"Value was considered as objective, as an intrinsic  
quality inherent in things and not merely as the  
expression of various people's eagerness to acquire  
them"  
"It seriously vitiated the marvelous achievements of  
the classical economists and rendered  the writings of  
their epigones, especially those of Marx and the  
Marxian school, entirely futile"   
  
Marx in Das Kapital did not considered value as an  
objective, intrisinc quality inherent in things.  
Rather, for him value was a social thing, which exist  
as if it be an objective one (that's what he would  
call, a few pages later and with some additional  
features, fetishism of commodity).   
  
Besides, Marx has distinguished value from exchange  
value and use value. An it was what he called abstract  
labor that was, for him, value (or the ground for  
value). If bastract labor is an social result of the  
market, then value is a social result too.  
  
Of course, people need to value thing differently.  
Marx has recgonized this when he wrote about use  
value. Another necessary condition for value was the  
existence of a social need for it (a market demand)  
that must be met through trade.   
  
Regards,  
  
Manoel Galdino Pereira Neto