if you price something arent you placing a value (i price it at 5 dollars, i value it 5 dollars) on that something??? wouldnt a price always be a value?? as an inch is always a distance??

does that ever occur??

would a price always be a value?? but not necessarily the other way around??

and how is the price – value discussion a part of so called austrian economics??

Indeed there is, but I would say in the current context you are using the term metaphorically.

I think you are reading too much into it. The only thing I meant is that prices reflect preference (as oppose to measure preference). That is, prices are derived from preferences and changes in prices reflect changes in preference.

This is not true…

If price is not the same as value, then price differences between goods is not the same thing as value differences.

Indeed there is, but I would say in the current context you are using the term metaphorically.

“For me to have established price equivalency between goods I would have had to establish utility cardinally. ”

This is not true; I would urge you to study the proof of the representation theorems (which are based on an ordinal concept of utility) in any intermediate microeconomics text. I’m not trying to be snotty or rude here, I think you will find the exercise quite useful. I know I only came to fully appreciate Rothbard’s formulation of utility theory after having understood the neoclassicst viewpoint.

So price coord. determines the div. of labor which determines trade? Something like that?

Isn’t price theory a big deal in economics for the last 50 yrs or so? If so, is that an influence from the Austrians?

Well, a lot (everything, really) hinges on what you mean here by “reflect.”

As far as I know, there is only one definition of the word “reflect”.

Again, my point is not that utility as such is being measured or is cardinal, but rather it is assumed that value equivalencies between goods are an economically meaningful cardinal entity (such that prices proxy for these equivalencies, and as the market equilibrates value equivalencies align with price ratios).

For me to have established price equivalency between goods I would have had to establish utility cardinally. That changes in consumer spending represent changes in valuations doesn’t imply any type of cardinal measurement, whether of specific goods or between goods.

An honest interlocutor would place his objections on the table. Are you an honest interlocutor?

Well, a lot (everything, really) hinges on what you mean here by “reflect.”

“There is presupposition of cardinal utility here; utility is not measured. ”

I assume you omitted “no” in the first sentence. Again, my point is not that utility as such is being measured or is cardinal, but rather it is assumed that value equivalencies between goods are an economically meaningful cardinal entity (such that prices proxy for these equivalencies, and as the market equilibrates value equivalencies align with price ratios).

They’re conveying changes in how much *money* the consumer will pay for the good in question. But you seem to mean “preference” in a different sense, however.