OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED

denying the soundness of the way in which Bohm-Bawerk applies it. It was for the purpose of presentingwhat in my view constitutes the true character of thiselement that I have placed so much emphasis on the op-portunity principles given in Chapters VII, VIII, XI andXIII of this book.

According to Bohm-Bawerk , labor invested in longprocesses of production will yield larger returns thanlabor invested in short processes. In other words, laborinvested in roundabout processes confers a technical ad-vantage upon those who have command of that labor.In the reasoning by which Bohm-Bawerk attempts toprove this technical superiority, there are three principalsteps. The first consists of postulating an “averageproduction period,” representing the length of theproductive processes of the community; the second con-sists of the proposition that the longer this average pro-duction period, the greater will be the product; and thethird consists in the conclusion that, in consequence ofthis greater productiveness of lengthy processes, presentgoods possess a technical superiority over future goods.

Although the first two of these three steps are of sec-ondary importance, the following remarks concerningthem are in point. The concept of an average productionperiod is, I believe, far too arbitrary and indefinite toform a basis for the reasoning that Bohm-Bawerk at-tempts to base upon it. At best, it is a special, and veryhypothetical, case not general enough to include thewhole technical situation.

Bohm-Bawerk himself, in his reply to my original criti-cism, asserts his agreement with my contention concern-ing the second step that, while long processes are ingeneral more productive than short processes, this is not

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