Measuring Human Values

This is the requirement of the new economics and the failure of the current.

Why doesn't traditional economics measure what is important to humans? i.e. why doesn't money measure the human value of things?

What is on the economic radar?
In theory it should.
(1) We buy what we humanly want or need.
(2) We make that which we can sell, which therefore has a human value
(3) We are compensated with the power to enact (1).

The value of goods should be set by how much money is available to each person and their relative human need for those goods. The amount of money available to each person should be set by the relative human value of their time (i.e. what they make of human value in that time).

One must also add money velocity. So an economy where work is done fast and goods consumed fast recycles the money faster and we therefore have more value passing through our hands per year and appear richer. (Current credit situation arising because the velocity not the amount of money has slowed.)

What is missing on the economic radar?
However consider the situation where someone is disabled in some way. They can contribute less of human value but require more. The work done to assist them while of enormous value to them cannot be compensated with money and so is not measured. Likewise child care does not currently appear on the radar altho it is conceivable that parents could take out loans that their children have to pay back.

Consider the situation of mutual exchanges. A loving couple providing each other with TLC. While of enormous value to each other pricing becomes very difficult. Could we ever say to our partner I will charge £100 per night for my time, and our partner charge more and it be a stable relationship. It also means that the relationship becomes universal in nature and we are open to bids from other individuals - a girl at work offering us a cheaper rate for example.

Consider in the same vein a child taking parents who charge them less.

The notion of human identity - where we wish to be with "this particular person" in a mutual and closed exchange - which is the foundation of love and care; the core human values - cannot therefore be traded on an open exchange where all things are compared like with like.

This refelcts on the first case of invalid care. We care for them not as parts of a relative market but as absolute elements "in their own right".

This idea of humans as "ends in themselves" is often recognised as a key component of human life, human values and a core foundation of human and civilised life.

Money then proves completely incapable of reflecting value the value of individual things. It can only measure the value of "types of thing" which can be freely traded on an open market.

Money therefore measures the value of a type but not the value of a token.

Thus we can say that "an apple" is worth 40p because across all markets this is the average amount. There will be regional differences but actual individual values cannot be reflected. Some people like apples, some don't. Our personal values and our personal relationship with apples exists entirely separately from the price.

The impact on Society
As money becomes the standard of interactions in a society we end up with a society of people who view the price of thinsg as the market price of things (traditional called the exchange value) but who become less capable of having a personal relationship with things. Thus we end up buying that which has high market value, or which is on discount rather than simply buying that which we need (and can afford). We also learn not to value non financial interactions and the value of other people as "ends in themselves" seeing them purely as relative agents in a market place. Of course we become viewed as such and we end up with no trust and personal security as our life is freely exchanged with any other.

Personal values are not this simple however. In addition to the averaging effect of markets are group values which I have dicussed at length. Thus people divorced from their own ability to evaluate things can accept group pressures to conform and I always cite the Nazis as a famous case of membership swaying people to do things they would not otherwise have done.

Just adding to this recent news from Guantanamo. An ex guard described the situation there as allowing some people to become the very worst that they could be and some people had been waiting for such an opportunity as this to express their badness. Or words like that. It seems that some people have a tendency to be brutal and groups can sanction release of this behaviour. However I firmly believe that this brutal behaviour is itself a feature of other group behaviour and in line with religious belief we are all gods at heart.

So here lies the problems now the solutions of economics to follow.