Richard Kerschagl · 1923
Richard Kerschagl examines the tasks of value theory within pure economics by making comparability its organizing problem. How can qualitatively different goods be brought into determinate relations without assuming the homogeneous units whose existence a theory must establish? His argument proceeds through classification, historical criticism, and an assessment of Othmar Spann’s organic approach, ending with a research program rather than a definitive solution.
Kerschagl separates theoretical validity from practical usefulness. A theory’s success in explaining economic transactions does not, by itself, settle the logical foundations of its account of value.
Hierbei sind zwei Dinge von vornherein auszuschalten: erstens die Frage, was ich mit den erzielten Resultaten in unserer Wirtschaft anfangen kann; denn das wäre keine rein theoretische Untersuchung mehr.
English translation: Two things must here be excluded from the outset: first, the question of what I can do with the results obtained in our economy; for that would no longer be a purely theoretical investigation.
This restriction frames his criticism of both labor-value theory and marginal utility. Despite their opposed starting points, both belong to a quantifying family: one seeks a common denominator in labor, the other in the subject’s scale of needs. Their shared difficulty is explaining how heterogeneous qualities become comparable magnitudes.
Die eine Möglichkeit, die Quantifizierung zu vollziehen und das Gewertete als eine Summe von Wertseinheiten erscheinen zu lassen, liegt eben in der Konstruktion einer Wertseinheit in bezug auf die Güter.
English translation: The one possibility of carrying out quantification and of making that which is valued appear as a sum of units of value lies precisely in the construction of a unit of value in relation to goods.
Constructing such a unit is not equivalent to demonstrating its validity. Intellectual and manual labor resist reduction to a common labor magnitude, while physiological satisfaction cannot provide an encompassing measure for religious, intellectual, legal, and pleasurable ends. Kerschagl nevertheless credits Marx with clearly recognizing the problem and marginalism with substantial explanatory achievements. His historical discussion distinguishes questions of value creation from questions of measurement, treating the differences among Smith, Ricardo, reproduction-cost theories, and utility-cost combinations as partly differences in theoretical objectives.
The criticism of cost theories concerns explanatory direction as well as measurement. Expenditure is undertaken for an anticipated benefit and therefore presupposes valuation; it cannot straightforwardly furnish value’s independent foundation. Combining costs and utility may indicate the limits of economically justified production without resolving the underlying question of comparability. A hypothetical normative approach, associated with Kelsen’s methodological example, likewise supplies no common economic measure across distinct normative orders. Their comparison still requires an ordering act.
Kerschagl also questions the independence attributed to particular valuations within a scale of needs:
Auf der Bedürfnisskala ist zum Beispiel der Wert des zweiten Laibes Brot schon festgelegt, ob nun der Wertende ein Kleid besitzt oder nicht.
English translation: On the scale of wants, for example, the value of the second loaf of bread is already fixed, whether or not the valuing subject possesses a garment.
The example exposes the contrast between assigning goods positions on an established scale and understanding their value through their relations within an interconnected whole. For Kerschagl, marginalism’s psychological premises and explanatory successes do not establish that it has supplied a satisfactory foundation for pure economics.
Spann’s organic theory offers an alternative through the relation between means and purposes. Economics assesses the suitability of means for specified ends; it does not determine whether those ends deserve pursuit. This distinction both broadens economic analysis beyond material goods and limits its authority. A tool, a book, or a prayer may be assessed as a means, while the justification of its purpose belongs to another inquiry. Utility consequently becomes functional suitability rather than a homogeneous quantity of satisfaction.
Such valuation is relational: means derive significance from purposes, while particular purposes occupy positions within a wider whole. This promises an account of reciprocal dependence that avoids treating goods and needs as isolated elements. Yet Kerschagl does not regard the organic approach as complete. It must still explain how qualitative ordering supports precise comparison and how a joint result can be attributed to its contributing means. Hierarchy may covertly reintroduce the quantification it seeks to overcome.
The work’s contribution is therefore a critical reorientation of value theory. Kerschagl makes the justification of comparison—not merely the identification of value’s supposed source—the central theoretical obligation. His qualified preference for organic, teleological analysis leaves measurement and attribution as unresolved tests of that approach’s adequacy.
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