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by Retra 3637 days ago
He is only proving the invalidity of evaluating the price of a painting based on the name of the artist.
1 comments

It's a painting. The value is in its esthetic, which has not degraded over the 40 years.

Anyway, I think all damages should be capped at the original price point, 100$, even in the absurd case the judge sides with the buyer.

The value is in its esthetic

The "intrinsic" value may be so, but the market value is whatever people are willing to pay for it, and that counts too.

If the market value is what people are willing to pay, then you've just ignored any responsibility for answering the question "what are people willing to pay for", which is exactly what the question "where is the value" is supposed to be answered by.

In other words, you've just swept a messy question under a rug and acted like we'd all be smarter if we just called the mess "a rug" and ignored the details. Economists talk like that because they don't care about the art (they care about economic abstractions.) But you can't think like that if you want to answer questions about art, because those abstractions break down if you do.