ABSTRACT
Every theory of value I have ever heard of, with the single exception of the Marxian theory, has for its object the explanation of prices. But Marx's theory of value is so little a theory of prices that it is hard in the end to say whether it has any point of contact at all with prices. For it explains, or tries to explain, neither why prices are what they are, nor why they fluctuate; and such elucidation of these questions as Marx does attempt comes in quite a different part of his book from his account of value and has little relation to it. In face of this fundamental difference of object, it is not surprising that economists who persist in criticising the Marxian theory of value on the assumption that it is a theory of prices succeed in demonstrating, to their own complete satisfaction, that as a theory of prices it makes nonsense.
