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READING I.

SUBJECTIVE VALUE.

During what is commonly spoken of as the classical period of Political Economy-roughly from 1770 to 1870-the idea attached by most economists to the term value was what is more definitely characterized as exchange value, by which is usually meant the power to command for its possessor through exchange other goods, or briefly power in exchange. But within the last forty years there has developed another conception of value which many economists have come to look on as the real root idea, and which almost all recognize as a conception that is quite useful, if not indispensable, in connection with certain problems of economic theory.* This later idea of value is most frequently designated subjective value, following the Austrian writers who have done most to explain it. It is usually defined as "the significance for us which concrete goods acquire through the fact, that we are conscious of being dependent upon the power to dispose of them, for the satisfaction of our wants." More briefly expressed, value in this sense is "the felt significance of things upon which the satisfaction of our wants depends." In my own teaching I am in the habit of changing slightly what one might call the psychological location of the characteristic element,-defining "subjective value as the property or state of being prized-set store by."

The nature of subjective value and the process whereby it comes to exist, are among the first matters presented to

* No one proposes that subjective value shall displace exchange value as the conception which has most practical significance in economic discussions.

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