It is apparent that the same object may have many kinds of value, perhaps all of those that I have mentioned. It is conceivable that man may turn all phases of his life toward an object and appraise it differently for each phase. Consider, for instance, an animal like the ox, of immemorial interest to the human race. It may be regarded as beautiful or ugly, may arouse the various emotions, as love, fear, or anger, may give rise to moral and philosophical questions, may be the object of religious feeling, as in India, and may have a value for the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. It has also, especially among the pastoral peoples, notable institutional values; plays a large part in law, ceremony, and worship, and, in our own tradition, has an eponymous relation to pecuniary institutions.[[64]]
The process that generates value is mental but not ordinarily conscious; it works by suggestion, influence, and the competition and survival of ideas; but all this is constantly going on in and through us without our knowing it. I may be wholly unaware of the genesis or even the existence of values which live in my mind and guide my daily course; indeed this is rather the rule than the exception. The common phrase, “I have come to feel differently about it,” expresses well enough the way in which values usually change. The psychology of the matter is intricate, involving the influence of repetition, of subtle associations of ideas, of the prestige of personalities, giving weight to their example, and the like; but of all this we commonly know nothing. The idea of punishment after death, for example, has been fading for a generation past; its value for conduct has mostly gone; yet few have been aware of its passing and fewer still can tell how this has come about. This trait of the growth of values is of course well understood in the art of advertising, which aims, first of all, to give an idea weight in the subconscious processes, to familiarize it by repetition, to accredit it by pleasing or imposing associations, to insinuate it somehow into the current of thought without giving choice a chance to pass upon it at all.
If the simpler phases of valuation, those that relate to the personal aims of the individual, are usually subconscious, much more is this true of the larger phases which relate to the development of complex impersonal wholes. It is quite true that there are “great social values whose motivating power directs the activities of nations, of great industries, of literary and artistic ‘schools,’ of churches and other social organizations, as well as the daily lives of every man and woman—impelling them in paths which no individual man foresaw or purposed.”[[65]]
The institutions, we may note in this connection, usually have rather definite and precise methods for the appraisal of values in accordance with their own organic needs. In the state, for example, we have elaborate methods of electing or appointing persons, as well as legislative, judicial, and scientific authorities for passing upon ideas. The church has its tests of membership, its creeds, scriptures, sacraments, penances, hierarchy of saints and dignitaries, and the like, all of which serve as standards of value. The army has an analogous system. On the institutional side of art we have exhibitions with medals, prize competitions, election to academies and the verdict of trained critics: in science much the same, with more emphasis on titles and academic chairs. You will find something of the same sort in every well-organized traditional structure. We have it in the universities, not only in the official working of the institution, but in the fraternities, athletic associations, and the like.
It is also noteworthy that institutional valuation is nearly always the function of a special class. This is obviously the case with the institutions mentioned, and it is equally true, though perhaps less obviously, with pecuniary valuation.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTER OF PECUNIARY VALUATION
A PHASE OF SOCIAL PROCESS—PECUNIARY VALUES INSTITUTIONAL—INADEQUATE IDEA OF VALUATION IN ECONOMIC TREATISES—INTERACTION BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE MARKET—ECONOMIC VALUES AN OUTCOME OF ECONOMIC HISTORY—THE FACTOR OF CLASS—INFLUENCE OF UPPER-CLASS IDEALS—POWER OF THE BUSINESS CLASS OVER VALUES
Pecuniary valuation is a phase of the general process of social thought, having its special methods and significance, but not peculiar in nature; the pecuniary estimates people set upon things are determined in a movement of suggestion and discussion, varying with the group and the time, like other phases of the public mind.
This is apparent a fortiori if we take what appear to be the simplest and most essential commodities. The estimation of wheaten bread as a necessity of life, that prevails with us, is a matter of opinion and custom; whether grounded in sound hygiene or not is irrelevant. Other countries and times have thought differently, and we know that foods may be regarded as necessary whose hygienic value is doubtful or negative, like beer in Germany or coffee with us. Consider in this connection the prepared foods known as cereals, for which vast sums are spent by all classes of our people; their vogue and value is clearly a matter of current, possibly transient, opinion, largely created by the psychological process of advertising.
I need hardly go further into this. It is plain that even among the most necessitous an existing scale of pecuniary values can be explained only as a product of the same social forces which create other phases of tradition and sentiment; and no one will expect anything different in values prevailing among a richer class. I do not mean, of course, that these forces work wholly in the air, but that, whatever physiological or mechanical factors there may be in demand and supply, these become active only through the mediation of a psychological process.