain his subsequent 
 growth. 
 
 " Values, at a given moment, can be held 
 invariable, just as height or quantity may 
 
106 Value and an 
 
 be. Now, by choosing some arbitrary term 
 by which to express the entire line, stated 
 and inferred (the latter easily ascertained, 
 when necessary) , of values, quoted above, and 
 by holding that term constant (just as the 
 scale of the thermometer is kept constant), 
 and in its significance being totally unrelated 
 to any special commodity, but always, and in 
 perpetuity, being invariable as to value, we 
 can then ascertain the fluctuations in the 
 value of every commodity subsequent to the 
 creation of our unit of value, just as we note 
 the fluctuations of temperature by a scale of 
 degrees. 
 
 " We then cease expressing exchange rela- 
 tions in quantities, substituting values there- 
 for. 
 
 " The value term may be ' the dollar of one 
 hundred cents,' therefore from this time we 
 will start our system by calling the value of 
 each of the above specified commodities one 
 dollar, leaving them perfectly free to fluc- 
 tuate in value under supply and demand. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 107 
 
 We can issue a money based upon this unit 
 of value as a deferred equivalent in ex- 
 change. 
 
 " It will be necessary to have, as near as 
 possible, uniform issues of these units of value, 
 this tool of exchange ; therefore let us organize 
 a mutual bank to be called ' The First Mu- 
 tual Bank of the Invariable Unit,' with 
 proper officers and directory. 
 
 " This bank shall furnish us with engraved 
 paper units, called dollars, in denominations 
 suitable for business transactions ; the only 
 condition necessary to secure these being the 
 possession of exchangeable, unincumbered 
 values. 
 
 " No capital will be necessary, and no losses 
 will be possible. 
 
 " The expenses of management may be met 
 by a charge of, say, one per cent, on all 
 issues of these units, the surplus revenue, if 
 any, after paying salaries and expenses, to be 
 returned pro rata to the subscribers. 
 
 " Subscribers, as a matter of self-interest, 
 
108 Value and an 
 
 will agree to accept this money in all transac- 
 tions with one another. 
 
 " There will be no objection to anybody, 
 subscriber or not, using this money in ex- 
 change ; in fact, as the credit of our bank be- 
 comes established, its money will extend its 
 sphere of usefulness. 
 
 "A merchant coming to Commerce with 
 values for sale, desiring funds with which to 
 make purchases, can apply to our bank and 
 secure a reasonable advance, in money, on his 
 goods. After disposing of his goods he can 
 return the borrowed money to the bank, 
 which will always be the point of final re- 
 demption. 
 
 " No money will ever be reissued by the 
 bank, newly-printed notes being invariably 
 issued and the old destroyed. 
 
 " Money not reaching the bank for final 
 redemption will form the circulating, active 
 tool of business of the community or of so- 
 ciety, constituting active demand, and, with 
 supply, determining values. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 109 
 
 " The supply of money being always, under 
 this system, equal to the demand for money, 
 the volume of money can never be restricted 
 or monopolized so as to form, in itself, a modi- 
 fying influence upon prices. 
 
 "The supply of, and demand for, com- 
 modities can thus be the only influence deter- 
 mining values. 
 
 "Money will be simply a function, a tool 
 of exchange. 
 
 " Daily statements, in full detail, of the 
 transactions of the bank will be ample pro- 
 tection against loss in any way. 
 
 "The bank will be ours, subject to our 
 needs, and living for the conservation of our 
 best interests. 
 
 " At this time, as we adopt our unit, prices 
 are as follows, based upon the exchange re- 
 lations above specified : 
 
 HAY, VEGETABLES, WHEAT, CORN, COAL, 
 
 per ton, per ton, per bushel, per bushel, per ton, 
 
 $5.00. $20.00. 50 cents. 25 cents. $5.00 
 
 SILVER, GOLD, LOAVES, WINE, WATCHES, 
 
 per ounce, per pennyweight, per hundred, per gallon, each, 
 $1.25. $.L25. $5.00. $5.00. $5.00. 
 
110 Value and an 
 
 " Upon this basis we can complete our 
 trading ; and should an actual transfer of 
 goods be undesirable at this time, in any in- 
 stance, a promise to pay or deliver in the 
 future may be made in terms of our unit of 
 value." 
 
 They adopted this plan without dissension, 
 its advantages being so apparent to every 
 one. They organized their bank, completed 
 their trading, and departed their several 
 ways. 
 
