Note 9 — Chapter III · THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UTILITY AND VALUE

In view of the loose way in which we use “economic” and “economise,” Menger’s definitions are worth remembering. When men recognise that their wellbeing is bound up with the command over certain goods within certain periods of time, and that such goods are likely to be insufficient for their demand, their impulse is (1) to get such goods into their possession or disposal; (2) to preserve the useful properties of the same; (3) to decide which are their more important and which their less important wants, and to satisfy the former only; and (4) to so dispose of the goods as to get the greatest possible result or satisfaction on the whole, and to obtain every individual result with the smallest possible expenditure. “The activity men direct to those ends, in its totality, we call their ‘economy,’ and the goods which stand in these quantitative relations, as the exclusive objects of that economy, we call ‘economic goods.’”—Grundsätze, chap. ii. § 3.