chief trouble with Sombart's conception of the Marxian "value" is,—that it is not Marxian. Marx never dreamt of banishing his "value" from real life, from the facts of actual, every-day, economic life. He not only insisted that his theory of value had an application to the actual economic life of capitalist society, but claimed that the laws of value as laid down by him controlled that life and prescribed the course of its development. He claimed that while Production Prices, and prices in general differed from the values of commodities, they were always governed by the laws of value and were dictated, normally, and in the last instance, by these laws. That all declination of these prices from the actual values, except accidental and temporary, are governed by the very laws of value which are supposed to be infringed thereby. Truly, Marx was "a most misunderstood author."
We, therefore, agree for once, with Böhm-Bawerk, that, whatever the merits of Sombart's conception of value, it does not in any way remove the contradiction in the Marxian theory of value as Marx stated it. Assuming, of course, that there is such a contradiction, if Marx intended his theory to represent the actual course of events of capitalistic production and distribution. That there is such a contradiction is assumed, as we have seen, even by some orthodox Marxists, and Marx-critics do not tire of proclaiming the fact. Says Böhm-Bawerk:
"In what relation does this doctrine of the third volume stand to the celebrated law of value of the first volume? Does it contain the solution of the seeming contradiction looked for with so much anxiety? Does it prove 'how not only without contradicting the law of value, but even by virtue of it, an equal average rate of profit can and must be created?' Does it not rather contain the exact opposite of such a proof, viz., the statement of an actual, irreconcilable contradiction, and does it not prove that the equal average rate of profit can only manifest itself if, and because, the alleged law of value does not hold good?