 Six months later they again sought the 
 market with their wares. Changes had 
 meanwhile occurred in the exchange re- 
 lations of commodities. 
 
 The season had been good for hay, and an 
 abundant crop harvested, so that the farmer 
 could afford to sell his product for four dol- 
 lars a ton. Vegetables were also abundant, 
 and could now be sold at fifteen dollars a 
 ton. Wheat had not been so remunerative 
 to labor, and the production of one bushel 
 had involved as much labor as formerly the 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. Ill 
 
 production of two bushels. Corn had not 
 changed. Coal, by discoveries of new mines 
 and by application of new machinery, could 
 be marketed at three dollars a ton. Silver 
 had been discovered in large quantities and 
 was more easily mined, hence could be sold 
 at one dollar an ounce. Gold had become 
 scarcer, rising to two dollars a pennyweight. 
 Loaves had changed with dear wheat and 
 were now worth ten dollars per hundred. 
 Wine was unchanged ; and watches were now 
 worth ten dollars each. 
 
 The statistician of the traders thought that 
 a comparison of exchange ratios should be 
 made, showing the past and present signifi- 
 cation as to quantities of the invariable unit 
 of value (the dollar.) 
 
 After some simple figuring, he made out 
 a comparative table, which he showed to the 
 traders, saying to them, " it indicates, on the 
 whole, a considerable advance in wealth and 
 prosperity. It is easier to acquire our needs 
 to-day than it was six months ago, and we 
 
112 
 
 Value and an 
 
 hope to see wheat and bread cheapened by 
 the time we gather here again. 
 " The table is as follows : 
 
 
 WHEN UNIT WAS ADOPTED. 
 
 SIX MONTHS LATER. 
 
 
 Per ton, 
 
 Unit bought, 
 
 
 Unit will buy, 
 
 Hay. . 
 
 , . $5.00. 
 
 \ ton. 
 
 $4.00. 
 
 \ ton. 
 
 Vegetabli 
 
 58 . $20.00. 
 Per bushel, 
 
 fa ton. 
 
 $15.00. 
 
 tV ton - 
 
 Wheat . 
 
 . 50 cts. 
 Per bushel, 
 
 2 bushels. 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 1 bushel. 
 
 Corn . 
 
 . . 25 cts. 
 Per ton, 
 
 4 bushels. 
 
 25 cts. 
 
 4 bushels. 
 
 Coal . . 
 
 . . $5.00. 
 Per ounce, 
 
 \ ton. 
 
 $3.00. 
 
 A ton. 
 
 Silver . 
 
 . . $1.25. 
 Per dwt, 
 
 f ounces. 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 1 ounce. 
 
 Gold. . 
 
 . . $1.25. 
 Per 100 loaves, 
 
 | dwt. 
 
 $2.00. 
 
 |dwt. 
 
 Bread . 
 
 . . $5.00. 
 Per gallon, 
 
 20 loaves. 
 
 $10.00. 
 
 10 loaves. 
 
 Wine . 
 
 , . $5.00. 
 Each, 
 
 \ gallon. 
 
 $5.00. 
 
 \ gallon. 
 
 Watches, 
 
 . $5.00. 
 
 \ watch. 
 
 $10.00. 
 
 ■fa watch. 
 
 " The changes in values have occurred by 
 purely normal influences, those termed by 
 economists' ' supply and demand.' While 
 commodities have fluctuated in value, in 
 many cases, our unit of value is unchanged, 
 being merely a mark or unit in a scale of 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. llo 
 
 values absolutely beyond the range of any 
 disturbing influence. 
 
 " I repeat, while the values of our goods 
 change from time to time, as more or less 
 difficulty of attainment is apparent, the dol- 
 lar, or unit, is invariable of necessity. Under 
 this system of exchange, we have the satisfac- 
 tion of knowing that when we make contracts 
 with one another, paying or promising to pay 
 in dollars (multiples or fractions of our unit 
 of value), we always receive and give exact 
 equivalents in service, be the time involved 
 in the contract ever so long or short. 
 
 " Just relations in exchange are assured, 
 and under them, labor getting its just wage 
 (its entire product), and the skill and in- 
 ventive genius of the laborer constantly 
 cheapening production and lowering values, 
 we shall march on to a future of steadily 
 increasing affluence and full security in its 
 enjoyment." 
 
