If we have grasped M. Proudhon's idea, here are the four points he proposes to establish:
(1) Utility-value and exchange-value form an "astonishing contrast," they are in opposition to each other.
(2) Utiltity-value and exchange-value are in inverse ratio the one to the other, in contradiction.
(3) The economists have neither seen nor known, either the opposition or the contradiction.
(4) The criticism of M. Proudhon begins at the end.
We also, we will commence at the end, and in order to clear the economists from the accusations of M. Proudhon we will hear what two economists of some importance have to say.
Sismondi: "It is the opposition between value in use and exchangeable value to which commerce has reduced all things, &c." ("Études,"," vol. II, p. 162. Brussels edition.)
Lauderdale: "In general national wealth (utility-value) diminishes in proportion as individual fortunes increase by the augmentation of saleable value; and to the extent that these are reduced by the diminution of this value, the first generally increases." ("Enquiries into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth.")
Upon the opposition between use-value and exchange-value Sismondi has based his principal theory that the diminution of the revenue is in proportion to the increase of production.
Lauderdale has based his system on the theory of the inverse ratio of the two kinds of value, and his doctrine was so popular at the time of Ricardo that the latter could speak of it as of a thing generally known:—
"It is through confounding the ideas of value and wealth, or riches, that it has been asserted that by diminishing the quantity of commodities, that is to say,
