[Scubabear68]

Gold is a VERY unique metal and its value comes directly from that. Particularly the complete lack of oxidation, I'm sure it was seen as absolutely magic that it would not tarnish while every other metal known at the time would oxidize very easily.

Value is ultimately always in the eye of the beholder.

[lo_zamoyski]

> Value is ultimately always in the eye of the beholder.

If you mean value per se, not at all. There are difference kinds of value (intrinsic, instrumental).

A piece of bread has objective nutritional value, for example. It doesn’t matter whether you personally dislike bread.

[Scubabear68]

Nope.

As a trivial example, someone with celiac’s disease is not going to value your gluten ridden bread very high.

[lo_zamoyski]

The nutritional value of bread is still in the bread, even if celiac disease impedes or frustrates access to that value.

[Peanuts99]

There are intrinsic properties of bread such as calorific content that a celiac can't deny. Same with gold.

[the__alchemist]

Indeed. I believe the parent commenter should pause and assess why people buy things, and what makes something desirable or a luxury good. We can start with mechanical watches: They are of poorer quality by every utilitarian measure than a crystal-oscillator driven one, but command much higher prices and status.

[lo_zamoyski]

> They are of poorer quality by every utilitarian measure than a crystal-oscillator driven one, but command much higher prices and status.

But the value of the watch is not reducible to its value as a timekeeping device. (Even here, you could argue that the mechanical watch has more instrumental value as a timekeeping device where batteries are unavailable.)

A mechanical watch has greater value as a mechanical watch; it is mechanically more sophisticated, even if not electronically. It can have greater value as a product of superb craftsmanship or as an object of art. (And here, while tastes vary, I would reject the reduction of beauty to taste.)

[somat]

> it is mechanically more sophisticated, even if not electronically. It can have greater value as a product of superb craftsmanship or as an object of art.

On any objective measurement axis a $15 Casio is more sophisticated than a $10_000 Rolex. I think what we value is the human scale of the Rolex, it operates and is manufactured at a scale we intuitively understand as humans, and we(or at least some people) value the sacrifices and effort needed to run at that scale.

Consider this, on your cheap Casio, the manufacturing tolerances are so tight and the parts are so complex and fine the only way to manufacture them are fully automated lines requiring a staggering capital investment of many millions, however because these lines have to be fully automated the economy of scale applies hard and the final product is very inexpensive.

All it takes to make a fine mechanical watch is a good watchmaker and several hundred thousand dollars of tooling.

One of my favorite watch repair videos is of a guy who rescues a smashed Casio, It has this fun combination of. it's a Casio, not worth even looking at. It is not designed to be serviced. Everything in it is super tiny, I mean watchmaking is already an exercise in frustration with how small everything is, which is why I enjoy watching them work but I have no real desire to do it myself, however in this Casio they were absurdly small. But this madlad did it. What a heroic fix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IhPFutz1XI

[thaumasiotes]

> A mechanical watch has greater value as a mechanical watch

Note that this cannot work as a theory of value; everything has infinite value if you define value as "the ability of a thing to be itself".

[lo_zamoyski]

There are various kinds of value and it is a mistake to confuse them or to reduce them to just one kind.

W.r.t. your imputed definition, there is a sense in which everything is irreplaceable, because the identity of two things that are otherwise entirely identical is never the same; that X is never this X.

But I was not making the claim that the value of something is its “ability be itself”. I was claiming that a thing x of kind A is more valuable as an A than a thing y of kind B as an A, where A is not B. This is trivially true.

Consider the utilitarian value of a pencil as an object for writing and consider a particle accelerator. It should be clear that the utility of a pencil as a writing instrument is greater than the utility of a particle accelerator as a writing instrument. The particle accelerator is more complex as a piece of technology, but so what? It has no value as an instrument for writing down your grocery list.

In any case, I was not proposing a comprehensive basis for a theory of value on this notion alone, so I’m not sure how you managed to selectively read that into my comment. It was only listed as one way in which one could say that a mechanical watch is more valuable than a Casio.

[the__alchemist]

Can you see how that elegant description you wrote could be applied to Gold?

[tylerflick]

> every other metal known at the time

You’re forgetting lead, but the point is all the same.

[buildsjets]

Lead rapidly oxidizes and tarnishes, and is reactive with many chemicals, as any person who has actually worked with it can attest to.