 Hearty applause greeted his remarks, and, 
 after giving three rousing cheers and a tiger 
 
114 Value and an 
 
 for the invariable unit of value, the traders 
 again dispersed, their hearts pervaded by a 
 strong feeling of fraternity born of justice. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 If our conclusions as to value, reached in 
 these pages, are correct, — and if the in- 
 variable unit of value is, as we know it to be, 
 a scientific fact, — then the current concep- 
 tions of the economists and of the financial 
 world, upon which are based, to a large ex- 
 tent, the commerce of the world, as to money 
 and currency, and the standards, measure, 
 basis, and unit of value, are all unscientific 
 and false. 
 
 That " something is rotten in the state of 
 Denmark" is very evident to any student of 
 the times, and that the cause of decay is hard 
 to discover, is manifested by the prevailing 
 conflict of opinion as to the remedy therefor. 
 
 Leaving selfish interests out of the in- 
 fluences seeking to control new policies in 
 finance, the honest inquirers for truth and jus- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 115 
 
 tice still appear to be rudderless and com- 
 passless. How could it be otherwise ? how 
 could a policy governing values be agreed 
 upon while value was undetermined? And 
 now that value is determined, is it surprising 
 that the theories built upon the wind of 
 economic vagaries and superstitions should 
 fall to the ground, and a new theory in har- 
 mony with scientific fact be evolved ? 
 
 The sooner we shed the skin of the old, 
 false, and unscientific, and take on that of 
 the new, true, and scientific, the less will be 
 the difficulties of the change, and the oppo- 
 position or antagonism thereto. 
 
 Some interests will suffer, as in all refor- 
 mations, but they will be those that cannot 
 stand the play of justice. Tares may be 
 uprooted ; the wheat will grow and develop. 
 
 The suffering entailed by the process of 
 reform will be as nothing compared to the 
 misery accruing to society by the persist- 
 ence in our present financial policy. It re- 
 quires neither a prophet nor the son of a 
 
116 Value and an 
 
 prophet to foresee revolution and disintegra- 
 tion threatening these United States. 
 
 Steadily, for years, have we been march- 
 ing to the consummation predicted by that 
 grandly unique prophet Abraham Lincoln, 
 namely, the destruction of the Republic un- 
 der the malign influences of corporations and 
 the money power. Already the republic is de- 
 stroyed, and the theme for aspiring millionaires 
 may now well be " Plutocracy triumphant." 
 
 Chattel slavery has been merged into wage 
 slavery, and, as Horace Greely said, " by 
 our iniquitous monetary system we have 
 nationalized a system of oppression more re- 
 fined, but none the less cruel, than the old 
 system of chattel slavery." 
 
 Honesty, honor, and manhood are sacrificed 
 on the altar of greed, and the slime of ve- 
 nality clings to politics from the policeman to 
 the President, either by fact or by imputation, 
 while mercantile morality has erected an altar 
 to bounties, protection, and theft, under nu- 
 merous hypocritical aliases. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 117 
 
 A country intoxicated with the lavish 
 wealth of nature, peopled by a cosmos of 
 races, active, intelligent, orderly, industrious, 
 being steadily devoured by the bondholder in 
 a time of peace, is a sight to make angels 
 weep. 
 
 In the shadow of every obese millionaire 
 stand hundreds of emaciated tramps and pau- 
 pers ; " wealth increases and men decay." 
 
 The prophets have spoken, but the devo- 
 tees of Mammon have not listened. Reform 
 lifts its voice upon every platform, but an 
 ignorant multitude, hypnotized by rascality, 
 tempted by a mess of pottage, persistently vote 
 their own degradation. 
 
 Average intelligence cannot cope with 
 great problems in finance and sociology, but 
 it is a most effectual barrier to the work of a 
 higher intelligence. Quantity rules, regard- 
 less of quality, in spite of the great fact of 
 nature that the greatest forces are those that 
 are invisible, and that minorities are the 
 prophets of progress. 
 
118 Value and an 
 
 Steadily concentrating evils, steadily grow- 
 ing unrest, revolution predicted, evolution 
 impeded, ultimate disintegration, are the 
 signs of the times and the promises of the 
 future. 
 
 Already the blind Samson of labor clutches 
 at the pillars of the Temple of Usury. Will 
 you mock and rob and ridicule him until he 
 tears the pillars of the temple in twain in the 
 strength of his despair ? 
 
 Carlyle once wrote : " Wait a little till the 
 entire nation is in an electric state ; till your 
 vital electricity, no longer healthfully neutral, 
 is cut into two isolated portions of positive 
 and negative (of money and hunger), and 
 stands there bottled up in two-world bat- 
 teries. The stirring of a child's finger brings 
 the two together and then — what then ?" 
 
