There is a link between ethics and valuation, namely, that ethical judgments are valuations over the class of human behavior. Mainstream scholars generally reject objective ethics. In order to reject both objective ethics and subjective valuation, you must defend the assertion that people’s valuations over human behavior are subjective while their valuations over the class of all things other than human behavior are not subjective which rather seems to violate the principle of brevity (Ockham’s razor), IMO. I think this constitutes a pretty powerful argument. Strangely, Rothbard, Hoppe et. al. have tried to adopt objective ethics while maintaining a strictly subjective theory of value! Alas, even the greatest minds make mistakes…
I think the difference is that the subjective theory of value is supposed to be taken as self-evident… it’s obviously the case; its truth can be ascertained by any normal human being for himself or herself without any further argumentative justification. Of course, that’s no basis for dogmatism but the labor theory of value is not obviously the case. There is no necessary, obvious connection between a thing’s value and the effort that was expended in producing the thing. Why else do those intricate Christmas ornaments that took dozens of person-hours to produce in China sit un-bought on shelves after the holiday season ends? Given the large amount of labor imbued upon those ornaments, people should be rushing to snap them up before the next person gets hold of them.
I don’t reject “objective” ethics. I do, however, reject “subjective” valuation (I don’t really like either word, but I guess I have no choice but to use them in this discussion). I guess that by that standard you would say I am consistent.
“I think the difference is that the subjective theory of value is supposed to be taken as self-evident…”
That’s a “subjective” standard. What is self-evident to one person may not be for another. Some Christians consider the existence of God to be self-evident, but there is a vast gulf of disagreement on the subject. It is also not self-evident to me that STV is true. So a self-evident nature is only a valid argument for the people who already agree with it.
One good criterion, in my view, is: can the person disagree without making a performative contradiction? I can’t argue that I don’t exist without contradicting my own actions, for instance, but no such contradiction exists in the case of God or STV.
You seem to be looking for some specific argument for the STV. Against Ricardian LTV? Against Marxist LTV? Against something else? From logical first principles?
You seem not to understand what the subjective theory of value is.. it is an axiom of epistemology (not ontology). Any intrinsic or “objective” theory of value is epistemologically invalid given the definition of value (use-value by certain terminologies) presupposes the subjective mechanism. It is not usually an argument itself. Marginalism is the application of the tautology of subjective value to social science method. Marginalism, or more broadly methodological individualism, has many formal arguments in economic lit.
I am not looking for any specific argument. I am just looking for ANY argument, either proving STV is valid or that all forms of LTV are invalid (which would basically amount to the same thing). I am not interested in descriptions, which merely posit that value is subjective and move on from there, when that is precisely the point under contention. The Bastiat one I found is good, but I want to know if there are other ones.
“Any intrinsic or “objective” theory of value is epistemologically invalid given the definition of value (use-value by certain terminologies) presupposes the subjective mechanism.”
Uh, sure buddy. As I said, I am not here to argue.
I’m not arguing, I’m explaining facts you don’t seem to understand. Menger and Jevons both provide formal arguments for STV marginalism from logical first principles. That’s a very different thing from “proving STV is valid.” You cannot “prove” an axiom is valid, objectively speaking, by definition. To explain this to you would require educating you in epistemology, metalogic, and then economic method. Just look those up. At this point, it’s quite clear you don’t understand the terminology or purpose of value theory. LTV theorists like Ricardo and Marx both accept the axiom of subjective value in “use value.” Thus for LTV theory, the question is entirely the logical validity of the arguments provided based on the first principles of the STV.
eg. Marxian terminology:
To be a use-value is evidently a necessary prerequisite of the commodity, but it is immaterial to the use-value whether it is a commodity. Use-value as such, since it is independent of the determinate economic form, lies outside the sphere of investigation of political economy. A thing can be a use value, without having value. This is the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin soil, natural meadows. A thing can be useful, and the product of human labour, without being a commodity. Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, use values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use values, but use values for others, social use values. (And not only for others, without more. The mediaeval peasant produced quit-rent-corn for his feudal lord and tithe-corn for his parson. But neither the quit-rent-corn nor the tithe-corn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had been produced for others. To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use value, by means of an exchange.) Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value." (Das Kapital Vol. I, end of Section 1, Chapter 1)
Epistemological STV by standard definition of value is self-evident. I am not psychic. I cannot know what you value better than you know what you value. The debate in social science was not STV vs. OTV. It was (STV → marginalism) vs. (STV → LTV).
I’m surprised nobody’s linked Karl Marx and the Close of his System by Boehm Bawerk. I believe pages 9-18 may be the kind of critique you are looking for.
You asked for a defense of STV and you got plenty, so either read, debate us, or move on.
STV can explain price formation while the LTV (and cost-of-production theories) cannot. It can explain why fiat money has objective exchange value, why capital intensive goods exchange for more than labor intensive goods, why wages and profit don’t fall together, the value of capital, is logically consistent, ect. See Bohm-Bawerk’s Karl Marx and the Close of His System, or, The Positive Theory of Capital.
I’m not exactly endeared to the “objective/subjective” terminology, either. People understand the extents of subjectivity/objectivity differently, which leads to confusion. I think the roughly synonymous terminology “observer dependent” and “observer independent” is fairly non-controversial except that it should be understood that there is some fuzziness around the edges of “dependent” versus “independent”.
The word “ethics” is also problematic since it depends on what is being talked about - if it is my ethics (my judgments of behavior) we are talking about, then I cannot see how that cannot but be subjective since the “rules” or “algorithm” by which I make ethical evaluations is my own and therefore cannot be objective. But if it is “ethics generally” which we are talking about, then ethics is independent of any individual since no one individual may alter what is generally considered good and generally considered bad. Ethics in the population is emergent.
True. But the material means for resolving in one’s own mind the truth/falsity of STV is supposed to be available to each individual. Proponents of self-evident existence of God typically disavow that there is any physical or material basis for resolving the question within one’s own mind, asserting instead that such knowledge is mystical or mediated through non-physical/spiritual (non-observable) objects or persons. STV, on the other hand, is a statement about how your brain works, how you react to the external world and how you feel about things. STV is essentially a way of saying that each individual has preferences regarding the states of affairs which may be brought about. If you have an apple in your hand and I have an orange in my hand, it may be the case that I would prefer the state of affairs with the fruits reversed to the current state of affairs. If you also prefer reversing the fruits, then we might exchange the fruits. This is the basis of exchange. I suppose it’s possible for someone to just not “get it” but it is my understanding that, within the field of economics (even Keynesianism), STV is non-controversial.
I don’t like performative contradiction arguments.
It makes absolutely no sense to talk about ‘value’ outside of the particular preferences of a specific individual. If a value does not motivate an individual to actually act, it is not a value.
I was under the impression that humans were capable of describing ideologies, arguments, etc. without actually arguing in favor of them. I guess every libertarian that has described Marxism must’ve been covertly arguing for it.
subjective value resolved the logical inconsistencies with the labor theory of value. It’s not some fringe economic concept associated only with the Austrian school. it is taught in every economics class austrian, keynesian , neoclassical etc.