دانلود کتاب ادعای ارزش – سیاست اولویت از ارسطو تا زندگی سیاهان مهم است

Imagine opening your mailbox and fnding a “Special Ofer for Valued Customers.” On some level you know that the invitation’s suggestion that you are “valued” is deceitful. An inner cynic reminds you that to the company you have been algorithmically fagged as an occasional consumer likely to develop brand loyalty in response to personalized solicitations. You know that the sender does not care about your prosperity, quality of life, hopes and dreams, or even whether you save the invitation or imme­diately cast it aside.

There is nevertheless something honest and frank about the lettering on the mailer—those who sent it do value you. They have determined a price point for their goods, considered the likelihood of your continued consumption—both with and without an additional nudge—and deemed you worth the processing costs of targeted mailing. In this sense you have in fact been valued by this company, and likely estimated to be worth an expenditure of about $0.13 in printing materials.

This choice of word, valued, somehow still resonates on a deeper level. It implies something more personal than a monetary transaction. The connotations of ‘valued’ exceed the frank notifcation that you are being estimated for your proftability; they also convey messages like “you are important to us,” and “we care about you.” Still, try as this mailer might, it cannot convince you that its company values you in the same way that your grandparent or best friend values you.

The concept of value is pervasive in our language. It is the sine qua non of economic and normative theory alike. The word is used to describe everything from individual convictions to the power of a currency. Economies and economic development are visualized in long chains of “value-adding” processes, and sales advertise “great value” at low prices. We often discuss value as something that is “added” for the consumer, but when we speak of ‘values’ we say (or we hope) that we share the same ones. We then worry about “clashes of values,” and proceed to mobilize in defense of American values, Christian values, and occasionally even democratic values.

Part of what is at stake in these diverse uses of value discourse is an am­biguity at the heart of this concept. The term ‘value’ perplexingly partakes of both the realm of cultural norms, morality, and understandings of the “good,” and of ostensibly neutral descriptions of the mechanisms of prices and transactions.¹ Claims about value can certainly serve the purposes of fagging our principal concerns, explaining motivations, or justifying actions—of signaling what we care about, and what is important to us. However, as the example of the mailer shows, distilling a message to im­portance alone actually dilutes the political content of value claims. There are, after all, a number of types of value, and cares and concerns are not always accompanied by deeper material processes of prioritization. For instance, one can receive a bounty of certain types of valuation absent other types. Many purportedly benevolent hierarchies have precisely this quality—those with power provide a form of care to those below them, but not the respect or reciprocity that would demonstrate both parties be­ing equally valued in many of the ways that matter. The concept of value thereby exposes unstable boundaries between human needs and desires, and our entanglements with one another.