Everything Has a Price
Why All Value is Ultimately Exchangeable
The tweet above makes a common conceptual error: it suggests certain values—generosity, empathy, creativity—require specialized "currencies" beyond money to measure their worth. Yet, this misunderstands what a price fundamentally represents: an exchange rate between different forms of value.
Consider the nature of value itself. Value is subjective; it emerges from individuals' preferences, perceptions, and choices. Anything deemed valuable by anyone can, in principle, be exchanged for anything else that holds value. The "price" merely quantifies the exchange ratio at a given moment.
Money has emerged historically as the universal intermediary for such exchanges, not because it directly measures every subtle nuance of human value, but because it drastically reduces the friction of exchange. It acts as a convenient medium, abstracting complex negotiations into simpler, broadly understood signals. This doesn't imply that money perfectly captures subjective qualities like empathy or creativity—but it can indirectly reflect them through transactions, investments, donations, patronage, or voluntary exchanges.
For instance, generosity often expresses itself through monetary gifts, donations, or philanthropy. Empathy can manifest in paying for services that reduce suffering or enhance well-being—therapy, coaching, or medical care. Creativity can find expression in art purchases, concert tickets, or crowdfunding support. Each of these scenarios involves an implicit pricing mechanism, where money represents an exchange rate between subjective forms of value.
Critics often object that certain human values are "priceless" or beyond monetary assessment, but this is a misunderstanding. "Priceless" simply means individuals refuse to accept any finite exchange, setting the implicit price infinitely high—this is itself a form of pricing.
The real complexity lies not in pricing itself, but in transaction costs, practicality, and ethical considerations. Some forms of value are tacit, diffused, or otherwise challenging to exchange explicitly. Trying to quantify love, loyalty, or friendship explicitly into monetary terms might harm these values or create unintended consequences. But the principle remains sound: prices are exchange rates, and anything valuable can, theoretically, be priced relative to anything else of value.
The call for alternative "currencies" to measure deeper values isn't entirely misguided—there may be social or reputational systems that better facilitate certain exchanges. Yet, these alternatives don't replace the concept of pricing; they merely represent different media of exchange designed for specialized contexts.
Ultimately, recognizing that pricing is fundamentally about exchange rates among subjective values clarifies that money isn't uniquely deficient—it's merely one highly effective tool within a broader, richer ecosystem of human exchange.