them in the same relation between Price and Value, but the actual price of each will depend on its own value which may, of course, be different for each. That is, in fine, why the same commodity will, under the same conditions of supply and demand, have a different price at different times, if there has been any change in the method of its production; for its value depends on its production, and will be different if different methods of production are employed, and the equal conditions of supply and demand will only bring about the same relation between Price and Value.
Many opponents of Marx make a point of the fact that Marx's theory of value does not show the formation of prices, is no guide to the actual prices paid for commodities. But a theory of value need not show that, and, as a matter of fact, could not. It would not be a theory of value if it did. This is admitted even by one of Marx's greatest opponents, Professor Carl Diehl. He says:[1]
"It must be settled right at the outset that for Marx, as for any other theorist on the subject of Value, there can be no identity between Value and Price. This follows necessarily from the radical difference between the two conceptions. The price of a commodity is a concrete quantitative determination: it shows us the quantity of goods or money which must be given in return for this commodity. Value, on the other hand, is an abstraction. When we speak of the value of commodities, we mean the regulative principle which lies at the basis of the formation of prices." This is, in effect, what Marx says in the passage already quoted by us. And the facts of experience, as we have seen, amply justify his position. It is with this, as with other appeals to the facts, some of which we have already disposed of, and others are to be gone into hereafter, for Marx-critics never tire of the assertion that the facts always and completely refute Marx.
"Experience shows,"—says Böhm-Bawerk,—"that the
- ↑ Carl Diehl, Ueber das Verhaeltnis von Wert und Preis im Oekonomischen System von Karl Marx. Jena, 1898.
