What Is Real Value?

A question has been floating around in my mind today. I was thinking about prices. I was having a discussion with my husband about what the price of something should be. His point was that everything has different value to different people.

True. I have friends that enjoy scrapbooking. I however, do not. These women seem to really enjoy their hobby. I have to admit, I wish I liked it. I somehow feel I am lacking in femininity because I can't stand to scrapbook. I like looking at the wonderful books these people put together. Perhaps my children will wish they had one someday. Alas, they will only have CD Rom's and boxes full of pictures of themselves. I guess I am OK with that. But the real point is this: to me, scrapbooking supplies have little or no value, therefore, I wouldn't spend much if anything on them. But to many women (let's face it, it is almost only women who do this activity), they are extremely valuable. They literally are willing to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on pretty paper. The person who receives the higher utility from a certain product, is willing to pay more for it. Without this there would be no markets, no arbitrage, no speculation. This is all fine and good. But it ultimately means that value is subjective.

I am having trouble with this idea. I really want value to be objective. But it isn't. It just isn't. The marketplace is what it is; and isn't it cool? If value were objective, I couldn't make money trading stocks. If value were objective, everyone would be willing to pay the same amount for scrapbooking supplies. Pehaps the best markets can do is get the prices of goods as close to their true value as possible through trading.

My old economics professors would probably laugh at me, "DUH". But it still fascinates me.

If you can think of a good or a commodity that has objective value please comment & explain your thoughts. I would love to hear them.