are appropriated? Or, that they are "natural" products? And then he adds: "Why, then, could not the principle of value lie just as well in any one of these common properties, instead of that of their being the products of labor?" The last question, that of "Nature," has just been disposed of by us. The one preceding it, that of "appropriation," is a rather curious one to be broached by an anti-Marxist of the Böhm-Bawerk type, for it suggests a lot of discussion, which may prove uncomfortable to those who have "appropriated" to themselves everything, and we may yet return to this phase of the question. For the subject of our present discussion, however, the question of "appropriation" is beside the point. To begin with, being appropriated is not a property but a condition or relation, and that not of the "goods" themselves, but of men with reference to them, so that being "appropriated" could evidently not be a common property of the "goods." We will not stand, however, with Böhm-Bawerk on small matters like that, for as we have already seen, precision of expression is not part of his equipment. But whether property, condition, or relation, or anything else, "being appropriated" is no objection to Marx's analysis. The "principle" of "value" of "goods" could not "lie" in their "being appropriated," for the same reasons that it could not be due to "nature." While "goods" were not "being appropriated" for quite as long a time as they were being produced by nature, they were so for sufficiently long a time before the appearance either of the capitalistic system or exchange-value to settle the question.
Being "scarce" or being the subject of supply and demand, can hardly be said to be something which all "goods" possess in common. But as we have already stated, we wouldn't stand with Böhm-Bawerk on such things as precision of expression and other requirements of logical reasoning. There is, however, something else about these two questions to which we desire to call the attention of the reader: These two questions are really one; being scarce in comparison with a want is the same thing as being the
