exchange value of goods stands in any relation to the amount of labor expended in their production only in a portion of them, and in that portion only incidentally. . . . We shall see that the 'exceptions' are so numerous that they hardly leave anything for the 'rule.'" Then comes a long list of "experiences" and "exceptions," which we will consider one by one, so that none escape our attention. It must, however, always be borne in mind that Böhm-Bawerk is not alone in these statements, assertions, objections and exceptions. On the contrary, he is ably supported by a large host of comrades in arms, who do not tire of blowing the big horn about what the facts are supposed to show.
And first of all "nature" looms up large again. We have disposed of her logically, but she still remains there to vex us in practical "experience." Not that any exchange-value is claimed for nature as such. All the bounties of nature are admitted to be as free as the air, provided there is as much of them; but, it is claimed, when natural objects are scarce, they have exchange-value, although no labor whatever was expended on them. "How about the native gold lump which falls down on the parcel of a landed proprietor as a meteor? or, the silver mine which he accidentally discovers on his land?" asks Böhm-Bawerk. "Will the owner be unmindful of nature's gift, and let the gold and silver lay there, or throw them away, or give it away as a gift again, only because nature gave them to him without his exerting himself?" "And why is it that a gallon of fine Rhine wine is valued at many times the value of some cheap grade of wine, although the work of producing them may be the same?" And Professor Knies asks: when a quarter of wheat is equivalent in exchange to a cord of wood, is there any difference between the wood produced by human labor in an artificial grove and that which grew wild in the primeval forest?[1] And Professor Masaryk chimes in: "Why is virgin soil bought and sold?"
As will have been noted, all the examples upon which
- ↑ Karl Knies. Das Geld, p. 121.
