1. What is it to be economical of money?
2. Why did Crusoe work at all?
3. When he began to work at one thing, why did he ever stop to work at
another?
4. What is the difference in utility between the water in a solid
mountain reservoir and the same water when it is flooding the valley?
5. Does it change the utility of a load of powder to touch a match to
it?
6. Is water useful? Is dynamite?
7. Is the last bait worth more when the fish are biting well?
8. Are the following wealth: food, tobacco, medicine, whisky, good
looks, good health, a wooden leg?
9. Is a book full of useful information, wealth? Is a head full of
useful knowledge, wealth?
10. Is a ship at the bottom of the ocean, or gold in the mine, wealth?
11. Is well-being in proportion to wealth? Why?
12. Are services, music, a theatrical performance, a gambler's pack of
cards, wealth?
NOTE.--The theory of marginal utility broadly outlined in
chapters 3-5 has been worked out in detail by the group of
writers called the Austrian economists. The mechanism, or
the technique, of marginal utility and exchange as they
conceive of it, is essentially what this text seeks to
explain. Our application and development of the conception
of marginal utility differs from theirs, however, in ways
that will appear as the text advances.
For more detailed discussion of many points in chapter 3,
see Smart, _Introduction to the Theory of Value_, pp. 9-17;
Wieser, _Natural Value_, pp. 3-16; Böhm-Bawerk, _Positive
Theory of Capital_, pp. 129-153.