Approval theory of value

Marsh offers this as an account of where value actually comes from in the systems she criticizes, set against the familiar economic theories. Rather than value resting on labour, on utility or on what a market will pay, it rests on social approval: a good is worth what it signals about the owner's standing in the group. A thing that commands admiration is valuable because of the admiration, not because of any use it serves. This is the engine underneath the approval economy, and it explains phenomena that puzzle need-based or use-based accounts, such as why scarce, useless or even harmful things can carry enormous value while things people genuinely need go cheap. Value, on this theory, is a measure of approval, and approval is granted by the group according to its ideals.

Economics has long debated the source of value through the labour theory, the marginal-utility and subjective theories, and the idea of Veblen or positional goods bought for status. Marsh's approval theory sits nearest the positional-goods line but generalises it: approval is not one factor among several but the basis of value in an approval economy, tied to her account of how endogroups grant standing according to an idealised centre.