[Previous entry: "Today's Accu-Terror Forecast"] [Next entry: "More thoughts on debt reduction"]

01/03/2007: "An Introduction to Value Theory"

The Mises Institute ran a short essay from the writings of F.A. Harper recently entitled An Introduction to Value Theory. This is a concise and readable introduction to the history, current state, and political impact of economic value theory, which is the framework used to evaluate what things have value and how much value they have.

The most critical parts of this theory are that things (and services) only have value where there is a scarcity, that things have no intrinsic value, and that the value of a thing can only be evaluated by individuals in comparison with other things. Each of these parts are critical to understanding economics, and have large impacts on many issues. The article briefly notes on some of these implications, and also describes previous theories, why they were inadequate, and how they came to form the current theory.