What Is a Theory of Value?
We have to get back to basics again. What is a theory of value? OK, we discussed theory above, but what is “value”? At a fundamental level, value relates to the worth of something, or its utility to satisfy the needs of people. So a theory of value must be the premise or set of premises upon which an argument rests, relating to the worth of something, or its utility to satisfy the needs of people. Let’s discuss this just a bit more. The encyclopedia definition of the expression “theory of value” is that it is a generic term that encompasses all the theories within economics that explain the worth of goods and services. That is, a key question in economic theory is how the value of goods and services comes about, and how to calculate the correct value of goods and services if such a value exists. The following paragraphs are summaries of several related articles posted on Wikipedia, which contains a useful set of online links to different theories of value and describes several main cat
