I owe you some explanation why a sole practitioner has invested decades into solving the problem of the best use of things.
I’m no economist and have no interest in solving the classical and neo-classical Value Problems associated with exchange value. However, I’m keenly interested in the relationship between value in use and company law and corporate governance. In particular, whether a better understanding of value in use might solve the Company Law Problem – what is a corporation, what is its purpose and what does it mean to act in the best interests of the corporation.
It is important to realise that not a single premise relating to value in use appears in the formulation of mainstream theories intended to explain the modern corporation and its role in society. The dominant theories for explaining and predicting the nature of corporations are not value neutral “theories of the firm” but very specific “exchange value theories of the firm”. These theories are almost exclusively analysed from the perspective of exchange value (Coase, Jensen and Mecking Friedman). Having lost count of the number of papers I’ve read on the nature and purpose of company law and corporations, the one thing nearly all have in common is that the concept of exchange value is their cornerstone.
The Anglo American model of company law and corporate governance has largely been interpreted through the lens of exchange value. The corporation and case law painted by legal and corporate governance scholars in a way that invisibly re-enforces and confirms the assumptions underpinning the neoclassical concept of exchange value - the profit maximizing fiction that perfectly balances individual subjective preference. At the same time forming a protective group think barrier around theories of the corporation. Namely, only theories of the corporation that are consistent with the neo-classical solution to the Value Problem and by extension, shareholder primacy are worthy of serious consideration.
My goal in Millennia Challenge series is to follow the precedent set by Coase, Jensen and Meckling. However, instead of using value in exchange and the first law of thermodynamics as the theoretical basis for understanding company law, I propose to one day develop a theory of the corporation based on the concept of value in use and the second law of thermodynamics - a value in use theory of the corporation to challenge the value in exchange theories of the corporation.
This work is well progressed but is gibberish nonsense to lawyers and legal academics who are convinced that the purpose of the company and corporate law is to maximize exchange value.
The obstacle is that academics and intellectuals having abandoned the value in use project hundreds of years ago, there is no equivalent theory of value in use which can be applied to company law. Though the modern corporation predates the rise of neo-classical economics, economists, and lawyers unlike were quick to recast corporate law in the image of their formalistic first law of thermodynamics assumptions. Indeed, much of the field known as corporate governance is a veiled attempt to operationalise the assumptions that undermine theories of exchange value. Put simply, theories of company law and corporate governance that prioritise shareholder interests are products of the solution to the neo-classical value problem. It should therefore be no surprise that they are wholly inadequate to solve the problem of the best use of the worlds limited resources.
My belief is that the death of shareholder primacy would be greatly accelerated if there existed a science of value in use that is the equivalent of economics or the science of value in exchange. But, there being no such science to speak of, we have no choice to take up Aristotle’s Millennia Challenge and formulate a theory of value in use that can provide a rigorous foundation for a new company law and new accounting and reporting.
The purpose of developing a change theory of value is therefore to do the theoretical groundwork necessary to solve the problem of the corporation and perhaps temper their well-documented anti-social tendencies. The solution to which will directly challenge the dominant exchange value theory of the corporation that tends to prioritize the production of profit over all else. In this sense, my work is intended is solve the two problems that are conspiring against the planet. The first is to solve the problem of what value in use is and how is it created and then use this answer to propose a novel solution the problem of the corporation. One that involves conceiving the corporation as an energy structure capable of satisfying humanity’s basic need for value in use.
But, in the same way that Coase and others needed the neo-classical theory of value to develop a neo-classical theory of the firm, I need a pre-classical theory of value if I am ever to develop a pre-classsical theory of the corporation that can be understood by someone other than me.