ABSTRACT
The limitations of the marginal-utility economics are sharp and characteristic. It is from first to last a doctrine of value, and in point of form and method it is a theory of valuation. For an understanding of modern economic life the technological advance of the past hvo centuries, for example, the growth of the industrial arts, is of the first importance; but marginal-utility theory does not bear on this matter, nor does this matter bear on marginal-utility theory. Economic institutions in the modern civilized scheme of life are institutions of the price system. More or less freely and fully, the price system dominates the current commonsense in its appreciation and rating of these non-pecuniary ramifications of modern culture; and this in spite of the fact that, on reflection, all men of normal intelligence will freely admit that these matters lie outside the scope of pecuniary valuation.
