If an error with serious consequences, which I commented on in my previous article, consists of identifying the value of the relationship with the original object of the relationship, another consistent error should also be reported in separating this relationship completely from the existent and real concrete goods.

Böhm Bawerk expressed himself in this way in his work Capital and Interest: "We economists are very fond of separating our scientific categories from the ordinary physical foundation on which they are revealed in reality, raising them to the rank of free ideals and with their own existence. The value of assets, for example, is imagined as something too noble to always be adhered to tangible assets, as their own embodiment. In view of that, we liberate the value of that unworthy implication and transform it into a being with its own existence that follows its own course, independent and even contrary to its vile bearer's luck. We make the " value " survive and if not, the " values " perish without their bearers suffering any detriment. And we also consider it too simple to apply the category of capital to a heap of tangible assets. In view of that, we separate that category from these assets and we convert the capital into something that floats on the assets and survives even though that which forms it disappears."

We have affirmed on other occasions that the worth of something is a relationship of convenience of the object valued to the individuals' end objectives. We should add now that the relationship is a real relationship. In the economic world it is not enough to invent, it is necessary to materialize. We cannot remain in mere abstractions, but rather we must concentrate on concrete things. Economic values are not autochthonous substances that flow to their whim in the universe. If the worth of the goods is a relationship, it needs substance on which to lean on, it needs some individual to support it. We cannot move in the land of imagination. Value is a property of goods; it has a radical dependence regarding substance. If the valued object does not exist then value does not have real existence.

So that man can be a perfectly understood being of material body and rational soul, he needs material goods. A relationship is real when the origin of the relationship as well as the conclusion is real and not imaginary. So that authentic value is produced, the object that we value as well as the objectives have to be real. If one of the two conditions is not completed then an authentic real relationship does not exist, and we are in the world of imaginary goods.

Carl Menger also wrote that one observes a peculiar relationship "When property is attributed erroneously to things and therefore, causations that in fact it does not possess, or where also erroneously, some human necessities are presupposed that really do not exist. (...)These objects, that derive their good quality only from some imagined properties or imagined human necessities, can also be qualified as imaginary goods."

To show the possibility of a merely empiric treatment, the 'scientific' economist tends to situate himself out of reach of the " masse ", taking refuge in the environment of abstractions. Models, equations and complex specialized terminology, shape a means of communication with an exclusive patent for experts, removing in this way any inkling of ethical-philosophical consideration regarding the authentic objectives of human nature. Not only different products, with their individual characteristics, but even people, with their colourful and rich originality, are homogenized and reduced to mere numbers, like when they appear in the denominator to calculate the "income per capita."

The reduction to abstract and monetary figures leaves aside and diffuses understanding among different goods and between these and the different aptitudes, characteristics and objectives of particular people. Behind the economic concepts are living and concrete men so it is necessary to try to avoid treating them as phantasmagoric realities and anonymous powers.

We must not forget, in short, that the variable to increase in the whole process of economic development is that real relationship or ordination of natural resources to the authentic objectives of human nature. It is necessary to overcome the temptation to confuse it with quantitative and indiscriminate growth of goods; and that of separating economic value, by means of abstractions, from the characteristics of different goods and certain conditions, necessities and concrete people's authentic objectives.

Joseph John Franch Menéu
Professor of Political Economy
Autonomous University of Madrid
Gaceta de los Negocios