Cross posted at http://www.peaceisactive.com
I think all of our values should be considered in our decisions - both personal and as a society - and I think the rule of one value over our decisions has problems associated with it.
So I guess my thesis is that I like market value, but I don't think it can be the only value considered in our personal and community decisions.
First, I really do love market value. I'm an entrepreneur getting first hand experience in the open market. The market is based on the universal standard of math allowing a global form of interaction that (in its pure form) has little room for racial, ethnic, or gender bias. It allows advancement based on economic merit - although it has a long way to go in terms of accuracy of value.
Another thing I was thinking about was Ayn Rand's point about not infringing on the rights of others to participate in the market. However, who judges when the freedom of others is being restricted? I guess this could be called the "bad actors" argument because I'm thinking about people/companies who burn down a rival restaurant or cheaply dump their waste into the air or water that ends of poisoning people.
It seems to me that market value is a great value system for our economic system, but there still needs to be a referee (government) to decide the rules and standards for the market competition. If there is to be a referee for the economic game being played, I prefer that it is a democratic, transparent, and accountable system rather than some form of dictatorship, monarchy, etc...
This of course causes problems because there is no perfect form of government. All referees have the ability to be corrupt or incompetent as we are now learning from the NBA. However, I don't think we should take the worst examples of government (Soviet bureaucracy, corrupt politicians, military dictatorships) and use it as an example to get rid of all government just as we shouldn't use the example of a corrupt referee as a reason to get rid of all referees in the NBA. It is hard to believe from the current corruption in Washington, but government is getting a lot better in a generational/historical sense.
There also is a problem about what rules/decisions the government/referee should be involved in. Do we, as a community, have the right to determine what we put value on? Is the market the proper distributor of value that we must accept with no other values being allowed?
For example, if you don't do something that leads to economic value, some people seem to be alright with the idea that individuals with no economic value shouldn't have access to food, water, healthcare, etc... because that is the way economic value works and thus the outcome is a reasonable outcome.
In a religious dictatorship, a protestant may argue that he/she should be allowed to eat, but the Catholic rulers might say that it is too bad they are protestant and their lack of food is just the way it is.
If education was the top value instead of economic value, would you both be alright having the phd's as the only people who have enough value to eat, drink, and get healthcare?
If we had a dictatorship of clowns - who established juggling as the most important value - would it then seem odd to base all our value on one particular skill?
I'm learning from my experience in the open market that making money in our society is a lot like juggling. It is a game that only a few people have the ability to play and win - and I don't think it is ok to say that people who can't win economic value through the market are inferior individuals who deserve their lack of food, water, healthcare, etc...