best known to English readers through his graceful study "Socialism in the 19th Century," opened the discussion on the subject soon after the appearance of the third volume in an essay entitled, "Some Criticism of the Economic System of Karl Marx."[1] In the introductory remarks of that essay Professor Sombart observes that Marx was a "most misunderstood author," and that an intelligent statement of his assertions was the highest duty of a reviewer of his work. Such a statement he undertakes to give, and goes about it very conscientiously. It must be stated, however, that notwithstanding his conscientious efforts and considerable acumen the execution fell short of the design. His conclusion, therefore, that there was no contradiction between the first and third volume can not be accepted as final.
According to Sombart, the theory laid down in the third volume of Capital is not much different from the traditional theory of the cost of production. This does not conflict, however, with the theory of value expounded in the first volume, for the simple reason that the labor theory of value was never intended by Marx to represent the actual facts, or, as he puts it, "the (Marxian) value does not reveal itself in the exchange relation of the capitalistically-produced commodities." Nor does it play any part in the distribution of the yearly product of society. It has no place in real life. Its office is merely that of an aid to our thinking, by means of which we can understand the economic phenomena, and its place is in the mental operations of the economic theorist. In short, "it is not an empirical but a mental fact." Value, thus banished from economic life into the realms of pure thought, can no longer come into conflict with the gross facts of this life. Its existence is none the less real, at least to the mind of the German scholar who must have been educated on the writings of the great German idealist philosophers.
Aside from the questionable value of such "value," the
- ↑ Archiv für Soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik, Vol. VII, No. 4.
