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diagram, Lehr remarks that the " final utility for all purchasers would be identical, that is to say equal to the price." It is quite true that the final utility for each purchaser would equal the price ; but it (the final utility) would nevertheless itself vary, for the simple reason that one and the same price does not signify an equal sacrifice on the part of all buyers, but one which varies according to their respective total purchasing capacity. At a certain price the wealthy purchaser may see fit to acquire five increments of the article in question, the poor man be able to secure but one. The final utility differs, therefore, enormously, though in both cases it equals the price.
Such faults of fact or expression as those indicated are, however, few and far between, and may be well taken into the bargain with such chapters as the remarkable one on natural prices. The author here thoroughly demonstrates the untenability of Marx's theory of value, and the inevitable failure of all attempts to bridge over the once established distinction between "concrete" and "abstract" time of labor. Marx's well-known discussion of "real" and "socially neces- sary" hours of labor, so far as it is not meant for bare agitatory pur- poses, is of a distinctly ideological character. The essential points of Marx's theory might easily have been condensed into a much more comprehensible presentation than the series of abstractions in which he has seen fit to clothe them. Moreover, the moment one attempts to take into account demand and the individual judgment of value, the moment one concedes that the costs of production vary and that interest must be reckoned among the costs, one has completely entered the camp of the "burgerliche Nationalokonornen " which Marx so virulently attacks.
Less satisfactory than the treatment of Marx is Lehr's discussion of Thiinen's theory of natural wages ; it might well have been omitted. The impression, notwithstanding, which the entire work leaves is an excellent one, and if the other volumes of the series approach the standard here established the editor of the whole is to be heartily con- gratulated.
The "Hand- und Lehrbuch der Staatswissenschaften" which Dr. Kuno Frankenstein, of Berlin, has planned, and of which Professor Lehr's book is the first installment, is in several respects a remarkable undertaking. It will consist of about thirty volumes, covering the entire field of political science as Dr. Frankenstein conceives its compass. The first section, Political Economy, will include treatises on
