Later formulations of the utility theory and the labor cost theory, as represented by the theory of Schumpeter, which we shall discuss in the chapter on "Marginal Utility," give us, in a scheme of purely static equilibrium, a picture of the adjustment of the individual values to the social values. As we shall see, they give us no account whatever of the social values. They do not explain causation at all. But they do show that there is a tendency for the individual marginal utilities of consumption to become proportional to the social values of the goods consumed by each individual; and for the individual marginal disutilities in production to become proportional to the social values of the rewards that come to producers. The scheme is highly unrealistic. It has been emphatically repudiated by Böhm-Bawerk, so far as the disutility equilibrium is concerned. ("Ultimate Standard of Value," _Annals of the American Academy_, Vol. V, pp. 149-209.) But it is worth something, not as explaining social values or market prices, but rather, as showing how individuals _conform_ to social values and market prices. _Cf. Social Value_, pp. 43-44, n. 2, and 148.
The theory that individual marginal utilities and disutilities are proportional to market values is unrealistic enough, in the light of the analysis of individual utilities which we have given, even for the utilities. It is quite impossible to make anything of importance of it from the side of individual disutilities. The length of the working day is not fixed for each worker by a comparison of his own labor pain with the satisfactions he expects from his wages. It is fixed by conditions largely external to him, and the whole group works the same number of hours, with the machine. The law may limit the working day. Trades-union effort may do it. Opportunities for alternative employment may do it, for the labor force of a factory as a whole. But the theory, which really must rest in the notion that each individual has many options, and that the working period is flexible, cannot mean much. The prosperity of the laborer does more to limit the working day than does his suffering!
The reactions of individuals as consumers or producers on the social values modify the social values. But, as we have shown, the primary explanation of the social values is not to be found in the individual utilities and disutilities of those who react to them. Utilities and labor pains are parts, but minor parts, in the explanation of social values.