has abducted from the people all the soil, so that there is none left either in its virginity or in the possession of lawful husbandmen. And, secondly, we might ask the great host of Marx-critics to point out one place on the face of the globe, where a single article produced by labor can habitually be obtained without giving an equivalent therefor. Not on the whole face of this globe, nor even in the clouds or among the stars where Böhm-Bawerk can get gold-lumps free, can anybody find a place where chairs, coats or bicycles can be gotten free. Evidently there is a difference which the learned and astute Marx-critics failed to observe, but which is nevertheless very interesting, and ought to be for some people at least, very instructive.
There is another group of "commodities," which, although of a different character, is to be considered in this connection. This group includes all those things which, although produced by labor, are essentially the product of some higher natural gift or power, and are, therefore, irreproducible by mere labor. This includes all works of art, and the like. Not being the subject of production or reproduction by labor they are, naturally, not subject to the laws of value. But some ingenious Marx-critics, the indomitable Böhm-Bawerk among them, find great cause for rejoicing in this alleged "refutation" or "exception" to the laws of value as laid down by Marx. Ever faithful to their own confused nature and very consistently confusing economics with everything alien to it under the sun, they start out from their confusion of Value and Price, and adding to it the confusion of economic price with the colloquial application of the word price to every money-payment as a consideration for something, they declare that the Marxian theory of value must be false, for here are "goods" whose "value" is evidently not determined by labor. It does one good to see how these gentlemen who usually strut about like peacocks parading their lofty "moral sense" and "idealism," and constantly berating the Marxists for their supposed gross materialism and "levelling" tendencies, come down
