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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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