In case you haven’t heard, one of the ideas/concepts that I have been exploring is value. Check out this post here on SM for a little background. The concept itself is either really, really interesting, or, as one of my friends put it: little more than a big weasel word.
So which is it? Both, I think.
Reading books and articles by Keith Hart, David Graeber, and Julia Elyachar, among others, has convinced my both of the fact that value is interesting and somewhat maddening. It’s incredibly rich, and terribly vague at the same time. I mean, how do we determine the value of particular things, ideas, and places–and how are different value regimes or systems comparable (e.g. is there a really useful way to compare or juxtapose moral value systems with those based upon money and markets)?
Going into fieldwork I decided to put the whole value question to the side a bit, and let things go where they may for a while. Sometimes it’s a good idea to let certain pet ideas and theories take a back seat for a while to open up room for a range of possibilities. You know, let the empirical stuff run amok for a bit and keep a notebook on hand just in case. Besides, I was getting to a point where the whole value thing was starting to seem a bit too abstract. So I gave it a rest.
Then, when I was attending a community meeting about plans for shaping local development, the value question came crashing back into the forefront. The meeting itself was all about how one of the communities where I am working is looking to create a strategic development plan in contrast to the mega-tourism development proposals that they feel threaten their way of life. It was hosted by one of the local conservation groups, and led by a marketing and consultation group. One of the speakers at the meeting started talking about the difference between price and value in the production of tourism sites, and how the actual value or meaning of a particular place or experience is not one and the same as the price that people are willing to pay for these things. Value, he argued, is something apart, something a little more than a set of numbers associated with a medium of exchange.
This speaker’s argument, in short, was that the community needs to think about producing a certain kind of place, rather than just trying to create a place that just makes money (although it can surely be argued that money has a lot more meaning than many assume–check out Hart’s book on the subject for starters). Ultimately, he is talking about the production of a certain kind of value, which to me was very interesting. Especially since he was speaking to the community in a context of producing a particular place with a network of services to attend to the needs of a growing tourism economy.
So his argument about the differences between price and value were meant to get people to see that there is more to tourism than just charging money, and that the local tourism economy needs to take account of other ways in which people value certain experiences, events, and places. So, in the end, it was all geared toward serving a market, just with different considerations in mind. It’s not like he was talking about the values of community as well…he was talking about how to appeal to a certain class of tourists. This is an argument for a particular kind of value production, but one that differs from the sort that Elyachar talks about in her book Markets of Dispossession, where people were producing a kind of value based upon social solidarity.
Regardless, the value question is back on the table…maybe as it should be. It never really left entirely, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it so I kind of let it wander around in my mental pastures for a bit–on a very long leash. It was there, but kind out there on a distant knoll if you know what I mean (talk about being abstract!). The funny thing is that it’s always hard to balance these kinds of theoretical obsessions with the tumultuous, unpredictable, you-never-know-what-you’re-going-to-get nature of fieldwork. But, things come and go, and I guess the main lesson here is to find ways to remain open to taking them in stride when they do show up on your mental doorstep. Because you just never know when theory is going to come back and smack you in the face.
Ryan, suppose you think of value mathematically and operationally instead of getting hung up in typologies. Nothing really mysterious here. The underlying proposition is that whenever values are mentioned, they involve three key ideas, scales, ranking and thresholds.
Proposition (1): There are multiple scales. Consider a dazzling shot in basketball or soccer. On the scoring scale, it has a definite, numerical value. Aesthetically speaking it displays high levels of surprise, elegance, and athleticism. In this case, there are at least these four scales to consider.
Proposition (2): Whatever is being evaluated is ranked on one or more scales—and these rankings may be inconsistent, leading to debate over which scale iso more important. Instead of the dazzling shot in Proposition (1), imagine a goal that is scored, in effect, by accident. If the game is soccer, the ball bounces off an attacker’s leg and the out of position goalkeeper misses it as it roles into the net. Or, if the game is basketball, the defender trying to block a layout accidentally tips the ball into his side’s own net. In both cases, crap shot but a score’s a score.
