order, form the basis of a fixing that will protect the producer and the consumer against the disastrous consequences of constant oscillations.  The vendor can in principle be remunerated for his trouble.  It is well that he should be so remunerated; it is socially useful, and is used as a basis for fixing price; but it cannot in any way be said that this forms the objective measure of value, but that the work and expense are a sufficient title of remuneration for the fixing of the just price of the sale of a thing.  Some writers have tried to conclude from this that the authors of the Middle Ages saw in labour the measure of value.  This conclusion is exaggerated.  We may fully admit that this element enters into the sale price; but it is in no way the general measure of value....  The expenses of production constitute, then, one of the legitimate elements of just price; they are not the measure of value, but a factor often influencing its determination.’[3] ‘Labour,’ according to Dr. Cronin, ’is one of the most important of all the determinants of value, for labour is the chief element in cost of production, and cost of production is one of the chief elements in determining the level at which it is useful to buy or sell.  But labour is not the only determinant of value; there is, e.g., the price of the raw materials, a price that is not wholly determined by the labour of producing those materials.’[4]

[Footnote 1:  Political Economy, s. 48.]

[Footnote 2:  Politische Oekonomie vom Standpuncte der geschichtlichen Methode, p. 116.]

[Footnote 3:  Op. cit., p. 112.]

[Footnote 4:  Ethics, vol. ii. p. 181.]

The just price, then, in the absence of a legal fixing, was held to be the price that was in accordance with the communis estimatio.  Of course, this did not mean that a plebiscite had to be taken before every sale, but that any price that was in accordance with the general course of dealing at the time and place of the sale was considered substantially fair.  ’A thing is worth what it can generally be sold for—­at the time of the contract; this means what it can be sold for generally either on that day or the preceding or following day.  One must look to the price at which similar things are generally sold in the open market.’[1] ‘We must state precisely,’ says the Abbe Desbuquois, ’the character of this common estimation; it did not mean the universal suffrage; although it expresses the universal interest, it proceeds in practice from the evaluation of competent men, taken in the social environment where the exchange value operates.  If one supposes a sovereign tribunal of arbitration where all the rights of all the weak and all the strong economic factors are taken into account, the just price appears as the sentence or decision of this court.’[2] ’For the scholastics, the common estimation meant an ethical judgment of at least the most influential members of the community, anticipating the markets and fixing the rate of exchange.’[3]