we know that "goods," or at least some "goods," and that the most characteristic, always have some value, there evidently must be something which causes commodities to have value when supply and demand balance each other, and have, therefore, no influence.
This question of logic is best explained and tested by the facts. Value is a relative term, and is ascertained by exchange. When we speak of the value of a commodity, we compare it with something else; in our highly developed society, we compare it with the universal commodity—money. When we make a sale or exchange we compare the values of the things exchanged by exchanging them in a certain proportion. Let us, therefore, take any two commodities, say, a chair and a table. Let us say that under any given conditions of supply and demand equal for both, say normal, they exchange at the ratio of two chairs to one table. What fixes their relative value? The conditions of supply and demand being the same for both, they ought to exchange as one to one. Again, let us increase their supply equally, say fifty per cent. Their "value" will diminish,—in comparison with other articles whose supply was not increased,—but their relative value to each other will still remain the same. The same thing will happen if, instead of increasing their supply we will diminish it; or, if we will increase the demand or diminish it. In other words, no matter under what conditions of supply and demand we will place them, as long as those conditions are equal, they will still retain their relative value of two to one. Evidently there must be something in them which makes their relative value remain the same under all conditions of supply and demand to which they may be alike subjected. What is it?
It was to find this "common something" contained in them, and which evidently is the source and measure of their value irrespective of the conditions of supply and demand to which they are subject, that Marx took up the analysis of the commodity. It was, therefore, simply puerile to point to
