Abstract

[321] Over a year ago, with his essay “die klassische Werttheorie und die Theorie vom Grenznützen” [“The Classical Value Theory and the Theory of Marginal Utility ”],1 which appeared in this yearbook and in which he declared himself in favor of the rival, older value theory, which bases the value of goods on costs, Professor Dietzel inaugurated a polemic against the modern value theory of marginal utility. This attack was not an isolated case. Somewhat earlier it had been started by the eminent Danish scholar Scharling in his essay, well-known to the readers of this yearbook, concerning “Werttheorien und Wertgesetze” [“Theories of Value and Laws of Value”].2 In Italy, A. Loria3 conducts it with an extraordinarily quarrelsome spirit. It is present even in France. Finally, it is right now carried on in America with particular interest and keen activity. The outbreak and the rapid spread of this controversy is not in the least surprising. It is the completely natural consequence of the scientific situation in which the theory of value presently finds itself. So long as the theory of.