Alfred Amonn, „Wert“ oder „Wirtschaftliche Dimension“? (April 1928)

Alfred Amonn’s German-language article examines Friedrich von Gottl-Ottlilienfeld’s proposed replacement of “value” with “economic dimension.” Its central question is whether this innovation clarifies the relations economics must explain or merely redescribes them. Moving from criticism of Gottl’s definitions toward an account of exchange relations, Amonn distinguishes objective economic phenomena from the representations and expectations accompanying them.

Amonn accepts the demand that inquiry begin with substantive problems rather than inherited terminology. He disputes, however, Gottl’s extension of this criticism to established economic theory:

Denn, was er so apodiktisch behauptet, trifft wohl beinahe ohne Einschränkung auf die »hergebrachte Art, nationalökonomische Methodologie zu treiben«, zu, doch nicht so für die sachliche Theorie.

English translation: For what he asserts so apodictically applies almost without restriction to the "traditional manner of pursuing economic methodology," but not so to substantive theory.

The distinction between methodology and substantive theory is essential. Economists did not simply invent a problem by defining “value.” Monetary exchange presents an observable puzzle: exchange ratios display relative stability and patterned variation despite emerging from decentralized decisions. The inherited term designated this phenomenon:

Nach diesem Tatbestand hat man allerdings schon immer — seit Ricardo, Adam Smith und Turgot — gefragt, nur daß man ihn eben mit dem sprachüblichen Namen »Wert« gerufen hat.

English translation: This state of affairs has, to be sure, always been asked about — ever since Ricardo, Adam Smith and Turgot — only that it was called by the name customary in ordinary language, "value."

Replacing the word therefore does not remove the need to identify and explain its referent. “Dimension,” borrowed from geometry, brings its own associations without supplying a determinate economic concept. Gottl initially treats dimension as though it belonged to economic objects generally, but subsequently derives it from a particular organization of exchange. For Amonn, this leaves unresolved whether the proposed magnitude is an intrinsic property or a socially constituted relation.

The central analysis follows Gottl’s descriptions of economic dimension as a characteristic number, a prevailing magnitude, an enduring influence upon the will, and a determining norm. Amonn acknowledges a meaningful distinction between the price realized in a completed transaction and a reference magnitude informing later transactions. Yet persistence, validity, and supra-personality do not establish what that reference magnitude is:

Im Grunde genommen kommt Gottl bei seinem ganzen umständlichen Bestimmungsversuch über das Gegebensein einer Zahl nicht hinaus, nie erfahren wir, wofür diese Zahl »charakteristisch« sein soll, nie, was ihr Charakter als »geltende Größe« bedeuten soll.

English translation: Fundamentally, in his whole laborious attempt at determination, Gottl gets no further than the givenness of a number; we never learn for what this number is supposed to be "characteristic," never what its character as a "valid magnitude" is supposed to mean.

This objection concerns explanatory content, not merely verbal precision. If economic dimension consists in remembered prices and anticipated future prices, it is a psychological phenomenon. Such representations may help explain exchange, but cannot replace the objective relations to be explained. Likewise, calling a magnitude a determining norm becomes questionable when departures from it are unrestricted. A reference point may influence bargaining without necessarily preserving prices or enjoying explanatory priority over other influences.

Amonn also examines Gottl’s distinctions among customary price levels, anticipated prices, and calculated valuations, together with his interpretation of monetary magnitudes as measures of disposal power. These formulations move among expectations, norms, events, and social relations without demonstrating their conceptual unity. The asserted continuity between successive prices risks becoming either an unexplained necessity or another name for their causal connections.

Amonn’s positive reconstruction begins with exchange acts and the ratios they establish. Where ratios remain constant under specified conditions, a “Tauschdimension” can be abstracted. This is not a property inhering in an object, but a relation among exchanging subjects concerning objects. Combined with actual exchangeability, it supports the concept of quantitatively determinate disposal power in social intercourse. Amonn accepts Gottl’s distinction between this power and concrete control over particular goods, while noting its antecedent in his own Objekt und Grundbegriffe. A commodity’s money price alone, however, cannot measure its command over other goods; their prices must also be known.

The conclusion measures theoretical criticism against its contribution to explaining the quantitative determination of exchange ratios, including those of productive factors. Gottl’s emphasis on whether exchanged goods possess equal or unequal values gives insufficient attention to that task. Nevertheless, Amonn praises his analysis of exchange decisions and his treatment of money. The governing demand is discriminating rather than dismissive: new concepts must clarify economic relations and advance their explanation, not substitute terminology or accompanying representations for the object of inquiry.