Summary

Refutes common claim that some values (generosity, empathy, creativity) require non-monetary currencies for measurement. Core argument: price = exchange rate between different forms of value; anything valuable to anyone can theoretically be priced relative to anything else valuable. Money emerged as universal intermediary reducing transaction friction, not because it perfectly captures nuances but because it facilitates exchange. “Priceless” means price set infinitely high, not absence of price. Real complexity lies in transaction costs and ethical considerations, not fundamental impossibility of pricing.

The Original Claim (Critiqued):

Tweet Argument:

  • Some values don’t have price tags
  • Need specialized “currencies” beyond money
  • Examples: generosity, empathy, creativity
  • Money can’t measure these

Implicit Assumptions:

  • Money fundamentally incapable of representing certain values
  • Different value categories incommensurable
  • Need separate measurement systems
  • Sacred/profane divide (some things beyond market)

Emotional Appeal:

  • Intuitive: love, friendship seem unquantifiable
  • Romantic rejection of crass commercialism
  • Protecting special values from “contamination”
  • Moral purity through separation

What is Price?

Fundamental Definition:

Price = exchange rate between different forms of value at a given moment

Not Intrinsic:

  • Price not property of object itself
  • Emerges from exchange context
  • Relative not absolute
  • Varies across time, place, persons

Exchange Rate:

  • How much X for how much Y?
  • Ratio of subjective values
  • Conversion factor between valuables
  • Market-clearing intersection of supply/demand

Examples:

  • 1 apple = $2 (apple-to-dollars exchange rate)
  • 1 hour labor = $25 (labor-to-dollars exchange rate)
  • 1 painting = $10,000 (art-to-dollars exchange rate)
  • Transitivity: 1 painting = 500 hours labor = 5,000 apples

Value as Subjective:

Austrian Economics:

  • Value exists only in minds of valuers
  • No objective value “in” objects
  • Value = preference ranking
  • Ordinal not cardinal (1st > 2nd, but not “2x as good”)

Marginal Revolution:

  • Value determined by marginal utility
  • Not total utility or labor embodied
  • Water cheap, diamonds expensive (paradox resolved)
  • Context-dependent

Individual Variability:

  • Same object different values to different people
  • Thirst determines water’s value to you
  • Exchange benefits both parties (different valuations)
  • No “correct” price, only agreed price

Anything Valuable Can Be Exchanged:

In Principle:

  • If A valuable and B valuable
  • Can exchange A for B
  • Ratio determined by subjective preferences
  • Price = that ratio

Universality:

  • Applies to physical goods (apples, houses)
  • Services (haircuts, therapy)
  • Intangibles (reputation, time, experiences)
  • Abstract qualities (creativity, empathy)
  • Even “priceless” things (see below)

Money as Universal Intermediary:

Barter Problem:

  • Double coincidence of wants required
  • I have apples, want haircut
  • You have haircuts, want oranges (not apples)
  • Exchange impossible without chain

Money Solution:

  • Universal acceptability
  • I sell apples for money
  • Buy haircut with money
  • You accept money, buy oranges
  • Indirect exchange enables all transactions

Why Money Emerged:

  • Reduces transaction costs dramatically
  • Divisible (make change)
  • Durable (stores value over time)
  • Fungible (one dollar = another dollar)
  • Portable (easy to carry/transfer)

Money as Abstraction:

  • Represents exchange potential, not specific good
  • Medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value
  • Simplifies complex multi-party negotiations
  • Price signals aggregate countless individual preferences

Not Perfect Representation:

  • Money doesn’t directly measure subjective qualities
  • Indirect reflection via voluntary transactions
  • Information compression (lossy but useful)
  • Good enough for coordination

Examples: “Intangible” Values Priced:

Generosity:

Monetary Expression:

  • Charitable donations (pricing altruism)
  • Tips (rewarding good service)
  • Gifts (expressing appreciation)
  • Philanthropy (buying social impact)

Implicit Pricing:

  • How much do I donate to cause? (Price of feeling generous)
  • Opportunity cost: money not spent elsewhere
  • Marginal decision: donate $100 more or keep it?
  • Market for generosity exists

Empathy:

Market Manifestations:

  • Therapy, coaching (paying for empathetic listening)
  • Medical care (reducing suffering)
  • Social services (compassion institutionalized)
  • Emotional labor (service workers)

Paying for Empathy:

  • Therapist $150/hour = price of empathetic attention
  • Hospice care = paying for end-of-life compassion
  • People value and pay for empathy
  • Market prices it via revealed preference

Creativity:

Direct Pricing:

  • Art sales ($50 to $50M depending on demand)
  • Concert tickets (experiencing creative expression)
  • Books, music, films (purchasing creativity)
  • Commissions (paying for bespoke creation)

Labor Markets:

  • Creative professions paid (designers, writers, musicians)
  • Salary = ongoing price for creative output
  • Freelance rates = project-based creativity pricing
  • Creative industries multi-trillion dollar markets

The “Priceless” Objection:

Claim:

  • Some things priceless (love, loyalty, children)
  • Can’t be priced in principle
  • Beyond monetary valuation
  • Sacred not profane

Response:

Priceless = Infinitely High Price:

  • Not absence of price
  • Refusal to accept any finite offer
  • Reservation price = ∞
  • Still a price (just very high)

Revealed Through Trade-Offs:

  • Would you harm child for $X? No, at any X
  • Implicit: child’s safety worth more than any money
  • Price comparison still happening
  • Just one side always wins

But Market Exists at Margin:

  • Adoption services (pricing child placement)
  • Surrogate pregnancy (pricing gestation)
  • Life insurance (pricing death)
  • Kidney markets (illegal but price forms)

