What's Valuable?

Abstract

This essay is the concluding chapter for The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy, edited by Patrik Aspers and Jens Beckert (Oxford University Press). I start with an insight of John Dewey's that the terms price, prize, and praise all share a common Latin root. To this triplicate I add a fourth, perform, using these four concepts as a device to discuss the papers in the volume. In one section, I address the phenomenon of Top Ten lists: On-line ratings and rankings by consumers now provide vast sources of data on prizing and appraising - new means to register value judgments in the economy.