Description
The University Of Michigan Press Cognition Value and Price a General Theory of Value by Henry K H Woo
Economists since Smith, Marx, and Mill have been preoccupied with the concept of price and price formation. Because prices reflect individuals' preferences, price formation is intimately tied to value formation. But, Henry Woo argues, modern economics has severed the link between price and value, on the grounds that they become one and the same in a perfectly competitive market, and value can therefore be excluded from economic discourse. Woo steadfastly opposes this reductionist approach, charging that it fails to explain many complex aspects of present-day consumption. Cognition, Value, and Price restores the important link between price and value.By setting out a more general theory of value--one that ties together price theory and value formation--Woo can explain the characteristic features of the modern consumption economy that have eluded many modern economists. He accounts, among other things, for the extensive use of advertisement and marketing, the less-than-fully-rational behaviors of the modern consumer, the orientation toward nonprice factors in competition among suppliers. Central to Woo's explanation is the problem of cognition: how the architecture and evolution of the mind affect human value formation, consumer behavior, and consumer rationality.Woo's comprehensive critique of heterodox economics schools is sure to spark a lively debate among economists and among scholars concerned with questions of value and rationality in sociology, philosophy, and political science.