ABSTRACT
Value theory is the study of variable proportions. It is interested almost exclusively in the effect of having one rather than another set of relative quantities of various kinds of thing in the consumer's shopping list or the producer's outfit of factors of production. The economic analyst renounces all concern with the technical or artistic character of these ingredients, with questions of how or why they delight the consumer or serve the purpose of the artisan. Economics, in truth, has sought to simplify and unify the phenomena of business by means of the heaven-sent general scale of measurement, exchange-value. By means of exchange-value, everything of every kind, colour, aptitude and form can be reduced to a scalar quantity. There have been times, and minds, which veered distinctly towards an economics of qualities and not merely of quantities and values. It would have to be a classificatory economics. That, too, might provide new revelations.
