part with it? If a mere change of hands creates value, why do some people foolishly toil in the sweat of their brows to produce new articles in order to get values, when value can be got by the much easier process of sending the articles already on hand around the circuit? This brings us back to the question: What is exchange-value, and how is it produced or got?
We will see later in the course of the discussion how Marx's theory of value and surplus-value answers all these questions and unravels all these mysteries, and that it is the only theory that answers the problem of political economy satisfactorily, thus making political economy a real science. We will also see the place of our economic system in the string of economies which go to make up the history of the human race until now, and what its further development must or is likely to lead to. We will see, incidentally, how entirely puerile is the talk of Bernstein and his followers who, not understanding the essence of the Marxian theory of value, and overawed therefore by the volume of criticism levelled against it by the very learned economists, attempt to hide behind the contention that this theory is not an essential element of Marx's socialist system. We will see, lastly, how utterly absurd is most of the criticism of these learned critics from Boehm-Bawerk down or up.
True to his method of "no philosophy," Marx set about his task of finding the true laws of exchange-value in the most "unphilosophic," matter-of-fact way. He argued that, while the laws of value furnish the key to the understanding of our economic system, those laws themselves can only be derived from the observation of the actual every-day facts of our production and distribution. In order, however, that these facts may be properly understood and appreciated they must be examined in their historical connection and in their proper historical setting.
