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Where is the value?
Value, and in particular differential value, determines much of our behaviour. But it’s a slippery, ethereal concept
A long time ago, when travel was still possible and people still went on holiday, every morning I went to get provisions for the day at the local grocer in the seaside town where we were staying. And every time I could not help noticing his peculiar way of selling soft drinks. For the shopkeeper was selling the exact same drinks for two different prices, one roughly 10p higher than the other. I say “exact” but there was actually one difference: the cheaper one simply stood on a shelf, while the more expensive one was in the chiller.
It illustrates a concept that is not only fundamental to much of economics, but also deeply characteristic of human behaviour, and indeed of all animal life on this planet. I am referring to the concept of preferences. Without it, there would be no such thing as preference for food over non-food, and an organism that did not have that would likely poison itself, or starve to death trying to eat inedible stuff. Only individuals that experienced such preference and acted accordingly would be able reliably to acquire the necessary nutrients for their survival. Likewise for identifying suitable environments in which to live, identifying suitable mates (for those…
