> Value ultimately lies in the purchaser, not the producer. I'm not entirely convinced that this holds, in practice. It makes sense for rational purchasers wit

> Value ultimately lies in the purchaser, not the producer. I'm not entirely convinced that this holds, in practice. It makes sense for rational purchasers with perfect and complete information, but that is never true in reality, and it ignored all cognitive biases that humans use to make decisions, including being misled by advertisment. For example, the tobacco industry can scream all they want that smoking does not cause cancer, but being loud about it does not make it true. Initially, people didn't even like smoking because of the bad taste, but massive advertising campaigns including paying celebrities to smoke in public changed the perception of the value of smoking. In a similar manner, after acquiring all major sources of diamonds and inflating their prices, advertisement convinced the public that a man absolutely needs a ring with a diamond to "prove" their love to their bride. Same for the food industry and sugar, you know where I am going. All of these are examples of "value" created by producers by misleading customers that their product is good and not harmful for them. But facts don't become true or false just because everybody believes in them. People can believe false things, and no matter what they do or say, those things remain false. Not to mention that immediate value for individuals can have considerable negative value in the long-term for society. Think at the huge resources we spend on finding cures for cancer and obesity, just because we sell addictive stuff and pretend that people "want" those. If you consider society as a whole, this appears to be an extremely inefficient use of resources.