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If I interpret Sumitra Shah's position correctly, she believes that an understanding of
the concepts of (1) value in use and (2) value in exchange result from shared values that
are culture-specific. She writes that "[v]alue is a judgment. It is easy to invent a large
number of different criteria for judging a thing or an action." The distinction between
these concepts "ignores the reality of an economic society in which our shared moral
principles as Adam Smith would say, form the foundation of even a market society." She
goes on to say that "[w]ithout...moral judgments emerging from a 'framework of social
reciprocity' [Keith Tribe's words in his JEL 1999 article] value in use and value in
exchange will not have operational meaning."
 
On the surface, this statement seems illogical. So I wonder if she could explain it more
fully. Let me elaborate. People from widely different cultures and societies have used
money. If we could somehow interview all of these people, they would almost universally
agree that they acquire some items because they plan to use them and other items because
they plan to exchange them. Does not this prospect undermine her position? Does it not
suggest that "value in use" and "value in exchange" do indeed have an operational meaning?
Do they not have meaning both for the actors and for the economist and historian who study
actions under the conditions of a market economy?
 
Of course, we, as economists and historians, must agree to be interested in this
particular phenomena. So /we/ have shared values. But Sumitra is not discussing the shared
values of economists and historians. Also, the people who acquire these items must have
definite beliefs about how they plan to use them -- i.e, about using or exchanging them. A
person with no experience in a money economy would have no reason to acquire a paper
dollar, for example. So there is a sense in which the users of money have /values in
common/. But these are not shared values, as Sumitra uses the term. Finally, it is hard to
imagine how someone could come to possess knowledge of the type that is necessary to
distinguish value in use from value in exchange without living in society which, by
definition, has shared values. But since practically everyone in the
world today -- and certainly in that part of the world where economics is relevant --
lives in such a society; she cannot be referring to this fact.
 
So the question is: which shared values is she writing about? And why are they relevant to
economics?
 
Pat Gunning 
Feng Chia University 
 
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