"What is Money?" and Postmodernism

[Travis Retriever]

I'd like to state in advance that I started up school a few weeks ago, and have been mentally drained ever since.
So if this post isn't up to par with what I usually post, that's why.

Like the Postmodernists and the Austrians (the school of economics, not the country ) I do agree that value comes from human perception--
HOWEVER I also agree that what things individual people value is determined by natural selection; it's not arbitrary.
If people don't value things that allow them to survive and propagate, they won't and they'll die off.

To use Shane's example, if, say a group of people don't value food, then they'll be less likely to reproduce and more likely to die off, while the ones who DO value food are far more likely to live and propagate.
So there is a drive for people to value that which allows them to either more effectively reproduce, eliminate physical discomfort, etc.
Obviously if an individual person doesn't value his/her own survival, then there's nothing you can really say to them about that (thought you might want to avoid them...)

I also think that the different schools of economics theories of value aren't mutually exclusive
For example, the value of gold is determined by supply and demand, the latter of which is determined by how much people value it, which in turn is determined by how useful it is (e.g. as MONEY! ; something Shane made a perfect case for in the video in question).

Also, gold is not a "token of labor" so much as the labor and resources put into mining the gold is the equilibrium value of gold.

It's how the system stays in balance.
If the resources used to mine gold cost more than the "value" (or price) of gold , then people won't dig it up.
If the value or price of gold is greater than the resources used to mine gold, then it will be dug up until the system is in balance with both equaling each other.

[MrBogosity]

Exactly. It's an excluded middle to say that, since value is a human judgement, then there is no more intrinsic worth in one thing than in another.