[182] Intrinsically, there is no more reason why the economist should concern himself with measuring quantitatively the effect of tariff laws than with a similar treatment of other legal values. Tariffs do not affect industry any more intimately than hosts of other laws. The obvious reason why the economic laws of taxation have been worked out and the others ignored, in our economic analyses, is that the tax laws, being themselves expressed in money terms, are more easily handled by the economist.
PROFESSOR SELIGMAN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE OF THE RELATIVITY OF VALUES
Professor Seligman's discussion of value theory has been extremely fertile in suggestions for me, and I find the spirit of the positive theory outlined in this book much closer to the general point of view of his doctrines than to those of any other economic writer. His recognition of the generic character of value, of the fact that economic value is but a species within a genus,[183] his contention that, while ethical principles depend on economic considerations in primitive life, they still, in later and higher stages, attain a relative independence, and react on economic life,[184] his recognition of the essentially social nature of even the individual's wants,[185] his discussion of the legal and moral "level of competition,"[186] and, in general, his insistence upon a sociological point of view, especially in the treatment of all practical problems, have been of marked assistance to me in freeing my mind from the individualistic bias of the narrow price analyses, and in making clear the gap between existing theories of value and the function of the value concept in economic science. At certain stages, as already indicated in part, his theories differ pretty radically from that set forth in the preceding pages. For one thing, I find no place in my scheme for the notions of social utility and social cost[187] which are prominent in his discussions, as, indeed, in the discussion of most of the adherents of the social value school. There is one further point of difference, however, to which I wish especially to call attention, as criticism of Professor Seligman's view brings to light certain significant points in the theory I am defending. The following quotation is from his article, "Social Elements in the Theory of Value," from the _Quarterly Journal_ of May, 1901:[188]--