Subjectivismo e valor

"All economic science has endeavored to account for real-world phenomena. The classical economist believed that these phenomena are to be seen as having been inexorably determined by the underlying physical realities. The availability of scarce natural resources, in conjunction with population and its demographics, basically determine the course of human history. What emerges over history is inescapable, it cannot be substantially altered by human will. Economic history emerges as automatically determined by the objective conditions governing and surrounding production. It was against this premise that Menger did revolutionary battle in his 1871 Grundsätze.
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The central thrust of Menger’s book, we argue, was not so much his articulation of a subjective (marginal utility) theory of value, as his vision of the entire economic process of production as expressing the imprint, upon external reality, of the human factor. It was this vision that led him to formulate his theory of goods of various “orders,” in which it is the preference of the final consumers that determines the place of each potential resource in the structure of production, and that ultimately assigns market values to all of them.
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It was this vision that led him (some twenty years earlier than his fellow pioneers in the marginalist revolution, in other schools) to glimpse, at least, the outlines of the theory of marginal productivity within the very formulation of the marginal utility theory of value.
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What ultimately determines the economic phenomena that we observe in the real world is, in this Mengerian vision, not the physical conditions governing production, but the needs of human beings. It is the latter that determine production methods, and the assignment of market values to goods, and incomes to owners of agents of production. Menger’s vision is thus subjective in the fundamental sense that what emerges in real-world economies is the expression of human preferences as exercised against a background of given, passive resource constraints and endowments."
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Trecho retirado de "The driving force of the market: essays in Austrian economics" de Israel M.Kirzner.
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Interessante reter "Rational - by definition an ideology"

Eheheh, afinal sou um reaccionário, tão ultrapassado ...

... mas tão ultrapassado que está mais actual que nunca:
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"The Rap against Unearned Riches"
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Tento fazer deste blogue, entre outras coisas, uma ferramenta de divulgação do Evangelho do Valor com exemplos concretos, tentando, numa luta desigual, descredibilizar os membros da tríade (Ainda ontem à noite, na SICN, Paulo Ferreira, Marcelino, António Costa e Tiago Caiado, rematam o rodízio de comentários com "O ministro da Economia não tem boas notícias para dar" Ouvi bem? Não há boas notícias?!!! Conversa de lisboeta e macroeconomistas).
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Este combate é muito desigual, se nos Estados Unidos o valor como algo subjectivo (Valor não é um cálculo que se acha num folha de Excel, valor é um feeling, é um sentimento) é tão desconhecido, o que dizer deste país socialista onde me encontro:
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"The valuations of the consumers in a market economy, in final analysis, determine the way in which the ultimate product is distributed among the cooperating factors of production. How little this elementary knowledge of economic valuation is known can be seen at the widespread acceptance and circulation of wage theories that deny any relation to the valuation process. The American public embraces and most institutions of economic education teach theories of "bargaining-power," "purchasing-power," "standard-of-living," the "subsistence theory," or even the unadulterated "exploitation theory."

Distribution through the valuation process seems to be known to a few remnants of "reactionary" and "outdated" scholars and writers only."
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O que está mais inculcado no subconsciente de quase todos é a visão marxiana:
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"Many people sincerely believe that the value of anything is determined by the labor used in producing it; that its price ought to reflect quite objectively the amount of labor put into it. The belief in this labor theory of value, however, is founded in myth, not fact. Day-to-day experiences reveal its error."

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BTW, ser obrigado a viajar à semana de carro para o Porto é uma terrível perda de qualidade de vida. Viva o comboio e o metro!!!

Austrian Economics e comentários à luz de Service-Dominant Logic

"Menger insists throughout his work that value is essentially subjective, and that therefore economics must be in the main a subjective science. Goods have no inherent value in themselves. They are valued because they help to satisfy some human want or need."
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Não, não é um texto sobre service-dominant logic.
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"in a given community the exchange value of a given increment of each good will be determined by the relation between its total available quantity and the intensity of the human need or want that it fills."
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"Thus while the classical Ricardian doctrine held that the "normal" value of consumption goods was determined by their "cost of production," the Austrian doctrine holds that the "cost of production" itself is ultimately determined by the value of consumption goods.
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These two doctrines can be partly reconciled in the statement that though what a good has cost to produce cannot directly determine its value, what it will cost to produce determines how much of it will continue to be made. It is the limit that cost of production puts upon the total quantity of a good produced that determines its marginal value and therefore its market price."
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Agora algo que a service-dominant logic já ultrapassou com a subordinação da troca à experiência durante o uso.
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"To return to Menger: His Principles of Economics next presents a "theory of exchange." In this he points out that men do not buy from or sell to or exchange with each other merely because of a "propensity of men to truck and barter," as implied by Adam Smith, but because each man seeks to maximize his satisfactions (Moi ici: maximize or satisfice?) by exchanging what he values less for what he values more. In this way the satisfaction of all is increased. Exchange is thus an integral part of the whole process of production. (Moi ici: E para lá da troca, não esquecer a experiência do valor durante o uso )  What is being produced is value. (Moi ici: Aqui também há contribuições importantes da service-dominant logic como ilustra esta figura sobre produção versus co-criação de valor) Menger's whole theory of price, to repeat, is developed on the basis of "the subjective character of value.""
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E, para terminar uma referência à treta da macroeconomia neo-clássica:
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"Now "general equilibrium" is defined by these economists (when it ever is) in highly abstract and obscure phrases; but for laymen it might be defined as a condition in which all the tens of thousands or millions of commodities and services are being turned out in the exact quantities and proportions in which they are relatively wanted by producers or consumers, so that there are no "shortages" or "surpluses." All prices reflect costs, and there is no more profit in making one commodity than any other. (In fact, there is no "pure" profit at all.) These economists admit that at any moment this condition does not exist, but they contend that there is a constant long-run tendency toward equilibrium, because when there is an unusual profit in turning out some one product, producers will turn out more of it, and when there is a loss in turning out some other product, producers will make less of it, or transfer to making something else.
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The concept itself is extremely nebulous. Neoclassical economists seem obsessed today with setting up complicated algebraic equations stipulating the conditions of equilibrium or functional relations under "perfect competition" and the like, but it is difficult to specify precisely what their x's and y's stand for. They cannot refer to physical quantities, because you cannot add apples to horses, or a ton of gold watches to a ton of sand. One might add or compare quantities times prices, but what would be the meaning of the total, or any of the parts that make it up? The price, even of one commodity, differs from hour to hour, place to place, and transaction to transaction. The value of the currency itself fluctuates and constantly changes its exchange ratio with commodities. If we simply add or compare "values," then we must recognize that values are purely subjective. They are impossible to measure or to total because they differ with each individual.

If we pass over these fundamental difficulties, where do we arrive? Even if we assume that there may be a persistent long-run tendency toward general equilibrium, we must admit that there is also a persistent short-run and long-run tendency toward the persistence of disequilibrium.

This is not only because there is a tendency of entrepreneurs, in increasing or reducing production in response to market and profit signals, to overshoot the mark, but because individual entrepreneurs, so far from making merely automatic responses, are constantly gaining new knowledge, alert to new opportunities, changing methods and reducing production costs, improving products, innovating — turning out entirely new products or inventions. And consumers too are constantly learning, changing tastes, and demanding new products to meet new wants. So Austrian economists seldom speak of market equilibrium, but of the market process."
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Trechos retirados de "Understanding "Austrian" Economics"
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BTW "For Love of Laissez-Faire"