# subjective-value theory # Links the view, developed by the [Austrian School](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#Austrian%20School%20of%20Economics), that [economic value](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#economic%20value) is not an inherent property of a [good](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#good). Rather, it is determined by the [preference](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#preference)s of those who wish to acquire the [good](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#good). ------------ The value theory of the modern economists (the followers of Carl Menger, 1840-1921, W. Stanley Jevons, 1835-1882, and Leon Walras, 1834-1910 and the American economist, John Bates Clark.(1847-1938) which holds that the relative [values](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#value) of [goods](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#good) and [services](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#service)|, in the sense that [values](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#value) determine human actions, are to be found in the minds of acting men at the moment of their decisions to act or not to act and not in the physical characteristics or the costs of production of such goods and services. [Value](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#value) is thus said to be subjective rather than objective. The value of economic goods is in the minds of individual men and therefore is neither constant nor inherent in the goods themselves; that values of the same good vary, as the judgments of the individuals making the valuations vary, from person to person and from time to time for the same person. See "[marginal theory of value](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#marginal%20theory%20of%20value)." [[Epistemological Problems of Economics - Mises (EP)]] 146-81; [[Theory of Money and Credit (M.)]] 38-45; [[Omnipotent Government - Mises (OG)]] 113; also [[Understanding the Dollar Crisis (PLG.)]] 27-63. Also, see [subjective theory of value](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#subjective%20theory%20of%20value). --- # References