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Rod Hay wrote: 
 
"There are any number of "values." Not just use and exchange. Value is a judgment. It is
easy to invent a large number of different criteria for judging a thing or an action."
 
To refer to "values" as purely matters of judgment and therefore subjective is the basis
of the neoclassical dichotomy between positive and normative economics. It 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. Without those 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. For example, we
disdain the production of use values by a drug dealer and ignore the fact that the price
of the drug may be totally justified by the conditions of demand and supply. So I would
like to suggest that we adhere to 'values' as a matter of necessity and usually agree on
the accepted norms of the time. And of course they change with the passing of time.
  
Feminist economists theorize that the emphasis on keeping science in general and economics
in particular value-free is an exercise in self deception. I would like to recommend: "
Value-Free or Valueless? Notes on the pursuit of Detachment in Economics"  by Julie A.
Nelson, HOPE 25:1, 1993.
  
Best, 
  
Sumitra Shah 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
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