Alfred Amonn, “Wert- und Preistheorie und Preispolitik” (1946)

This file contains Alfred Amonn’s five-part contribution to the 1946 Swiss theoretical-economics volume Konkurrenz und Planwirtschaft. Its scope is precise: Amonn connects value and price theory to the practical problem of price policy, moving from definitions, through direct and indirect intervention, to the theory of supply and demand, the limits of economic judgment, and a final policy synthesis.

Amonn’s first move is conceptual. He argues that economics has confused words that ordinary commercial language uses more clearly. “Price” is the money relation of exchange; “value” is the regular relation of a good to other real goods. This distinction is not semantic ornament: it makes visible how money prices can change without relative values changing, and how values can change without nominal prices moving.

Mit anderen Worten: Unter „Preis“ versteht man im gewöhnlichen und im geschäftlichen Sprachgebrauch das Austauschverhältnis eines Gutes gegenüber dem Gelde und unter „Wert“ sein regelmäßiges Austauschverhältnis gegenüber den anderen Gütern.

English translation: In other words: by "price" one understands in ordinary and commercial usage the exchange ratio of a good against money, and by "value" its regular exchange ratio against other goods.

From there he turns to policy. Price policy is practically urgent because modern economic government increasingly acts upon prices. Amonn distinguishes indirect measures, which alter market conditions and allow a new equilibrium to emerge, from direct measures, which fix or limit prices by authority. Direct policy is therefore more disruptive: it prevents the ordinary reconciliation of quantities supplied and demanded.

Zum Unterschied von allen Maßnahmen der Wirtschaftspolitik, die eine solche indirekte Beeinflussung der Preishöhe zum unmittelbaren Ziel haben, bezeichnet man die direkte und unmittelbare Einflußnahme auf die Preishöhe als „Preispolitik“.

English translation: In contrast to all measures of economic policy whose immediate aim is such an indirect influence on the level of prices, one designates direct and immediate intervention in the price level as "price policy."

The examples are concrete and diagnostic. Minimum prices above equilibrium produce gluts and require production quotas; maximum prices below equilibrium produce shortages, rationing, reduced production, and unintended redistributions. For Amonn, the relevant question is never only the immediate effect of a decree, but its whole chain of consequences for production, distribution, and future welfare.

The theoretical core comes in his defense of modern price theory as a functional theory of supply and demand. Older views treated supply and demand as mere quantities and fell into circular explanation. Modern theory relates quantities to offer and demand prices, introduces elasticity, and distinguishes movement along a demand or supply function from a shift of the function itself.

Die moderne Preistheorie, die in ihrem Grundgedanken eine funktionelle Theorie ist, d. h. eine Theorie, die den wechselseitigen Zusammenhang zwischen Preis einerseits und Angebot und Nachfrage andererseits darzulegen und zu erklären sucht, schließt auch die Wirkung eines festen Preises auf Angebot und Nachfrage und damit auf die Produktion und Verteilung in sich, so daß ihre Bedeutung für die Beantwortung dieser Frage nicht minder groß ist.

English translation: Modern price theory, which in its basic idea is a functional theory—that is, a theory that seeks to set forth and explain the mutual connection between price on the one hand and supply and demand on the other—also embraces the effect of a fixed price on supply and demand, and thereby on production and distribution, so that its significance for answering this question is no less great.

This is why theory remains indispensable even when prices are administratively fixed: the decree fixes a number, not the reactions of producers and consumers. Amonn’s critique of popular discussion is that it mistakes a changed quantity sold for a changed demand schedule, thereby obscuring the mechanism policy must understand.

He then separates three kinds of judgment: theoretical judgments about consequences, teleological judgments about suitability to given ends, and normative judgments about the ends themselves. Economics may analyze means, consistency, and causal effects, but it cannot scientifically choose ultimate social purposes.

Zwecke setzen und Zwecke als Zwecke beurteilen ist, soweit es sich um solche des gesellschaftlichen Lebens handelt, Aufgabe politischer Instanzen.

English translation: To set ends and to judge ends as ends is, insofar as they concern social life, the task of political authorities.

This boundary gives the essay its political sobriety. If general welfare is assumed as the final end under normal conditions, Amonn holds that price policy should preserve or restore durable competitive equilibrium prices, especially where monopoly or unfair competition prevents them. If other final ends are chosen—autarky, defense, preservation of a Bauernstand or Gewerbestand—the calculation changes, but it must still be explicit.

The essay’s relevance lies in joining the postwar debate over competition and planning to a disciplined theory of intervention. Amonn does not deny the possibility of price policy; he argues that without conceptual clarity and causal analysis it multiplies shortages, surpluses, rationing, and further controls. His final thesis is therefore methodological as much as policy-oriented:

Die Wert- und Preistheorie ist eine unumgängliche Voraussetzung einer rationellen Preispolitik, wie einer rationellen Wirtschaftspolitik überhaupt.

English translation: The theory of value and price is an indispensable prerequisite of a rational price policy, and indeed of a rational economic policy generally.