Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive

Social Value: A Study in Economic Theory, Critical and Constructive is a rigorous intervention in early twentieth-century value theory, examining how individual valuations become socially significant prices, costs, and institutions. Anderson writes in a dense but lucid argumentative style, moving from critique to reconstruction as he challenges both classical cost theories and narrowly psychological marginal utility accounts. Situated amid American institutionalism, Austrian subjectivism, and neoclassical price analysis, the book seeks a more adequate theory of value as an objective social phenomenon. Benjamin M. Anderson, later known as a monetary economist and banking theorist, brought to this work the ambitions of a young scholar trained in philosophy as well as economics. His concern with logic, social psychology, and market coordination helps explain the book‘s breadth: Anderson wished not merely to refine price theory, but to clarify the conceptual foundations on which economic science rested. This book is recommended for readers interested in the history of economic thought, especially debates over value, utility, and social institutions. Though demanding, it rewards careful reading with a powerful account of how economic meanings emerge within society.