What Are You Worth?

We say that human life has value. Whenever someone calls something a value three questions should immediately come to mind. To whom is it a value? What is its worth, or level of value? And finally what makes it valuable.

Your greatest value is your existence, you are human, and therefore it is in your interest to declare the value of human life. But I think we can narrow this down a bit with the question. Each individual is of differing value depending on who the evaluator is.

Here's a thought experiment. Would you sacrifice the life of your child to save the life of some distant African villager? No? What about two, or ten, or a thousand? How many Africans would have to die before you would kill your child? Once you have a figure, and then consider not your child, but your parent, sibling, or lover. Then how many sacrifices are we talking? Now one more twist, how many people of your own country would you trade for the life of your next door neighbour?

My point with this exercise is to demonstrate that the value of individual human life depends on the evaluator. People we love or people close to us have more value to us than people we do not know thousands of miles away.

Apparently the human primate brain is capable of recognizing only 150 people as individuals, everyone else is just people. This is called the monkeysphere. Those individuals within our sphere have more value to us than those outside and events closer to our sphere have more value than those distant. So a local bus crash killing fifty people resonates more than thousands dying in an African famine.

This phenomenon is part of human nature. It is natural and normal. However, we humans love messing with nature. You see, we humans can also imagine and we have emotional responses to our imagination.

So back to the thought experiment. Think of your favourite musician, singer, or actor. Think about how their works make you feel. Imagine your positive feelings when watching or listening to them. Relive the way they inspire you. Now how many Africans go on the fire to save the life of a celebrity that you do not even know? Remember that this is someone who, for all intents and purposes, is an imagined relationship.

We value people who bring us value, particularly emotional values. Hippies and Christians tell us to love everyone. To do so is to deny the unique value of people that we truly love. No one wants their lover too say, "of course I love you…I love everyone".

When evaluating human value, people fall into three categories: direct value, indirect value and potential value. A direct value is someone you know who brings you benefit. An indirect value is not so direct.

Think of your beloved and highly valued PC? Where did it come from? There is the chain of events from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, through all the designers, developers, the marketers, manufacturers, ect, ect., all the way through the various supply lines to make the value available to you. Then there is your end of the trade, think of all the people who make your pay cheque possible. People of indirect value are those people you cannot even imagine who make the values in your life possible, from your PC, to your milk, to your favourite chocolates.

Fellow humans, in that vague notion that we call society who exist well outside of your monkeysphere, are responsible for the values that you may take for granted in your daily life. These are people of indirect value.

People of potential value are those people you may or may not know who may or may not be of indirect value, but may possibly be of value. Think of the man who was rude to a stranger while running late to an important job interview only to discover this stranger is his interviewer. There are people outside of your monkeysphere who have the potential to become part of it. We all start off as strangers, it is where we end up that counts.

Beyond utility what makes something valuable is its scarcity. You have one mother but there are scores of potential milk delivery men in your area and millions of anonymous Africans (at least from your perspective). To the family and friends of these people they are unique and special snowflakes, but to you they are anonymous people outside of your monkeysphere. Any feelings or empathy that you have toward distant strangers comes from your own imagined thoughts and not from any actual relationship.

The purpose of life is the pursuit of happiness; happiness is an emotional response to gaining a value; values are created and traded, therefore people of value to us are those with whom we trade regularly, indirectly, or are potential trading partners. It is important to reemphasise that values may be material, such as goods, services, or money, or immaterial, such as the emotional values of love, acceptance, companionship, or comfort.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "Everyone lives by selling something." Human existence, relationships, society and yes, civilization itself, is built on trading values. We are all networkers, marketers, and salesmen.

It may at first seem cruel to see human worth in terms of trade. I once knew someone who would whole-heartedly reject that concept. Then one day she spoke of her work in terms of the values she had to offer her employers. I pointed out that she understood the concept of trading values; however she only saw it one way. What she could offer them. Trade is a two way street. What did they have to offer her?

