In ........... [a space left blank in the manuscript for the title “Vierteljahrschrift für Volkswirthschaft und Kulturgeschichte”] a Bastiatite discovers that I have pilfered the determination of the
magnitude of value
of commodities by the
“socially necessary labour time”
required for their production from F. Bastiat, and what is more, in a garbled form. I could already rest content with this quiproquo. For if this Bastiatite No. I finds Bastiat’s and my determinations of value to be identical as to the substance of the matter, a Bastiatite No. II declares, almost simultaneously, in the Leipzig
“Literarischen Centralblatt”
of ........................ [space left in the manuscript for the date – 4 July 1868 – and the following quotation: “The refutation of the theory of value is the only task for anyone who opposes Marx; for once the axiom is granted, one must concede to Marx almost all the consequences drawn with the strictest logic.”]

By adding Bastiatite No. I to Bastiatite No. II, the conclusion would therefore be that the whole army of the Bastiatites must now cross over into my camp and accept my developments on capital in the lump. It will be appreciated that it is only after a hard inner struggle that I forgo such joys of annexation.

The determination of value contained in my work
“Capital”
, 1867, is already to be found two decades earlier in my work against Proudhon: “Misère de la Philosophie”, Paris 1847. (
p. 49 seqq.
) Bastiat’s wisdom on value first came into the world some years later. I could therefore not have copied Bastiat, though Bastiat might well have copied me.

In point of fact, however, Bastiat provides no analysis of value at all. He merely parades notions void of concept, for the comforting demonstration that “the world is full of great, excellent, daily services”. The German

Bastiatites are known to be all national liberals. Consequently, I too render them a “great, excellent service” by pointing out the
specifically Prussian origin
of the fund of Bastiat’s wisdom. For old Schmalz was a Prussian Councillor of Government, if I am not mistaken, even a Prussian Privy Councillor of Government. He was, in addition, a sniffer-out of demagogues. Well, this old Schmalz published a
“Handbuch der Staatswirthschaftslehre”
in Berlin in 1818. The French translation of his handbook appeared in Paris in 1826 under the title:
“Économie Politique”
. The translator, Henri Jouffroy, figured on the title-page as
“Conseiller au Service de Prusse”
“Prussian Councillor of Government”
|. In the following quotation one will find the Bastiat conception of value in its quintessence, not only as regards its content but even its literal wording:

“Le travail d’autrui en général ne produit jamais pour nous qu’une
économie
de temps, et [que] cette économie de temps est tout ce qui constitue
sa valeur
et
son prix
. Le menuisier, par exemple, qui me fait une table, et le domestique qui porte mes lettres a la poste, qui bat mes habits, ou qui cherche pour moi les choses qui me sont nécessaires, me rendent l’un et l’autre
un service
absolument de même nature; l’un et l’autre m’
épargne
et le temps que je serais oblige d’employer moi-même a ces occupations, et celui qu’il m’aurait fallu consacrer a acquérir l’aptitude et les talents qu’elles exigent.” (
Schmalz
, loc. cit., Vol. I, p. 304.)

|“The labour of others brings us in general only a saving of time, and this saving of time is all that constitutes its value and its price. The joiner who makes me a table, and the servant who carries my letters to the post, cleans my clothes, and fetches the things I need, both render me a service of absolutely the same nature; both spare me time, and in fact twofold time: first, the time I should now have to expend to do this myself; second, the time I should have had to spend to acquire the skill for it.”|

One therefore knows now where Bastiat fetched his fat, I meant to say, his Schmalz.