Value versus values

Value must be subjective in economic transactions, because, values aren't.

Nothing is more frustrating than finding the labor theory of value looking preternaturally hale, despite the fact that a turd is still a turd no matter the time, care, or passion involved. I'm sure the chronically constipated would love someone to show up and pay them handsomely for their labor. That no one does is a clue.

If there were intrinsic value, that is, if in a particular transaction value were not subjective, then the economic actor (the buyer) would never be able to achieve his values. Values, for the clueless, basically come down to life and living. Is what you are buying beneficial for living. Christopher Alexander, the architect, came up with a rather brilliant idea of putting up two photos (buildings, everyday items) and asking, which one has more life. Amazingly, folks overwhelmingly agreed, so he came to think value isn't subjective; he didn't notice the difference between the plural and the singular. Indeed, his test takes one away from making a random decision about one particular thing to evaluating two things. In economic transactions too, we don't operate in a vacuum; price helps us form our decision. Value is subjective, but it gets less so as it approaches the plural- prices helps us understand what others value something at and this effects our decisions to something less subjective than just pulling a random number out of a hat.

So, the value set, the system via which we have life, encourage life, and perhaps even have it more abundantly, requires a freedom in transactions that isn't conducive to some concept of value intrinsic to the thing or the labor used to produce the thing. Such concepts ultimately produce death, for if the aim of your value is something other than life, then you end up getting more death.