Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 14:35:40 -0800
From: "John Foster" <borealis-AT-mercuryspeed.com>
Subject: Re: Dasein


tommy:
> I take your point, Tudor. But I wasn't "extrapolating a market
> specialisation into thinking what is to think". On the contrary, I
> was following your train of thought which consisted of extrapolating
> a market specialisation into philosophy.

> I agree that value can have two meanings. One is market value. The
> other is life value. Although an actuary might put a value on a human
> life it does not bear any relation to the value the person living it
> would put on it. It is a notional extrapolation of what that person
> would have been worth in terms of his or her use to others after his

Values are not reducible in all cases nor commensurate. For instance
economic values are not reducible to ethical values, and are not
commensurate. Ethical values and economic values are do not commense with or
from some other primary value. Ethical values are not equivalent to economic
values; they are *essentially different*. Although some ethical values have
economic value, ethical value (or worth) cannot be 'priced' in a market
transaction.

Ethical values are highly subjective, as are moral judgements about the
character of a person. Economic values are objective and express only a
transaction price (the value which is experienced by the good or service may
constitute the subjective value which forms the ethical, but it may be that
the value is environmental (Hiedegger analyzed this in *The Hermenuetics of
Facticity*), or it may mental (psychological, spiritual, intellectual,
artistic, et cetera).

There are 'non-market transactions' which are not considered by economics;
marriage, adoption, gifts, et cetera. Non of the non-market transactions are
especially of any interest to economists, except in terms of policy.
Services such as 'unpaid child care' are considered as forms of *national
wealth* but are not considered part of the GDP....

Economic values are expressed in 'prices' and modern economics does not use
the term 'value' any longer except to describe preferences which may be
personal and impersonal.

John Foster



>
> At 10:53 am +0100 26/1/02, Tudor Georgescu wrote:
> >The capitalist specialization of mankind created financial speculation.
> >Plato was nothing else than such a speculator. He failed to see that
> >writing on a blackboard with the chalk, riding the horse, or watching
> >the TV, these are not added through thinking to these objects.
>
> I agree that value can have two meanings. One is market value. The
> other is life value. Although an actuary might put a value on a human
> life it does not bear any relation to the value the person living it
> would put on it. It is a notional extrapolation of what that person
> would have been worth in terms of his or her use to others after his
> or her death.
>
> >"Life is not a good business; it is not a bad business either. Life
> >is not a business."
>
> I do not mean to lump these two meanings together. My criticism of
> your concept of value was limited to its application to market
> economics which seemed to be the context of your post.
>
> However, following from the Sartrean principles which constitute the
> ground of my thinking about economics, it is fair to talk of the two
> concepts of value as being equivalent if we are talking about a
> notional third person. I accept that others are busy trying to reduce
> me to an in-itself, viewing me in terms of the use(s) they can make
> of me. I also accept that, not only am I busy resisting that
> reduction, I am also attempting to reduce others in this way. This
> dialogue is, to my mind, what creates what we refer to as a market
> economy. It is better when people strongly resist being reduced to an
> in-itself because then creativity is enhanced and value increases.
> There is no value without humans, not even market value. The more
> human (ie. the greater the struggle against eidetic reduction) the
> greater the value.
>
> Tommy Beavitt
>
>
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