Quote from: caveden on August 14, 2010, 04:56:58 PM

Quote from: creighto on August 13, 2010, 09:05:48 PM

Quote from: caveden on August 12, 2010, 03:08:41 PM

Nothing has inherent value. Wink

That's not true at all. It seems too many people who post on these lists, do so under the pretense of understanding economic theories.

Gold has an "inherent" value, not because other people value it as a medium of exchange or a store of value, (a currency) but because it has real utility outside of this context.

No, value is not inherent. Value is attributed to things by people, subjectively.
Having a value is not an attribute of stuff. It's the "opinion" of people about stuff. And it may changes as people change their "opinion".

Read what I wrote right after:

Quote from: caveden on August 12, 2010, 03:08:41 PM

Value is subjective, people give value to stuff, it's not part of stuff.
That's why you can not claim that someone that built an ugly building beside your house damaged your property by reducing its value, for example. The value of your house is not an inherent attribute of it.

Quote from: creighto on August 13, 2010, 09:05:48 PM

And are you are seriously going to claim that a can of soup or a can of soda doesn't have an 'inherent' value?

No they don't, as anything else doesn't. It's people who value them.

Nothing has monetary value inherently. Inherent value is a measure of how much value it has to people in general. Air and water are essential, so they have high inherent value, but they're so abundant that they have low monetary value. Metals in general are less essential than air and water, but they have significant value to people in general, so their inherent value is also very high. Because metals are much more difficult to obtain, their monetary value is much higher than air and water.