This is common in the popular altruism-based approach to ethics. If morality is based on sacrifice, then we calculate our value on what we have offered in sacrifice. I say that human value in the broadest sense is determined by what each person brings to the marketplace of values.

Imagine a marketplace, perhaps some Oriental setting. What is on offer? Exotic fruits, decorative rugs and tapestries, strange curiosities, interesting meals, unique services? There is diversity on offer because people are diverse. The products on offer may be material, such as in my illustration, or immaterial, such as emotional connections. If someone does not want to buy what you have on offer then someone else will. Everything has a place in the market, whether that place is big or small.

In film and television it is common for the rogue character to ask, "What's in it for me?" Supposedly moral people do things because they are the right thing to do and not for the sake of any profit. This is true, but only to a point.

If you are walking down busy street and you see someone suddenly collapse, why should you stop and help them? You don't know them. They aren't in your monkeysphere. They have no value to offer. So why stop? Because it is better to live in a world where people take care of strangers. If you or someone that you care for collapsed in the street, then you would hope people would stop and help. So ultimately it is in your interest to stop and promote that kind of world.

Benevolence is a good thing. However, suppose someone demands the values you possess, such as your time, energy, or property, with nothing to offer in exchange except their expectation of something for nothing perhaps laced with some moral platitudes regarding serving others, or a higher cause, or a sacred duty, or just a sob story.

Imagine yourself as a trader, which you are, but think of it in a more modern sense as a small business owner. Your purpose is to make money. You create values which you offer to others in exchange for money. Now suppose a charity worker comes to you and asks for money. They want something for nothing. You may deem this as a good cause and give the money. That is your choice.

However, giving away money on this occasion does not alter your purpose. You are still a small business owner looking for profit. You are under no moral obligation to give money away to everyone who asks.

Likewise your life is an end in itself, as are the lives of others to them. You have no claim on their lives and they have no claim on yours. Your purpose is the exchange of values, but this does not exclude being benevolent should you choose.

It is a perfectly moral and legitimate question to ask, "What's in it for me?" In the Nineteenth Century, it would have been considered to height of rudeness to enter negotiations with nothing on offer except moralising.

There was a scene in the old television series Young Indiana Jones in which Indy was in the Belgian Congo where he met Dr. Albert Schweitzer. In one particular scene Indy was describing the number of deaths in the Great War raging in Europe to the natives. One asked if there were as many as ten men killed. Indy was confused and said that there were thousands of dead. "Must be expensive," one African replied.

Dr. Schweitzer explained to young Indy that these people subscribed to what the ancient Celts called the honour price and Anglo-Saxons the "man-gold" where the law dictated a value to each member of society. The penalty for murder was payment of the honour price to the family. In the context of the story, among these Africans this also applied also to those killed in battle.

Young Indy was horrified by the notion of putting a monetary value on human life. Schweitzer responded, "At least they value human life." As Aristotle said, we do not value that which costs us nothing.

This also illustrates the difference between Capitalist and Socialist societies. Capitalism recognises the Natural Law that human value is based on the ability to create values. Again, I want to emphasise that these values need not be material. They are more often than not emotional. And yet even something like money is a symbolic token representing the result of human time, energy, and skill – immaterial values converted into material value.

In principal, if a man is wealthy through enterprise and hard work, as opposed to inherited wealth, then he has proven himself capable of high production. This production is then spread to others to increase their production. His creation of values makes him valuable, increases the value of others, and thus increases the value of society as a whole.

I am reminded of a scene in Les Misérables when Jean Valjean is considering turning himself in to Detective Javert to save the life of his look-a-like. In weighing his options, he considers the fate of the employees in his factory who are dependent on his production. When he does eventually escape the town, he leaves the factory to his workers who run it into the ground because they lack his management skill.

According to the traditional idea, the great man was great because others were dependent on his production and he is held responsible by his investors to continue and expand that production. The consequence is opportunity for those beneath him to support their families and improve their lives.

