tinh thần loại. Các khái quát của lý thuyết giá trị được áp dụng đối với hành vi của người đàn ông bị cô lập hoặc cơ quan có thẩm quyền điều hành của một xã hội cộng sản, như hành vi của con người trong một cuộc trao đổi nền kinh tế ngay cả khi họ không phải là | 20 SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE OH. mental The generalisations of the theory of value are as applicable to the behaviour of isolated man or the executive authority of a communist society as to the behaviour of man in an exchange economy even if they are not so illuminating in such contexts. The exchange relationship is a technical incident a technical incident indeed which gives rise to nearly all the interesting complications but still for all that subsidiary to the main fact of scarcity. In the second place it is clear that the phenomena of the exchange economy itself can only be explained by going behind such relationships and invoking the operation of those laws of choice which are best seen when contemplating the behaviour of the isolated Professor Amonn seems willing to admit that such a system of pure Economics may be useful as an auxiliary to Economic Science but he precludes himself from making it the basis of the main system by postulating that the subject-matter of Economics must be defined in terms of the problems discussed by Ricardo. The view that a definition must describe an existing body of knowledge and not lay down arbitrary limits is admirable. But it may legitimately be asked why stop at Ricardo Is it not clear that the imperfections of the Ricardian system were due to just this cừcumstance that it stopped at the valuations of the market and did not press through to the valuations of the individual Surely it is the great achievement of 1 See Strigl op. cit. pp. 23-28. Professor Cassel s dismissal of Crusoe Economics Fundamental Thoughts p. 27 seems unfortunate since it is only when contemplating the conditions of isolated man that the importance of the condition that the scarce means must have alternative uses if there is to be economic activity which was emphasised above leaps clearly to the eye. In a social economy of any kind the mere multiplicity of economic subjects leads one to overlook the possibility of the