 Those who know and feel that reformation 
 or revolution is inevitable will join in the 
 campaign of education for righteousness and 
 help to avoid a hideous disintegration of so- 
 ciety by timely concessions to justice. Those 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 119 
 
 who are indifferent, or who condemn agita- 
 tion for financial reform, are like those who 
 sleep while fire approaches to destroy them. 
 
 " Slowly comes a hungry people 
 As a lion, drawing nigher, 
 Glares at one who nods and winks 
 Behind a slowly dying fire." 
 
 No foundation is deep enough, broad enough, 
 to support the structure of an economic (or 
 any other) lie ! 
 
 A Criticism. 
 
 In accentuation of the foregoing theories, I 
 am led to criticise a recently issued pamphlet 
 written by Professor J. Allen Smith, of 
 Marietta College, entitled "The Multiple 
 Money Standard," and published by "The 
 American Academy of Political and Social 
 Science," February, 1896. This academy 
 is in world-wide repute. Its list of officials 
 and Advisory Committee embraces names 
 second to none in the arena of modern politi- 
 cal economy. Edmund J. James, Ph.D., of 
 
120 Value and an 
 
 the Chicago University, is its honored presi- 
 dent. 
 
 Prince Bismarck once said that, realizing 
 the intricacies of the money problem, he had 
 been led to consult the economists, only to dis- 
 cover that they knew less than he did upon 
 the subject. 
 
 This represents my predicament in some 
 degree, those professors whom I have con- 
 sulted persisting in the deep slumber of de- 
 cided opinions from which it is difficult to 
 awaken them. 
 
 While admitting the ability shown in the 
 work under criticism, so general in economic 
 essays where tradition is the basis of argu- 
 ment and impossibilities its fundamental fea- 
 ture, I shall boldly attack its vital assumptions. 
 
 On page 2, Professor Smith writes : " They 
 are right in maintaining that stability of gen- 
 eral prices is essential to healthy industrial 
 activity." 
 
 This, I claim, is a denial of pr ogress ; for 
 the aim of labor should be to jDroduce abun- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 121 
 
 dantly a great variety of products, at the 
 lowest possible cost ; which means that a steady 
 decline of values (prices) should be constantly 
 lessening the difficulty of attainment of our 
 needs. 
 
 Following is an admirable illustration of 
 the evils of our present money system. 
 
 Page 7 : "As long as men thought of 
 wealth in its concrete form, there was a direct 
 relation between supply and demand. The 
 aggregate demand balanced the aggregate 
 supply, and production was therefore regu- 
 lar. But when the concrete gave way to the 
 abstract conception of wealth, this direct, 
 immediate relation became an indirect, medi- 
 ate one. Under the old economic organiza- 
 tion, the relation between the aggregate 
 supply and the aggregate demand was one of 
 equality, and may be expressed by the follow- 
 ing equation : 
 
 " Total supply of commodities == total demand for 
 commodities. 
 
122 Value and an 
 
 " Under the new organization of industry, 
 the relation between supply and demand 
 takes this form : 
 
 " Total supply of commodities = total demand for 
 money. 
 
 " Total demand for commodities = total supply of 
 money. 
 
 But 
 
 " Total demand for money>, =, <Total supply of 
 money. 
 
 " It follows, then, that 
 
 " Total supply of commodities : total demand for 
 commodities — Total demand for money: total sup- 
 ply of money." 
 
 All of which is admirable, and shows very 
 clearly that the relation between supply of, 
 and demand for, commodities which was 
 evenly balanced under barter, has been ut- 
 terly deranged by our money substitute for 
 barter. It also shows that exchanges, which 
 were formerly only limited by the material of 
 exchange, are, under our present system, re- 
 stricted by our tool of exchange. 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 123 
 
 To restore the old and normal relation, 
 the demand for and supply of money must 
 be equal ; to insure which the only possible 
 course is to render the monetization of all 
 commodities possible. Professor Smith is 
 right when he says (page 9), "The solution 
 of the money question clearly lies in the 
 direction of a broadening of the monetary 
 basis." This work, in its prior pages, has 
 shown how this can be done. 
 
 In writing of the standard of value, Pro- 
 fessor Smith says (page 9), " All would agree 
 that the ideal standard is one which always 
 has exactly the same value ; but as to what 
 is meant by always having the same value, 
 there are two distinct and fundamentally 
 different notions which tend, in their influ- 
 ence on the practical side of the money ques- 
 tion, towards widely different results. 
 
