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OK, there is 4 types of values. Value here meant productive value. I'm sorry I should have been more explicit. Financial companies create exchange value (that
by orwin 3y ago
OK, there is 4 types of values.
Value here meant productive value. I'm sorry I should have been more explicit.
Financial companies create exchange value (that's their main goal) and sometimes incidentally sign-value (for notation agencies it's not incidental, but I try to generalize here). They do not have any effect on productive value or use value (well, in theory).
You're right and I wasn't precise enough, I should have been, thank you.
- robertlagrant 3y agoI don't think this is a very useful way to look at things, as those categories I think are either too imprecise to describe reality, or they need to be distorted to describe reality. But we can try. As an example: say I'm a farmer. I have a load of crop I'll be producing, but I won't know how much I can sell it for. I can sell it on a futures market, where a financial firm buys the crop for a price fixed now. I the farmer get certainty of money, and the financial firm takes the risk of the market in the future. But they think they've modelled things well enough that they will at least break even, and hopefully make a profit. In that example, the value added by the futures trader is removal of risk. Nothing additional is produced. What type of value is that, in your conception of value?
- orwin 3y agoA future, or an insurance, are typically commodities with great exchange values and low (or rather, unknown) use value. The opposite of the food the farmer sells. [edit] > those categories I think are either too imprecise to describe reality[...] I agree signal/sign value and exchange value are imprecise and would benefit being more divided (I really like the notion of sign value as I think it is useful to explain 90% of modern western society). I disagree on their uselessness. Value can mean a lot of things and having more words to describe those things is always useful. A reverse 1984 if you will.
- robertlagrant 3y agoI agree that value can be used for a lot of things; I disagree that those particular 4 things are the right subcategories, or even that they all represent useful categories for economic value at all. Judging economic value by sale price alone makes a huge amount of sense, and seems to subsume all of those subcategories (well - it is one of the subcategories. But the other three, at least.) And it also includes pricing for services that reduce risk, such as energy reselling, car insurance, or futures trading.
- jampekka 3y agoSo murder for hire produces value?
- robertlagrant 3y agoSorry - I'm not following. Are you trying to say that my conception of economic value would say that, but Marx's wouldn't?
- orwin 3y agoI disagree. Use value is useful. Consider that in modern countries, energy is less than 5% of GDP, as is agriculture, and domestic water less than 1%. If you only take into account exchange value, you're missing that information. Production value is useful too. It explain the production cost. Crude oil production value is very low, but it's exchange value is high. I will say that sign value is sometimes declined from exchange or production value (it's pricy/handmade, hence a good status symbol), but I like to use it because I find it useful to understand the price of representation (and it triggers some Marxists)
- robertlagrant 3y agoI'm not saying "use value" isn't useful; I'm saying it's proxied by price. > Production value is useful too. It explain the production cost. Can you give an example?
- 3y ago