what this model gains in versatility–the notion that the preferences of millions of individuals determine prices, and hence value–it loses in its ability, or, rather, lack of ability, to measure what Smith called ‘the wealth of nations’, the total production of an economy in terms of value. As value is now merely a relative concept–we can compare the value of two things through their prices and how the prices may change–we can no longer measure the labour that produced the goods in the economy and by this means assess how much wealth was created.