Proposition (3): There is some threshold at which, given the scale we are talking about, the ranking changes. One of the virtues of money is that it allows clear statement of where the threshold is, e.g., “We won’t take less than X for this.”
Note, then, the things that people a argue about. One is the ranking of scales themselves. Is, in the case you mention, money alone the right scale. Or, invoking another scale, should there be things that money can’t buy? The other is the threshold. Just where it is may not be clear; but when someone says, “Too much” or “Not enough,” a threshold is being invoked.
I’m not claiming that these considerations solve all problems related to value. Identifying relevant scales, how things being evaluated are ranked on them, and where thresholds are located can be difficult, empirical problems. I am claiming that thinking about values in this way will clear up a lot of confusion.
How would you rank this argument?
I think the key to the arguments of Graeber and Hart (and also Marx) on value is that ‘price’ is also form of cultural/social ‘meaning’ within a moral system. So, it’s not so much a matter of ‘social value’ vs ‘monetary value’ as the entanglement and conflict of different systems of social value.
There are plenty of cultural commodities (like tourism experiences) that are valued in part for a form of ‘authenticity’ which is threatened by their reduction to market commodities, and yet upon which their market value depends. This contradiction is fairly well known in the marketing world–a lot of work is put into manufacturing and marketing such authenticity so that it doesn’t appear to be overly manufactured and marketed.
However, this is just a more obvious example of the general fact that capitalist circuits of value are absolutely dependent upon non-market, qualitative forms of social value. I’d recommend Massimo De Angelis’s work (The Beginning of History) for an interesting conceptualization of this relationship.
In my opinion, it is the ability to make such connections and conceptualise such relations of dependent-opposition which makes ‘value theory’ a useful approach. To paraphrae Graeber, we have plenty of evidence that such ‘merely economic’ values as the price of a loaf of bread and such ‘abstract moral’ values as justice have quite a lot to do with one another…
Hey John,
I think that looking at value in this way is pretty helpful…in that there may in fact be multiple ways in which something is valued, and that these are constantly being negotiated.
Note, then, the things that people a argue about. One is the ranking of scales themselves.
Ya, this is a good way to look at things–the arguments about these rankings (or values) might be a lot more useful and interesting than just trying to find some set value of a thing (etc) within particular value domains (financial, moral, whatever). What I like about this is that it’s a way of looking at value as something that is actively produced and created (and this is what Graeber talks about, and Elyachar too).
How would you rank this argument?
I think it’s a helpful way of looking at things. But, as you mention, trying to identify clear “scales” in the field is the hard part.
Thanks, as always, for your comment!
@SeanMI
Thanks for your comment Sean.
So, it’s not so much a matter of ‘social value’ vs ‘monetary value’ as the entanglement and conflict of different systems of social value.
That’s a good point you bring up. It is all about conflicts between different systems of social value or value production. Take neoliberal economics. Sometimes people act as if this way of looking at markets, money, and value is some purely rational or objective approach to these things. But that’s just the little myth that’s being told, especially since many people attach a moral argument to this kind of economic system as well (i.e. in the case of the really dedicated free market ideologues, they often argue that their ideas about economics are the only RIGHT ways of organizing society, and all other economic systems are written off as backward, evil, threatening, etc). Interestingly, despite what some folks try to argue, many neoliberal economic narratives are infused with all kinds of moral propositions, including those big assumptions about human nature.
This contradiction is fairly well known in the marketing world–a lot of work is put into manufacturing and marketing such authenticity so that it doesn’t appear to be overly manufactured and marketed.
Edward Bruner writes some great stuff about this kind of thing. It’s really interesting, too, that there is so much effort behind trying to make something appear authentic (whatever it means to “be authentic”–I always find that idea to be really slippery and vague).
Thanks for the book recommendation.