In a Socialist state, all men are deemed to be of equal value regardless of their ability to produce values. The man who brings nothing to the marketplace of values is equal to the man who brings everything. Politicians, bureaucrats, and their enforcers enter the marketplace as non-producing third parties to ensure this forced equality.

The result is the creation of an entire segment of the population who are possessed of a sense of entitlement to the values of others but produce little or nothing to contribute. Since human value is based on the creation and trading of values, there is a shift of consciousness to one that bases human value on emotional grounds. This ultimately devalues human life.

In the words of Ferris Bueller, "I do have a test today, that wasn't bullshit. It's on European socialism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists, it still doesn't change the fact that I don't own a car."

This line from the film could be used to illustrate American ignorance of the world outside of their sphere. It may be deemed small-minded thinking and lacking a global perspective. However, in terms of a value-oriented approach to existence it is a perfectly valid point. The affairs of other nations are only relevant when they threaten our acquiring our values.

The alternative is to "feel" the pain of others who we do not know, who have absolutely no bearing on our lives, and live thousands of miles away in another country. We may acknowledge their woes, but at the end of the conversation we return to our lives, our values, and our concerns. Thus are many serious moralists hypocrites.

This is why global activist like to "put a face" on an issue, usually child's face. They want evoke emotional responses that are not natural. The ultimate message is that all human life is of value, which is true, but also that all human life should be of equal value to every person regardless of values. Therefore we must sacrifice our values for people who will likely never trade with us because it is the right thing to do.

Emotions are a response to values. When emotions are based on pure imagination without any real world foundation, then they are "fake" emotions. This is what the Victorians recognised as sentimentality.

Thus far I have presented an argument for value-based assessment of human value. The alternative is a sentimental-based assessment. This devalues human life because we are not actually valuing humanity so much as valuing our preconceived idea of certain segments of humanity. With Idealism the idea of the thing takes precedent over the reality of the thing. Anything that does not fit the idea must be eliminated.

In a quasi-socialist state like the United Kingdom the sentimental assessment of human worth has been sustained at a relatively high level. However, in more authoritarian states, such as Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Maoist China, the emotional bubble bursts and the result was the mass murder of tens of millions of people.

Why? Because a value-based judgement is focused on what one individual can offer other individuals as a direct, indirect, or potential source of values. When value is no longer determined by the marketplace of values but taken and redistributed by the state according to groups, then both the values and the creators of these values have no value beyond arbitrary levels determined by the state.

I appreciate that what I have written here may go against all we in the West have been taught. We are encouraged to love everyone and hold hands like in a Coca-cola commercial. Unfortunately Natural Law does not support that notion.

I also appreciate that what I have written here may be taken wrongly as a licence to be a dick. Nothing is further from the truth. In retail sales, the key to good customer service, what every customer expects on the most basic level, is for the experience to be pleasant. The same holds true in our dealings in the marketplace of values. Treat your fellow man with courtesy and respect. You can do that without being either loving or cruel. You can do that without either sacrifice or dishonesty.

Likewise internationally we must do what we can to encourage global trade to allow people thousands of miles away to bring their values into the marketplace and thus improve their lives. History has shown that the best way to alleviate poverty is to have a job. Governments do not create jobs and charities do not create jobs (except for their employees of course). Businesses create jobs.

As for your personal life, one might define success as the achievement of your values. People we call successful do so on a regular basis. The fruits of regular value creation usually yield money and money is exchanged for stuff. Thus is the well-dressed man in the nice car who takes luxurious holidays considered to be a success.

However, values are very personal. The achievement of your values and value creation may bring you happiness and bolster your self-esteem, but not all the stuff society equates with success. That does not matter as long as you are happy in the space that you have created for yourself.

So how valuable are you? If you are happy in your space then you are of value to yourself. If you produce values for others, then you are of value to them. If you mass produce values on a global scale, then you are of value to millions of people. If you want to increase your value, then create more values, market those values, and sell those values.

This applies in your monkeysphere and in the world at large. The great sin is expecting something for nothing. So you can create nothing and claim some sentimental value or you can create value and have true worth. The choice is yours.