J. Schumpeter, “Bemerkungen über das Zurechnungsproblem” — Summary

Schumpeter’s 1909 essay is a contribution to Austrian value theory and an exercise in theoretical exegesis. Its object is the “Zurechnungsproblem,” the derivation of productive-goods values from consumption-goods values. It opens by insisting that theory be read architectonically, by asking what each premise does within the whole.

„Jeder wirklich durchdachte Gedankengang hat einen Anspruch darauf, in allen seinen Einzelheiten nachgedacht zu werden.“

English translation: "Every truly thought-through train of reasoning has a claim to be thought through in all its details."

Sections I–II locate imputation at the passage from marginal utility to prices and distribution. Consumption goods directly satisfy wants; land, labor, and capital do so only through the goods they help produce. Practice solves the problem daily, but theory must explain how, since modern economics claims that one value principle governs all goods.

„Auch die Produktivgüter, auch Land, Kapital und Arbeit müssen um ihres Nutzens willen Wert empfangen, sofern sie nicht im Überflusse vorhanden sind.“

English translation: "Productive goods too—land, capital, and labor as well—must receive value for the sake of their utility, insofar as they are not present in superabundance."

Sections III–V analyze Wieser. Schumpeter reconstructs Wieser’s criticism of Menger’s loss method: removing one factor may also reduce the effectiveness of the others, so what is “dependent” on a factor differs from its “productive contribution.” Wieser’s equations allocate product value among factors and make distribution theory flow directly from imputation. Schumpeter’s interpretive claim is that this solution is ruled by an “Aufteilungsgedanke,” a plan to divide the product’s value among productive elements.

„Der Wert ist die Rechenform des Nutzens“ — einer jener glänzenden Sätze, an denen dieses Buch so reich ist, die gleichsam Kristalle langer Gedankenarbeit sind.

English translation: "Value is the calculating form of utility"—one of those brilliant sentences in which this book is so rich, which are, as it were, crystals of long intellectual labor.

The elegance of Wieser’s formulation is also its danger. His equations work only if every unit in a stock is valued alike, so total value equals marginal utility times quantity. Schumpeter locates the fragility of the construction in this value concept.

Und wenn wir der eben vorgeführten Werttheorie nicht ganz zustimmen sollten, nicht finden sollten, daß sie zwingend zu dieser Wertdefinition führt, so werden wir in diesem Umstande den Hauptgrund für diese Auffassung des Wertphänomens sehen. v. Wiesers Lösung des Zurechnungsproblems steht und fällt mit diesem Wertbegriff.

English translation: And if we should not fully agree with the value theory just presented, should not find that it leads compellingly to this definition of value, then we shall see in this circumstance the chief reason for this conception of the value phenomenon. Wieser's solution of the imputation problem stands or falls with this concept of value.

Schumpeter denies that such “total value” describes economic conduct. For whole stocks, agents attend to total utility; for small increments, to marginal utility; in markets, distribution is mediated by prices formed from many individual marginal valuations. Free goods may have zero marginal utility without being valueless: if threatened, they would be defended according to their total utility. The product can be divided among owners, but product value cannot be directly partitioned into factor-values as Wieser requires.

Section VI gives Schumpeter’s correction. The sharp opposition of utility and value should be abandoned; the relevant objects are the utility or value scale, marginal utility, and total utility as the area under that scale. Imputation should not ask for a simple share, but for the factor’s value-function derived from final-goods value-functions.

„Das also ist das wahre Problem der Zurechnung: Ableitung der Wertkurven oder Nützlichkeitsskalen der Produktivgüter aus denen der Genußgüter."

English translation: "This, then, is the true problem of imputation: the derivation of the value curves or utility scales of productive goods from those of consumption goods."

Sections VII–IX turn to Böhm-Bawerk. His solution is closer to price theory: productive goods are complementary goods, and their values are approached through loss, alternative use, and substitution. Schumpeter praises complementarity and the loss idea, but criticizes the claim that replaceable cost goods are fixed by what must be sacrificed elsewhere.

Diese ersetzlichen Glieder können nun nach v. Boehm-Bawerk „nie einen höheren Wert als ihren Substitutionswert erlangen, d. i. denjenigen, der abgenommen wird vom Ausfall an Nutzen in denjenigen Verwendungszweigen, aus denen man die Ersatzexemplare beschafft“.

English translation: These replaceable members can now, according to v. Boehm-Bawerk, "never attain a higher value than their substitution value, that is, the one deducted from the loss of utility in those branches of use from which the replacement specimens are procured."

Substitution cannot mean that higher-valued uses have no effect on a replaceable factor. If labor moves from poor home industry to a new factory, the new use helps determine how much labor remains in the old use and therefore alters marginal valuation there. Böhm-Bawerk’s discrete examples obscure this: with divisible goods and continuous value curves, marginal utilities across uses tend toward equality. The whole value scale, not a single substituted marginal point, must be calculated.

The conclusion is balanced. Wieser gives the fullest exposition of the problem and clarifies its relation to distribution; Böhm-Bawerk supplies indispensable principles of loss, complementarity, and substitution. Both come close, but both are held back by their handling of value and marginal utility.

„Die Hauptsache liegt in der Erkenntnis der Bedeutung der Wertzurechnung und der prinzipiellen Lösbarkeit des Problemes.“

English translation: "The main point lies in the recognition of the significance of value imputation and of the fundamental solvability of the problem."

The essay’s relevance lies in this reorientation: imputation is indispensable, but it does not replace price theory. It supplies the data by which price theory can be extended from consumption goods to productive goods and, only then, to distribution.