Now, it is proved that
it is the free will of man that gives rise to the opposition
between value in use and value in exchange: how reconcile this
opposition while free will exists? And how sacrifice the latter
without sacrificing man?
Then, from the very fact that I, as a free purchaser, am judge of
my own wants, judge of the fitness of the object, judge of the
price I wish to pay, and that you on the other hand, as a free
producer, control the means of production, and consequently have
the power to reduce your expenses, absolutism forces itself
forward as an element of value, and causes it to oscillate
between utility and opinion.
But this oscillation, clearly pointed out by the economists, is
but the effect of a contradiction which, repeating itself on a
vast scale, engenders the most unexpected phenomena. Three years
of fertility, in certain provinces of Russia, are a public
calamity, just as, in our vineyards, three years of abundance are
a calamity to the wine-grower I know well that the economists
attribute this distress to a lack of markets; wherefore this
question of markets is an important one with them.
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