On value

[The Borg]

I was not sure whether to post in philosophy or economics, but I decided economics, because I wanted answers from people interested in economics, not philosophy.

During couple last nights I have been losing sleep over the nature of value, and came up with few ideas that I want to run through with you. My basic gist of things is to claim, that all value has a fetish nature. I know, it sounds intuitively obvious, but try to finish reading.

For example, before the time of trade, of which we know very little I admit, it can be imagined that value did not exist. Even in animals today that use tools, like chimpanzees, propably do not instill any idea of value on the objects they use, even if us humans would say they have use-value.

Does it not follow, that value is a fetish we humans started to impose upon objects once we started trading? In trade this fetish has an obvious practical use, for one would not want to distribute all your precious tools with reckless abandon. Still, it would show, that value is an imperfect creation by imperfect minds.

Since marxists and neo-classical economists have been fighting for centuries over what is value and how it is created, would it not just be easier to admit, that the entire idea is a fetish and needlessly complicated at that? We could abandon all arguments over value.

Since for animals value is not an issue, and objects simply exist, I propose that we too just let the objects exist. We should stop fighting over value, stop obsessing about creation of more value, and instead we should take entirely different approach to economics.

We marxists often proclaim that society is about alot of other things than the acquisition of wealth, but it sure does not show in our philosophy. We have simply replaced the capitalist fetish of value, with a marxist fetish of value. Since we acknowledge the existence of other goals in society, this should also be the basis of marxist economics.

In practice this would mean that we stop thinking about economics in terms of value or growth, and start thinking about economics in terms of goals and means to achieve those goals. We should start our economic work, not from pondering what is the working class fetish of value, but what are working class goals and which economic actions and objects serve those goals.

This approach would be admittedly entirely macroeconomic. It would mean that each of our political decisions, institutions and organizational structures would be evaluated based on their ability to fullfill our political goals. For example, the price system currently in use can be studied, and it's impact on our society can be learned empirically. We would use these empirical findings to decide what kind of outcomes we want to produce. The study of different prize- and trading systems should not be stopped by philosophical musings and dogma.

Another bonus would be our newfound ability to stop thinking in such narrow-minded ways. Currently all our economic life is dominated by the need to grow and increase some abstract value in society, but as the degrowth movement has shown, the need for growth and the need for capitalist policies is entirely and organizational question.

I acknowledge that this is in no way a marxist approach economically, but I find this to be extremely marxist approach philosophically. This completely promotes the marxist quest to be the subjects of history, not objects of history. We should be the subjects of economic systems, not objects of some philosophical notion of value.

There are a billion other points I came up with, but they are irrelevant to what I want out of this particular discussion. What I want, is to hear what you guys think. Has this "de-value" thought any future? Do we really need philosophy about value to conduct trade?

[RedMaterialist]

I suggest you read Capital, vol I, Chapter 1, Section Four, The Fetishism of Commodities.

[Lynx]

For example, before the time of trade, of which we know very little I admit, it can be imagined that value did not exist. Even in animals today that use tools, like chimpanzees, propably do not instill any idea of value on the objects they use, even if us humans would say they have use-value.
Before trade, humans may have kept small trinkets of sentimental value. We still do.

Among animals, male bowerbirds collect objects to help them secure a mate. Do bowerbirds value these objects and rituals?


Does it not follow, that value is a fetish we humans started to impose upon objects once we started trading? In trade this fetish has an obvious practical use, for one would not want to distribute all your precious tools with reckless abandon. Still, it would show, that value is an imperfect creation by imperfect minds.
In trade you have exchange value, which for the participants is almost always a means to an end.


In practice this would mean that we stop thinking about economics in terms of value or growth, and start thinking about economics in terms of goals and means to achieve those goals. We should start our economic work, not from pondering what is the working class fetish of value, but what are working class goals and which economic actions and objects serve those goals.
Growth and profits are insufficient for measuring progress.

[Jimmie Higgins]

For example, before the time of trade, of which we know very little I admit, it can be imagined that value did not exist. Even in animals today that use tools, like chimpanzees, propably do not instill any idea of value on the objects they use, even if us humans would say they have use-value.Well I think anything people might have created through their labor does have a value - just not maybe a sense of being a personal possession depending on the kind of society. I read an anthropologists' account of a Native band in Canada that was remote and still produced as a band outside of western trade. People in this society had different skills that they were more or less proficient at and so people did the tasks they tended to be good at but since everything produced was done for use value, if someone made a boat, it was valuable because it took some effort, but everyone used it. The maker was given credit, but there just wasn't any purpose for one person to own all the boats and not allow people to use them.

So inherently through the act of labor, a rock you find almost anywhere is not going to have the value of something it took all day to construct.


Since for animals value is not an issue, and objects simply exist, I propose that we too just let the objects exist. We should stop fighting over value, stop obsessing about creation of more value, and instead we should take entirely different approach to economics.But for humans, not all objects simply exist, some have to be labored on to come into being and this makes these objects have a slightly different relationship to readily-found objects. Rare objects are also valuable in this basis sense, not because of any monitary worth but because it takes more effort to find it.



We marxists often proclaim that society is about alot of other things than the acquisition of wealth, but it sure does not show in our philosophy. We have simply replaced the capitalist fetish of value, with a marxist fetish of value. Since we acknowledge the existence of other goals in society, this should also be the basis of marxist economics.

In practice this would mean that we stop thinking about economics in terms of value or growth, and start thinking about economics in terms of goals and means to achieve those goals. We should start our economic work, not from pondering what is the working class fetish of value, but what are working class goals and which economic actions and objects serve those goals.

Well this sounds fine, but I don't see how this isn't already covered within the Marxist concepts of use vs. exchange value. If we are producing based on an agreed apon need for the use of the item itself, then it seems to me that we would be "thinking about economics in terms of (democratic) goals (of the working class as ruling class) and means to achieve those goals".