 " The gold monometallists stand for one 
 conception of a standard ; the bimetallists 
 and paper money advocates for another. 
 The former tell us that the ideal standard is 
 
124 Value and an 
 
 one which represents the product of a con- 
 stant quantity of labor ; the latter say it is a 
 constant quantity of commodity." 
 
 This gets to the root of the money ques- 
 tion, which is totally misapprehended by 
 Professor Smith, as by all the political econ- 
 omists. 
 
 Value being (as Professor Smith virtually 
 admits) an abstraction, how can a " product 
 of a constant quantity of labor," or " a con- 
 stant quantity of commodity," both concrete, 
 be a standard of value f When one speaks 
 of the color of anything, or of its length, or 
 mass, or value, it is the attribute and not the 
 thing itself that is the point of reference. 
 Therefore, it is not the commodity but its 
 value which must furnish a standard of 
 value. Here is where all the economists are 
 at sea. Once let it be clearly demonstrated to 
 the Professor that the concrete cannot be a 
 standard of the abstract, — that a standard 
 must be homogeneous with the thing it gauges, 
 and the question of a standard of value is 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 125 
 
 half solved. The complete solution then fol- 
 lows naturally and logically. 
 
 Professor Smith claims that the standard 
 of the gold monometallists above referred to 
 results as follows : " The purchasing power of 
 money would increase in the same ratio as 
 the efficiency of labor." When, in relation 
 to this, Professor Smith speaks of the " value 
 of labor," he is unscientific, an error that a 
 professor of Political Economy should avoid. 
 Labor has no value ; it is the product of 
 labor (and that not always) that has value ; 
 the value is only ascertained by such product 
 going through the crucible of supply and 
 demand. 
 
 But as to Professor Smith's assertion that, 
 under gold monometallism, money would 
 gain in purchasing power with efficiency of 
 labor, we can only say that if such were a 
 fact, and if efficiency of labor were the only 
 element in reducing prices, nothing could be 
 fairer. The fact is, however, that the gold 
 standard, being a commodity, may, by manip- 
 
126 Value and an 
 
 ulation, bring down prices independently of 
 efficiency of labor, purely through monopoly. 
 Given the free monetization of values at cost, 
 and the payment to labor of its just wage 
 (its entire product), wages would constantly 
 be rising, and values (prices) be constantly 
 falling under constantly increasing efficiency 
 of labor, until the millennium of industry, 
 when in the superabundance of wealth values 
 (the eternal point of attack of labor) would 
 be annihilated. 
 
 On page 12 the Professor writes : " But 
 even if we accept the cost of production theory 
 of value, how do we know that the fall in 
 prices has not been greater than the increased 
 efficiency of labor ?" 
 
 Under a gold standard the question is un- 
 answerable, but under an ideal standard of 
 value, nothing else could affect prices. 
 
 Our invariable unit of value, being simply 
 a point in a scale, valueless per se, would 
 indicate with unvarying accuracy the rise of 
 values through scarcity or excessive demand, 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 127 
 
 thereby suggesting and encouraging increased 
 production, or the fall in values through 
 abundance, lessened demand or what not (all 
 legitimate influences in modifying values), 
 thereby suggesting and, probably, forcing 
 cessation or limitation of production until the 
 proper equilibrium is restored. 
 
 "It is evident, then, that the appreciation 
 of money cannot explain all the increase in 
 wages," writes Professor Smith, on page 13. 
 
 We reply that the natural tendency of ap- 
 preciated money is towards reduced money 
 wages and increased purchasing power of the 
 residuum wage. Under present conditions, 
 to trace the influences affecting wages intelli- 
 gently is impossible by reason of the invisible 
 fluctuations of the variable standard. Under 
 the invariable unit it will be easy to trace 
 
 them. 
 
 On page 19 the Professor says, " The prob- 
 lem seems to be not how to continue the 
 monetary system permanently, and for all 
 time to come, on a gold basis, but how to 
 
128 Value and an 
 
 make commodities generally the basis of the 
 circulating medium. 
 
 " There is no reason why a considerable 
 number of commodities cannot be combined 
 in such a way as to secure a standard of prac- 
 tically uniform value." 
 