Taboo Trade-Offs:

  • Philip Tetlock: some exchanges culturally forbidden
  • But prohibitions are price controls (setting price at ∞)
  • Black markets emerge when legal market suppressed
  • Price exists whether acknowledged or not

Transaction Costs and Practical Limits:

Real Complexity:

1. Tacit Knowledge:

  • Some value hard to articulate
  • Buyer/seller may not know what they’re trading
  • Asymmetric information
  • But price still emerges from imperfect knowledge

2. Diffuse Value:

  • Value spread across many people/times
  • Collective goods (clean air, safety)
  • Externalities hard to price
  • But mechanisms exist (Pigouvian taxes, carbon credits)

3. Practical Infeasibility:

  • Transaction costs exceed value
  • Some trades not worth negotiating
  • But doesn’t mean unpriceable in principle
  • Just uneconomical to transact

4. Ethical Considerations:

  • Some exchanges create perverse incentives
  • Commodification may erode intrinsic motivation (Gneezy & Rustichini)
  • Explicit pricing changes relationship nature
  • But still priced implicitly

Example: Friendship:

  • Explicit payment would change relationship
  • But implicit reciprocity operates
  • Cost-benefit analysis (unconsciously) happens
  • Time spent = opportunity cost = implicit price
  • “High-maintenance” friends = high price
  • Choose friends partly by implicit cost-benefit

Alternative Currencies:

Reputation Systems:

  • Social credit, karma points, likes
  • Medium of exchange for status
  • Price things in reputation instead of money
  • Same principle (exchange rates) different medium

Barter Systems:

  • Time banks (exchange hours)
  • Local currencies
  • Reciprocity networks
  • Still pricing (X hours for Y hours)

Gift Economies:

  • Obligation and reciprocity
  • Social debt tracking
  • Prestige and status
  • Prices in different currency (favor-denominated)

Not Replacing Pricing:

  • Still exchange rates between values
  • Different medium, same concept
  • Specialized for particular contexts
  • Money more general-purpose

Philosophical Implications:

Consequentialism:

  • Trade-offs unavoidable
  • Must compare values somehow
  • Pricing = making comparisons explicit
  • Transparent trade-offs better than hidden

Deontology:

  • Some things should not be priced (sacred)
  • Categorical prohibitions
  • But practically: infinite price not no price
  • Absolute rules = special case of consequentialism (infinite weight)

Virtue Ethics:

  • Commercialization of virtue corrupts it
  • But: people still choose how much to cultivate virtue
  • Opportunity costs: time spent on virtue vs other goods
  • Implicit pricing even of virtues

Economic Realism:

  • Scarcity inescapable
  • Choices require trade-offs
  • Pricing makes trade-offs explicit and efficient
  • Denying pricing doesn’t eliminate it, just obscures it

Ethical Complexity:

When Pricing Harms:

1. Crowding Out Intrinsic Motivation:

  • Explicit payment reduces intrinsic desire
  • Blood donation: payment reduced donations
  • Childcare late fees increased lateness
  • Money changes framing from gift to transaction

2. Taboo Violations:

  • Cultural norms against certain exchanges
  • Organ sales, sex work, baby selling
  • Violation causes moral outrage
  • Social cohesion requires some taboos

3. Exploitation Concerns:

  • Desperate people accept unfair prices
  • Voluntary exchange under duress
  • Asymmetric power creates coercion
  • Market failures from inequality

When Pricing Helps:

1. Coordination:

  • Prices aggregate dispersed information
  • Enable millions of strangers to cooperate
  • Resource allocation without central planner
  • Hayek’s knowledge problem

2. Honesty:

  • Explicit prices clearer than hidden costs
  • Transparency enables informed choice
  • Reduces corruption and favoritism
  • Objectivity and fairness

3. Flexibility:

  • Prices adjust to changing conditions
  • Market responses faster than central planning
  • Experimentation and innovation
  • Adaptive efficiency

Synthesis:

  • Pricing powerful tool, not always appropriate
  • Contextual judgment required
  • Neither universal pricing nor universal taboo correct
  • Pragmatic case-by-case assessment

Key Concepts

  • Price as exchange rate – Ratio between different forms of value
  • Subjective value – Value exists in minds of valuers, not objects
  • Money as intermediary – Universal medium reducing transaction friction
  • Priceless = infinite price – Refusal of any finite offer, not absence of price
  • Transaction costs – Practical limits on explicit pricing
  • Taboo trade-offs – Culturally forbidden exchanges (Tetlock)
  • Crowding out – Explicit payment reducing intrinsic motivation
  • Alternative currencies – Reputation, time, favors as exchange media
  • Revealed preference – Actions show implicit pricing decisions

Evolution Notes

  • Economic reasoning applied to philosophical questions
  • Austrian/Chicago school influence
  • Provocative thesis challenging romantic anti-market views
  • Consistent with voluntarist libertarianism
  • But acknowledges complexity (not naive economism)
  • Relevant to AI: how price AI-generated value?
  • Shows willingness to challenge taboos analytically
  • Later posts develop fuller economics/ethics integration

Tags

Cross-References

Open Questions

  • Are there truly unpriceable values or just high-transaction-cost values?
  • Does commodification inevitably erode intrinsic goods?
  • Can pricing and sacredness coexist or necessarily opposed?
  • How determine which exchanges should be taboo?
  • Does “everything has a price” reduce to crude economism?
  • What about incommensurable values (Isaiah Berlin)?
  • Can AI systems understand subjective value and pricing?
  • Is money neutrality assumption valid or does money change preferences?