The theory defended here, with its sharp sundering of values and prices, will, of course, criticize the mixing of the two. Certainly we must object to Bohm-Bawerk's contention that the solving of the price problem ipso facto solves the value problem. All of them cannot, of course, be accepted in toto, for there are, doubtless, irreconcilable differences among them at points. But it is the belief of the writer that the great bulk of what has been done in the study of the quasi-mathematical laws of prices is of substantial worth, that a recognition of the distinction between value theory and price theory, and of the confusions that result from mixing the two, will remove many seemingly irreconcilable differences between opposing schools, and that existing price theories are less to be criticized for what they affirm than for what they ignore and deny. Much of the significance of the theory of value for the interpretation of price theory has been indicated from time to time, in what has gone before.
Prices have meanings.
They express values . To understand the meanings of prices, we must know what the values mean. There is one further point in this connection which is so important that we shall give a separate chapter to it. Endnotes Vide supra, chaps. V and XI Natural Value, passim.