Money

We preserve monuments because of their historic value; we admire paintings for their aesthetic value; we don’t cheat or steal because of our moral values; we spurn alcohol and pray five times a day because of our religious values; we treasure our grandmother’s costume jewellery because of its sentimental value. All these are limited-purpose concepts of value – each lord of its own sphere, none sovereign outside it. Like the old physical concepts of the height of a horse, the depth of the sea, and the width of a net, sentimental, aesthetic, and religious value are specific concepts invented in the context of specific activities. And as for the question of standardisation – that would seem to be even less advanced than it was for those antique physical units of measurement. Who, after all, ever heard of an international standard of sentimental value? When it comes to the social reality, it is more or less everyone, let alone every village, for himself. As the saying goes, de gustibus non est disputandum – there is no accounting for taste.

Money has created interests vested in the network as it stands.