ABSTRACT
The subjective theory of value holds that the quantitative order variously called “exchange-value”, “market-value” and “money-value” is analyzable into intrasubjective preferences and ratios of exchange between pairs of commodities. This paper will demonstrate:
1 that this presumed reducibility is logically impredicative; 2 that exchange-value is conditional upon and describes a broad inter-
subjective space; 3 that the structure of exchange-value is boolean rather than euclidean; 4 that this boolean structure, rather than the maximizing behavior of
individual agents, accounts in the main for downward sloping demand curves; and
5 that some well-known paradoxes that appeared in twentieth-century economic theory were due to applying euclidean and intrasubjective assumptions to intersubjective boolean reality.
