Value is quantified using Money-as-a-Unit-of-Account as the measure in Absolute and Relative dialectic or analysis.  

Some economists, as you say, take that and make the unwarranted jump to 'Value = Money.'  

But look at it another way. IF we take Quality as the metaphysical basis of Reality and we assert 'Value is an individuals response to Quality as embedded, or reflected, in a specific object¹' AND, in order for an Actor or Agent to gain physical possession of that object they have to fork over $3 THEN the Economic Value of that object has to be at least $3 to the Valuer.

Using this, we can go further since the Economic Value of the object is $3 to the seller and worth {$3 < x  >y} to the buyer.  By stating '{$3 < x}' we correctly, IMNSHO, symbolize the Value of an object, expressed as Economic Value, to the buyer is a range of measuration of all possible numbers x and y can take.

Looking at the seller, there is a minimum at which the object will be sold, the asking price, and the top price of the object which is infinity!  If you're selling something for $3 and someone offers $2,000 would you refuse?  Neither would anybody else!  

So a (more) complete equation, note the lowest buying price is zero, is:

x < sp > Infinity = 0 < bp > y

Where:

x is the lowest selling price
sp is the actual selling price
bp is the actual buying price
y is the highest buying price

BUT!

When we take about Quality and Value we cannot make use of the '=' sign.  Why?  Because for the transaction to take place the seller has to Value (MOQ) the buying price more than the object and the buyer has to Value (MOQ) the object more than the selling price.  Thus, it is an asymmetrical transaction -- in more ways than one.

So let's restate:

(x < sp > Infinity) > (0 < bp > y)  -- Seller's Side

(x < sp > Infinity) < (0 < bp > y) -- Buyer's Side

And it is obvious my little mathematical description is unsolvable unless the variables are taken as Second-Order (minimum) AND Statistical AND Probable.  

So, unless I screwed-up somewhere -- the fox is in the henhouse.  

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¹  So I can avoid getting into Being and Action (Verbs.)  ;-)

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

I'm going to chime in here w/CC, that neither Industrial capitalism, nor Industrial socialism or communism, is going to get us out of the fix we're in -- because Industrialism still confuses production and destruction,   as in the canard that coal and oil are "produced" when what we really mean is that they are extracted and then destroyed.  Industrialism also requires, structurally, that core/periphery dynamic which can't be maintained w/o inequity, unequal exchange, and the liquidation of peripheral resources to feed the machineries at the core.  whether this destructive quality can be tamed by conscious policy is an interesting question -- perhaps the only really interesting and crucial question there is, in whatever time we have left as a semicoherent polity to think about it.

while finance capitalism is even more insane than industrial capitalism -- insanity of an even more abstracted, refined, and goofy order -- the fundamental disconnect where little details like entropy and thermodynamics are ignored, where the technomass is privileged over (and esterminates) the biomass, happens in the industrial model itself, whose materialist Utopian promise underlies both capitalism and communism.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

If you mean this particular subthread, a front-pager would have to take Keynes' quote and make a "story", not a "diary" out of it.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

But of course. It's not service growth he's talking about.

And it's a stupid canard anyway, because passenger figures plummeted after a few high profile accidents. So a big part of the 'growth' is really just the process of returning to pre-disaster levels.

Aka Quantity vs Quality. If only we could do both.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

I think it's more that the Anglo-Saxon mindset believes there's something rather naughty about enjoying life and playing. And something heroic about working and accumulating stuff for its own sake.

It's not that the work has to be truly productive. It's more that it has to be busy. And the more busy the better.

An overemphasis on growth follows, in part, from the mistaken (largely tacit) premise that increase in quantity leads to increase in quality. The opposite direction of causality is strong: increase in one sort of quality, efficiency and productivity, is an essential enabler for growth. The reverse, however, is weak: past a certain point, increases in quantity are less and less important to increases in quality. I will focus here on a technological aspect of quality that is already narrower than general quality of life (though it can help support it).

The reason for this declining return to scale that gross material wealth°, past a certain point, isn't the chief limit on the innovations and refinements that constitute increasing (technological) quality. Cultural support for these, and available educated brains, are stronger factors. Research budgets are largely spent to pay for those brains, and their number doesn't increase in proportion to gross material wealth per capita. Cost of equipment is more relevant, but much of the important work isn't greatly equipment-intensive -- it involves designing and modifying things that are being made anyway.

The weakness of causality in one direction is masked by the strong correlation that results from causality in the other direction. That is, creativity and innovation may seem to follow from high levels of gross material wealth, when they instead enable it (for better or worse).

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° By "gross material wealth", I mean a measure of wealth that gives little weight to quality of life in a broad sense.

Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.

If you are discussing the actual output of goods and services, this is a pretty interesting description.  But I must admit to a serious anti-Brit prejudice that I have had since an Austin-Healy sports car made me walk home because its axle twisted off while driving straight and level.  So far as I know, the British version of capitalism has no meaningful industrial output any longer and is based solely on moving electronic manifestations of money inside some computer chips.

On the other hand, the French gained control of goods that defined the "good life" sometime during Louis XIV and have managed to maintain their hold on most of this market since.  So designing an economy to produce excellence is obviously a superior strategy.

But since we are touting national economic characteristics--allow me to add a few.

The Japanese believe that there is no detail too small and that nothing is ever finished and that improvement is always possible.  This makes for incredible products--especially complex ones like cars and video cameras.

The Germans and Nordics seem to concentrate their economic energy on being excellent at the invisible details.  If you have never heard of the product, have no idea what it does, and it is somehow critically important for an industrial society--these guys probably build it better than anyone.

And of course, how can we ignore USA industrialization.  In 1971, I heard a guy shout to a group of volunteers who were trying to organize a production of HMS Pinafore, "People! TRY to do this right!  But if you cannot do it well, do it BIG!" I have never heard the USA philosophy of everything said better.


"Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"

"Needless ;-)"

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

There is a lot of truth to your argument - i.e. that people (at least on the left) voted against what they perceive to be the excessive neolib bias of Maastricht.

The problem with that vote, of course, is that in practice they voted against the new bits that they usually liked (strengthened European Parliament, charter of human rights, etc...) but in FAVOR of the Maastricht and Nice Treaty, because these remain in force in the absence of the new Constitution.

They voted against their explicit goals, something that I still am angry about. And they make euroskepticism good politics and most of our new leaders are thus weakly pro-European, which only compounds the problem, as national selfishness (which was never low, starting with the French) has vastly increased.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Excellent: and what I am saying is that through the creation of "Energy Pools" using new legal "wrappers" - such as the LLP or LLC - it is possible to create a model where investment IS Energy Capital and it is actually returned AS Energy Income.

Moreover, if energy producing assets are kept in Trust/Community Ownership, with Investor and Manager Partners receiving proportional shares and the balance remaining with the Community, then we could see an "Energy Dividend" or basic Energy Income to all.

In fact I am not the only one to advocate an International Energy Clearing Union, but I believe that this is the logical candidate for the basis of global trade in the future when the dollar reaches the end of the road.

Domestic trade, I think, will be based upon the flows of property rentals.

But in both cases we are essentially talking about monetary flows - of "Dynamic Value", where "Value" is "Money's Worth" such as energy.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

Make me an offer.  I have NO problem being linked to your efforts at explaining reality to the Kossacks--you do a hell of a job.  It is why I am here.

"Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"