7. FACTORS OF PRODUCTION, CONVERTIBILITY AND VALUATION
Factors of production are valued in accordance with their anticipated contribution in the eventual production of consumers' goods.
Factors, however, differ in the degree of their specificity, that is, the variety of consumers' goods in the production of which they can be of service.
Certain goods are completely specific, are useful in producing only one consumer's good.
Thus when, in past ages, extracts from the mandrake weed were considered useful in healing
ills, the mandrake weed was a completely specific factor of production.
It was useful purely for this purpose.
When the ideas of people changed and the mandrake was considered worthless, the weed lost its
Other producers' goods may be relatively non-specific and capable of being used in a wide variety of employments.
They could never be perfectly non-specific, equally useful in all production of consumers' goods,
for in that case they would be general conditions of welfare available in unlimited abundance for all purposes.
There would be no need to economize them.
to economize them.
Scarce factors, however, including the relatively non-specific ones,
must be employed in their most urgent uses.
Just as a supply of consumers' goods will go first towards satisfying the most urgent wants,
then to the next most urgent wants, etc.,
so a supply of factors will be allocated by actors
first to the most urgent uses in producing consumers' goods,
The Less Specific a factor is, the more convertible it is from one use to another.
The mandrake weed lost its value because it could not be converted to other uses.
Factors such as iron or wood, however, are convertible into a wide variety of uses.
If one type of consumer's good falls into disuse, iron output can be shifted from that
to another line of production.
On the other hand, once the iron ore has been transformed into a machine, it becomes less
easily convertible and often completely specific to the product.
When factors lose a large part of their value as a result of a decline in the value of the
consumer's good, they will, if possible, be converted to another use of greater value.
If despite the decline in the value of the product, there is no better use to which the
factor can be converted, it will stay in that line of product or cease being used altogether
if the consumer's good no longer has value.
For example, suppose that cigars suddenly lose their value as consumers' goods.
They are no longer desired.
Those cigar machines, which are not usable in any other capacity, will become valueless.
Tobacco leaves, however, will lose some of their value, but may be convertible to uses
such as cigarette production, with little loss of value.
A loss of all desire for tobacco, however, will result in a far wider loss in the value
of the factors, although part of the land may be salvaged by shifting from tobacco to
the production of cotton.
Suppose on the other hand that sometime after cigars lose their value, this commodity returns
to public favor and regains its former value.
The cigar machines, which had been rendered valueless, now recoup their great loss in
value.
On the other hand, the tobacco leaves, land, etc., which had shifted from cigars to other
uses, will re-shift into the production of cigars.
These factors will gain in value, but their gain, as was their previous loss, will be
less than the gain of the completely specific factor.
These are examples of a general law that a change in the value of the product causes
a greater change in the value of the specific factors than in that of the relatively non-specific
factors.
To further illustrate the relation between convertibility and valuation, let us assume
Assume that complementary factors 10x, 5y and 8z produce a supply of 20p.
First suppose that each of these factors is completely specific and that none of the supply
of the factors can be replaced by other units.
Then if the supply of one of the factors is lost, say 10x, the entire product is lost,
and the other factors become valueless.
In that case, the supply of that factor, which must be given up or lost, equals in value
the value of the entire product, 20p, while the other factors have a zero value.
An example of production with purely specific factors is a pair of shoes.
The prospect of a loss of one shoe is valued at the value of the entire pair, while the
The other shoe becomes valueless in case of a loss. Thus, jointly, factors 10x, 5y, and 8z produce a product that is valued, say, as rank 11 on the actor's value scale, lose the supply of one of the factors, and the other complementary factors become completely valueless.
Now let us assume, secondly, that each of the factors is non-specific, that 10x can
be used in another line of production that will yield a product, say ranked 21st on the
value scale, that 5y and another use will yield a product ranked 15th on the actor's
value scale, and that 8z can be used to yield a product ranked 30th.
In that case, the loss of 10x would mean that instead of satisfying a want of rank 11, the
units of y and z would be shifted to their next most valuable use, and wants ranked 15th
and 30th would be satisfied instead.
We know that the actor preferred the satisfaction of a want ranked 11th to the satisfaction
Convertible factors will be allocated among different lines of production according to
to the same principles as consumers' goods are allocated among the ends they can serve.
Each unit of supply will be allocated to satisfy the most urgent of the not yet satisfied wants,
that is, where the value of its marginal product is the highest.
A loss of a unit of the factor will deprive the actor of only the least important of the
and the presently satisfied uses, that is, that use in which the value of the marginal product is the lowest.
This choice is analogous to that involved in previous examples comparing the marginal utility of one good with the marginal utility of another.
This lowest ranked marginal product may be considered the value of the marginal product of any unit of the factor with all uses taken into account.
Thus, in the above case, suppose that X is a convertible factor in a myriad of different
uses.
If one unit of X has a marginal product of, say, 3P, a marginal product in another use
of 2Q, 5R, etc., the actor ranks the values of these marginal products of X on his value
scale.
Suppose that he ranks them in this order. 4s, 3p, 2q, 5r. In that case suppose he is
faced with the loss of one unit of x. He will give up the use of a unit of x in production
of r, where the marginal product is ranked lowest. Even if the loss takes place in the
production of p, he will not give up 3p, but shift a unit of x from the less valuable use
The Theory of Money and Credit
We now can see further why, in cases where products are made with specific and convertible
factors, the general law holds that the value of convertible factors changes less than that
of Specific Factors in response to a change in the value of P, or in the conditions of
its production.
The value of a unit of a convertible factor is set not by the conditions of its employment
in one type of product, but by the value of its marginal product when all its uses are
taken into consideration.
Since a specific factor is usable in only one line of production, its unit value is
set as equal to the value of the marginal product in that line of production alone.
Hence in the process of valuation, the specific factors are far more responsive to conditions
in any given process of production than are the non-specific factors.
As with the problem of optimum proportions, the process of value imputation from consumers
good to factors raises a great many problems which will be discussed in later chapters.
Since one product cannot be measured against other products and units of different factors
cannot be compared with one another, how can value be imputed when, as in a modern economy,
The structure of production is very complex, with myriads of products and with convertible
and inconvertible factors.
It will be seen that value imputation is easy for isolated Crusoe-type actors, but that
special conditions are needed to enable the value imputing process, as well as the factor
allocating process, to take place in a complex economy.
In particular, the various units of products and factors, not the values, of course, must
be made commensurable and comparable.