Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Mon, 23 Mar 1998 04:46:28 +0100
Hugo, I scribbled all over your letter. Don't know whether it's useful, but it
was an interesting Sunday-afternoon pursuit. "Virtual concepts" is new to
me, and is mind-blowing. Thanks!
Maggie
Hugo Fjelsted Alroe wrote:
> Squad,
> This is a mail I sent to a list on Ecological Economics yesterday.
> Any thoughts?
> Hugo
> ________________________________________________
> Rune Hansen, List
>
> Thanks for your very suggestive mail, Rune.
>
> I cannot comment on your conclusion that the optimal distribution of the
> economic product (for the maximum overall utility) is an equal
> distribution, except that is sounds intuitively true, not considering the
> theory involved. But what makes for the economic systems tending towards
> inequality, if the overall utility would be larger in an equal
> distribution, as Rune suggests? What kind of change would alter this trend?
>
> Be that as it may, -- I want to make a few comments on the concept of value.
>
> Rune Hansen wrote:
> >A short essay on the notion of value
> >
> >What is value ? At least three meanings of the word can be
> >established. Value can be seen as the subjective evaluation of
> >an object or event by the individual.
An intellectual evaluation(intellectual-->social ; intellectual-->biological ;
intellectual-->inorganic)
[ event ] [object] [object]
> Value can be seen as
> >something inherrent in objects or events (e.g. the value of the
> >beauty of nature).
Recognition of the inorganic by intellectual or social or biological patterns
(intellectual--> inorganic; social-->inorganic ; biological-->inorganic)
> Or value can be understood as price.
Social. (Maybe pure social.)
The fact that it's volatile shows a common situation of intellectual
mediation, Social-->intellectual-->social, in which an individual case of
Intellectual influence reforms social patterns, but the new patterns are
perceived as and operate within pure social)
> Within
> >the environmental debate, all three sorts of value are
> >represented.
Environmental movement--an acknoweldged, recognized paradigm shift. All
evolutionary levels are being considered and worked within, and patterns being
re-connected and re-linked.
> We may pose the three sorts of value as
> subjective [intellectual-->lower]
> objective [higher-->inorganic]
> and economic [social]
> value. The economic value, or price, I suppose can be called the exchange
> value, a value which can be agreed upon by two or more parts, and as such
> not really problematic here. The more difficult of the three seems to be
> the objective value, the value inherent in objects. But I suggest this
> distinction between subjective and objective value, or between imposed and
> inherent value is not a basic and necessary distinction. In some
> philosophical systems of thought (e.g John Dewey's experientalist
> pragmatism, Robert M. Pirsig's metaphysics of quality) experience is taken
> as basic, and the distinction between the knower and the known, between
> subject and object, as secondary. In such a system of thought the notions
> of subjective and objective value, or imposed and inherent value, merge
> into what may be called contextual or situational value, or just value,
> without qualification.
>
> Consider the value of a painting. Usually we say: "She puts a lot of value
> on that painting"
intellectual value, as this statement implies that a personal intellectual
construct has been made and recognized. It is the intellect that allows a person
to escape standard social value and form different social patterns. [Still,
biological value (as in "her daughter painted it" or it's a painting of her
daugher) and inorganic value (the painting and the person have to have physical
proximity, and the painting must not have gotten mouldy, etc.)] can play a part
in this, too.
> , or "It is a very valuable painting",
social value. Accepted, shared, pre-defined value.
> and the latter
> statement can refer to either price or some concept
(concept=intellectual pattern, but one that has been wrestled into words or
symbols, able to be shared, true?, so actually an intellectually-mediated social
pattern)
> of inherent value.
> Again the economic value is quite unproblematic, though maybe volatile. But
> the art critics argue on the other two. From an experiental or contextual
> viewpoint there is no cause for such argument. There is no purely
> subjective or objective value, only the contextual value expressed by the
> statement: "I value that painting", where both the I and the painting in
> question are necessary parts of the context for understanding the
> statement. This contextual value is not something entirely imposed by the
> subject, we might think of our valuing food, or shelter; and it is not
> something entirely inherent in the object, we might think of the value we
> put on a chair which we have inherited from our grandfather.
>
This next part gets printed and goes into my pocket to read for a few days. ;)
> As I said, in the case of the painting, the contextual values can flow into
> an exchange value without major disasters. But there are many cases where
> the relation between contextual values and money value are deeply
> problematic, some of which are being discussed here on this list. I suggest
> that a fundamentally contextual notion of value may provide for a better
> understanding of the relation between value and exchange value, and the
> economic systems of value, than the more common split notions of subjective
> and objective value. Especially by way of illuminating the connection
> between value and context, focusing on the 'what for whom' of value, and
> how this context enters into the exchange value accounts.
>
> Our present economic system thrives by eliminating context, the basketball
> shoe shows no trace of the working environment in which it is produced, the
> pork shows no trace of the living conditions of the animal; - and it
> thrives by building virtual contexts, a substantial part of the price of
> commodities pays for commercials, building virtual contexts for the goods
> we buy.
> Preserving context, preserving the contextual value across the exchange
> system, is a problem, and a growing one in a world relying more and more on
> the economical exchange value system.
> Any thoughts?
>
Thoughts? Ruminations. I guess they're pure intellectual experiences if I
can't get them into a social pattern that someone else can understand. <grin>
Maggie
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