Inventing Value
The Social Construction of Monetary Worth

Revolutionises our understanding of value, using contemporary financial examples from the global crash of 2008 to the rise of Bitcoin.

Dave Elder-Vass (Author)

9781009199339, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2022

250 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

'A cynic may know the price of everything and the value of nothing, but Dave Elder-Vass understands why so many things have both values and prices. Here he engages classical debates about the theory of value even as he analyzes contemporary examples of value creation and destruction in venture capital, bitcoin, and subprime securitizations. People intrigued by the mysteries of modern finance will find much of interest here.' Bruce G. Carruthers, Northwestern University

Value is central to the market sectors of the contemporary economy, yet the best-established theories of value fail to expose how it operates and how it is manipulated for profit. This book begins to reconstruct the theory of value. In one sense, it argues, value is a personal assessment of worth, but those assessments draw deeply on normative standards. The book examines those standards and how they are formed, transformed and supported by the construction of new social structures. The empirical evidence comes from contemporary financial examples: the mortgage-backed securities that caused the global crash of 2008, how venture capitalists secure outrageous valuations for so-called unicorn companies, and the rise of Bitcoin. The result is a theory that shows how value is invented by value entrepreneurs in pursuit of their interests and thus provides a new basis for criticising the role of value in the commodity economy and the finance sector.

1. Introduction: Inventing Value
How (not) to Think About Value
2. How (not) to Think About Value?
3. Value and Price
4. Theories of Financial Value
5. Valuation Structures
6. Venture Capital and Unicorns
7. Bitcoin
8. Structured Subprime Securities
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Monetary economics [KCBM], Economics [KC], Social theory [JHBA]