 He states the problem fairly, but his sug- 
 gestion as to a standard of value is met with 
 the insuperable objection so frequently urged 
 in this work. To state the problem with 
 absolute correctness, we should say it is this, 
 — namely, how to make all values the basis 
 for circulating units of value. The remedy, 
 scientifically stated, is this, — namely, the 
 value of any commodity at any given mo- 
 ment of time may be adopted as the standard 
 of value for all values. Such a standard, 
 of necessity, must be invariable, because it is 
 not attached in perpetuity to any com- 
 modity. 
 
 In formulating his " multiple money stand- 
 ard," the Professor finds that his standard 
 "would be one that for all practical pur- 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 129 
 
 poses would correspond to a constant quantity 
 of commodity." (Italics mine.) 
 
 That is to say, his " multiple money stand- 
 ard" is not a standard of value, but of quan- 
 tity. A standard of value deals solely with 
 values, else the term is absurd. Commodities 
 (exchangeable) have values, but they are not 
 values. 
 
 The Professor would establish his standard 
 by act of Congress, and provide for proper is- 
 sues to replace present money (coin) . Under 
 the invariable unit no such act is necessary : 
 gold and silver and all metal money simply fall 
 into line with the rest of the commodities, and 
 can be monetized at their market value. They 
 would no longer be money, but commodities. 
 
 Nor does the invariable unit suggest a 
 bureau of prices, to issue daily prices of the 
 standard commodities. All commodities, all 
 values, to be more exact, are unitized, and 
 fluctuations are recorded automatically by 
 our unit of value, no matter where or when 
 they occur. 
 
130 Value and an 
 
 The Professor is guilty of the gross ab- 
 surdity of advocating fiat values, which with 
 fiat money constitute the twin barbarisms of 
 the age. He says (page 34) , " The price of 
 silver and gold being fixed by the govern- 
 ment," etc. 
 
 The invariable unit rests upon no such con- 
 demnatory ignorance ; under it, values are 
 modified naturally and normally ; they are 
 entirely beyond all abnormal influences. 
 
 The Professor is a believer in the govern- 
 ment incubator; he advocates government 
 issues of money, as though that fetish knew 
 the needs of business better than business 
 men. He would put the control of the 
 varied business of this great country into the 
 hands of our domestics, the politicians, who 
 never touch any interest except to blight or 
 blackmail it. Let the government " mind its 
 own business." It has done enough mischief 
 already. 
 
 And on page 42 Professor Smith says, 
 " The circulating medium might be made 
 
Invariable Unit of Value. 131 
 
 redeemable in gold alone." Then let us tell 
 the professor that if he will give us control 
 of that commodity, we will make slaves and 
 paupers of the industrial classes, and rob 
 them as effectively and imperceptibly as they 
 are being robbed now. The absurdity of a 
 thousand and one ways of getting into debt 
 with only one way out would be perpetuated. 
 There are some excellent points in the 
 professor's pamphlet which show the evils of 
 our present system, notably his exposure of 
 the effects of a variable unit of value. We 
 claim to have grounded the theory of value 
 upon the rock of truth, and by so doing 
 shall, sooner or later, compel all the savants 
 to accept our position. In its application 
 our invariable unit of value is perfect ; in its 
 detail it is simple, when the fundamental fact 
 of the ideality of value is absorbed by the 
 student ; and the importance of the discovery 
 is beyond expression. Its adoption will be 
 the renaissance of industry ; labor's declara- 
 tion of independence. 
 
 9 
 
Illustrating the Invariable Unit of Value under Supply 
 and Demand. 
 
 I I I I IT 
 
 "Like the poles of a battery, supply and demand are dia- 
 metrically opposed to each other, and tend continually 
 to mutual annihilation ; it is by their antagonism that the 
 price of things is either increased or reduced to nothing. We 
 wish to know, then, if it is not possible on every occasion so to 
 balance or harmonize these two forces that the price of things 
 always may be the expression of their true value, the expres- 
 sion of justice." (Proudhon.) 
 
 Supply and demand determine values which indicate diffi- 
 culty of attainment under the invariable unit. As demand 
 exceeds supply, prices advance ; as supply exceeds demand, 
 prices fall. The dollar line, in fact the entire scale, is invari- 
 able, indicating, in every degree, a definite difficulty of attain- 
 ment. Contracts based upon this scale involve every essential 
 of justice and equity. 
 132 
 
 
"WITHOUT A DETERMINATION OF VALUE, JUSTICE 
 IS IMPOSSIBLE" 
 
 YALUE 
 
 AND 
 
 AN INVARIABLE UNIT 
 OF VALUE 
 
 AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN ECONOMICS 
 BY 
 
 WM. A. WHITTICK 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 PEINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 1896