To paraphrae Graeber, we have plenty of evidence that such ‘merely economic’ values as the price of a loaf of bread and such ‘abstract moral’ values as justice have quite a lot to do with one another…
That’s one of the most interesting parts of the argument that he and others like Elyachar are putting forth–that it might be a good idea to look at all of these supposedly different value systems and how they actually overlap. I’m also really interested in how one form of valuation overtakes another…whether temporarily or not.
Thanks again for the comment. Good stuff.
Ryan, are you familiar with Amartya Sen’s Inequality Reexamined? It’s too abstract to be a guide to ethnographic research, but the way the argument is constructed is classic. Basically it comes down to the proposition that all arguments about inequality assume that power should be distributed in a way that is “fair.” But how do we measure fairness? There are, says Sen, two dominant models in today’s world. One, embodied in the proposition, “One man, one vote” says that fair is measured in human beings with every human being counted equally. The other, embodied in the joint stock corporation, says that fairness is measured in wealth. Those who own more should have a greater say. The first is the model for democratic politics, the second the model for corporate governance. But which should take priority, in which situations? There’s the rub.
@Ryan
No problem; value is quite central to my own attempts to grapple with issues of commodification, authenticity, and cultural production, but I agree that it can sometimes turn into a bit of a vague or empty term. I’ll have to check out the Elyachar book—it looks interesting.
@John McCreery
There are, says Sen, two dominant models in today’s world. One, embodied in the proposition, “One man, one vote” says that fair is measured in human beings with every human being counted equally. The other, embodied in the joint stock corporation, says that fairness is measured in wealth.
These may be the dominant models, but the idea that people should have input in proportion to the degree that they are affected by a decision, or the intensity of their need, or some other qualitative measure of their relationship to the issue, also play a role in popular understandings of ‘fairness’.
@Sean I agree. I am not presenting Sen’s analysis as a final solution, just pointing out that the way in which his argument is structured may be “good to think” with when considering other alternatives.
Just brainstorming now. How would you see “the degree that they are affected by a decision, or the intensity of their need, or some other qualitative measure” working out in relation to competing claims. It seem to me that you are challenging the conventional calculus under which minority interests give way to majority interests, when the majority have as strong a claim to being affected by a decision as members of the minority. Thus, soldiers die for their country; property owners must surrender property that stands in the way of public projects, new roads or airports for example. It strikes me that the considerations you mention are like the strong force in physics—very important but confined to small spaces, i.e., the domain of everyday communism in families and work groups as described by David Graeber. The parable of the Good Samaritan and the belief that Bodhisattvas reject Nirvana until all sentient beings are saved point to larger possibilities. They remain, alas, exceptions, only honored in the breach.
It strikes me that the considerations you mention are like the strong force in physics—very important but confined to small spaces, i.e., the domain of everyday communism in families and work groups as described by David Graeber.
Well, I agree that they are particularly pertinent in such ‘small’ social domains, but I think the exist more widely, too. For example, many would view it as ‘unfair’ for farmers in a particular region to have their land polluted and health put in jeopardy by a mining development which they opposed, even if the development was approved by both the company’s board and an elected government. Or, while some do see it as unfair for indigenous groups to have ‘special’ claims to traditional lands, others see it as highly unfair not to recognise traditional ownership. Or, dedicated fans of a media franchise who have invested much emotional energy into it may feel it is unfair for the characters or narrative to be taken in a direction which they do not approve of–they may feel both ‘betrayed’ and ‘ripped off’, which suggests that they have some kind of claim over and above that of typical consumers and/or the legal owners of the IP.
Sean, good examples. One might also add, of course, NRA members incensed at gun-control laws that attack their traditional, some would say God-given, right to bear arms or Tea Party members who regard the property taxes that fund public schools as an illegitimate expropriation, a.k.a., theft by the government or Pro-Life activists who regard even early term abortions as fundamentally wrong. There are many cases in which reasonable people might decide that others’ feelings of unfairness and betrayal should be acknowledged but otherwise ignored.