We are accustomed to think that "Property" is an object, but it is in fact a relationship. Similarly Money is not a (bank-created debt) Object but a relationship.
And so, indeed, value is a relationship as well. And this is the problem Marx called "alienation," because under capitalism we are producing things for their value -- by which he meant market value -- and so our labor is no longer our own.
The alternative relationship Marx proposed was that of "worth" or use-value. One can see how this relationship forms the cornerstone of the Ecosocialist Manifesto. "Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world" -- John Lennon
It was E C Riegel who referred to Value as "the Relativity of Desire".
The problem is that we insist on trying to define the indefinable, confusing "price" (market value) with "value".
Wilde's definition of a Cynic is relevant here.
"Someone who knows the Price of everything and the Value of nothing"
It is the question of the metaphysical assumptions which underpin Economics which is at the heart of the problem.
I build upon Pirsig's "Metaphysics of Quality" (which I call a "Metaphysics of Value" - since Quality, Value, God .....it's all One - or, at least, Not Two!) in order to ask better questions of Reality, and to provide assumptions better able to inform Economics..
So, yes indeed, Value is definable ONLY in relative terms, and by reference to a "Value Unit". "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Marx got around this by distinguishing value (exchange-value) from worth (use-value). His distinction makes more sense in German than in English.
A price is merely an example of exchange-value located at a particular time and place. "Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world" -- John Lennon
