P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Price, taken by itself, is nothing but the monetary expression of value.

Value is consequently the necessary theoretical starting point whence we can elucidate the peculiar phenomenon of prices resulting from capitalist competition.

Every thing receives a value from its use, and the Value is raised [or lowered], according to its Quality, Quantity and Demand.

So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange-value either in a pearl or a diamond.

The economists will have to revise their theories of value.

Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while Value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing.

In stating the principles which regulate exchangeable value and price, we should carefully distinguish between those variations which belong to the commodity itself, and those which are occasioned by a variation in the medium in which value is estimated, or price expressed.

I started working and publishing in price theory by 1938.

Even before I came to Chicago, I had gotten interested in the existence of dispersion of prices under conditions which economic theory said would yield a single price.

Something is worth what somebody will pay for it. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less.

Price is what you pay, but value, as Warren Buffett has observed, is what you get.

Valuation is what people are willing to pay.

Economists tell us that the 'price' of an object and its 'value' have very little or nothing to do with one another. 'Value' is entirely subjective economic value, anyway while 'price' reflects whatever a buyer is willing to give up to get the object in question, and whatever the seller is willing to accept to give it up. Both are governed by the Law of Marginal Utility, which is actually a law of psychology, rather than economics. For government to attempt to dictate a 'fair price' betrays complete misunderstanding of the entire process.

Economics is not an attempt to generalize human desires or human behavior; but to generalize the phenomena of price.

Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.

And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the Price.

We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.

The quantity of money, which is readily parted with to obtain a thing is called its price.

Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it; its price, the quantity of labourwhich its possessor will take in exchange for it.

The opinions that the price of commodities depends solely on the proportion of supply and demand, or demand to supply, has become almost an axiom in political economy, and has been the source of much error.

Economic theory does not work with human beings. We are far too messy.

As for Marx, his economic value, apart from occasional … flashes of insight, is nil.

Anything free is worth what you pay for it

Even money has a price.

The value of money comes from the private sector in the form of price for product, services rendered, what people are willing to pay for something they want or need. That's where value happens. Government has nothing to do with that.