ferent consumers' goods are no reliable indication
of the real utilities, the amounts of human satisfaction
which they yield. Here we must take account not
only of varying needs and capacities for enjoyment,
but of the very unequal manner in which purchasing
power is distributed among the people. The cigars
which a rich man may buy will yield him an immeasur-
ably smaller satisfaction than that which a poor family
could obtain by spending the same amount of money
on boots, or clothes or milk. When, therefore, we
compare commodities which are bought by essentially
different consuming publics, their respective prices may
bear no close relation to their real utility, whether
marginal or otherwise. Thus the law of diminishing
utility applies to money or purchasing power, as well
as to particular commodities. The more money a
man has the less is the marginal utility which it yields
him; and, where the marginal utility of money to a
man is small, so also will be the real marginal utility
he derives in each direction of his expenditure. The
extreme inequality of the distribution of wealth gives
immense importance to this consideration. Its practical
implications will be discussed in Chapter V. Mean-
while, we may express the conclusions of the present
chapter by the statement that the price of a commodity
tends to equal its marginal utility, as measured in terms
of money, i. e. relatively to the marginal utility of money,
to its purchaser.

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