What is the Value Crisis?

A new framework for human problems - a brief review of the essential ideas

Value systems are the basis for how we make choices and decisions. Much can be learned about value systems by understanding how we, as individuals and as a society, generally measure successfulness. How one measures successfulness will determine how goals are defined, how progress is tracked, and ultimately how decisions are made in the first place. Successfulness can be measured in two ways: quantitatively and qualitatively. Successfulness by quantitative values is measured exclusively by number. The thing that you’re counting is irrelevant—it could be dollars, acres, cell phones, or even votes. Since the value is directly defined by quantity, more is always worth more, so more is always better.

Qualitative values, on the other hand, are relative and innately recognized but impossible to precisely measure. Examples include health, justice, wisdom, satisfaction, freedom, morality, joy, affection, culture, and integrity—values intimately tied to our innate programming and the very definition of humanity. We can all acknowledge their impact on our well-being, but they’re impossible to objectively translate into a number. This distinction between quantitative values (number-based values) and qualitative values (sometimes labelled living or human-based values) is the fundamental conflict of the Value Crisis.

Since quantitative values are measured and indeed defined by number, they inherit some core principles of numbers:

1. Numbers are limitless (unending, infinite). This is significant, because it is a unique attribute. Numbers are the only thing we know to be entirely without end.

2. Numbers are linear (a single scale going up or down). Pick any two numbers, and one will always be greater than the other. One cannot say the same of qualitative descriptors such as “happy” or “triangular”.

3. Numbers are consistent (across time, space, and culture). Ten will always be greater than seven, and always by the same amount. The same mathematical operations will produce precisely the same results, no matter where, when, or by whom they are done.

Limitless

Because numbers are limitless, values measured by number are also theoretically limitless: you can always increase the value by adding more quantity. There are at least two critical consequences of this attribute. The first is that there is no built-in concept of sufficiency. People have no independent way of knowing when they have enough. More is always worth more, so why would they ever want to stop accumulating dollars or acres or getting cell phone upgrades? (This is why I use the term “successfulness” instead of “success”. “Success” can suggest an end point—an elusive goal in limitless systems.) Without the concept of sufficiency, the second problem becomes increasingly clear: Ecologically speaking, applying a limitless value system to a limited reality will eventually threaten one or the other.

Sufficiency is not just a minimum—it can define a maximum as well, and in both respects, it is a fundamental concept of happiness. As a minimum, sufficiency means you have enough and your needs are met. As a maximum, it means that you have all that you desire, and more would actually be undesirable. For example, “sufficient food” can mean that you are not starving, and it can also mean that you could not comfortably eat any more.

Linearity

The linearity of numbers means that two valuations measured by number are instantly and objectively comparable. In our complex world we are constantly presented with decisions to make. If such decisions can be turned into a number-based value comparison, they become enticingly easy—we simply select the undisputable higher valuation every time. We assume that we are at our most rational when we let the objective numbers determine our choices. Even ignoring the potential conflict with qualitative human-based values, the biggest flaw with this approach is that real life decisions almost never distil down to a single number. If you are comparing spaghetti sauces, price per ml is an obvious number, but so are overall volume, sugar, salt, fats, bacteria count, distance travelled, and shelf life. Decision-making by number is heavily dependent on which numbers are selected.

Consistency

The third principle, numerical consistency, means that the inflexibility of numbers can be gamed by some individuals at the expense of others because context can be circumvented. Consider the phenomenon of globalized trade. It is all very well to say that, relative to the cost of living, the four dollars per day that people in India are paid (to do what would cost thirty times as much in the USA) is still a fair wage. But at the end of the day, that paltry expenditure is resulting in significant savings on a corporate balance sheet in America, leading to exploitation and huge profit at the potential expense of other values and considerations. Moreover, being bound by the rules of mathematics, numeric values can be consistently and reliably manipulated. Mathematicians can shuffle bits and bytes through such practices as currency trading and complex investments like derivatives (essentially gambling) to produce phenomenal wealth without contributing any real value to the world.

Real World Impacts

While a direct correlation between quantity and value might seem intuitive and obvious, it is important to realize that absolutely nothing in the natural world fully embraces this concept. Nowhere in Nature is more always better. Everything important to sustainable life on this planet (water, food, warmth, progeny, etc.) relies on states of sufficiency and balance. The examples given above for things whose value might be determined by counting (dollars, cell phones, acres, and votes) each tell a slightly different story. In the real world, the available acres of land are limited. In our economic world, we make land value unlimited by monetizing it and continually increasing the price per acre. Since money is now an entirely virtual construct, society does have limitless dollars. Similarly, there may be a finite number people who buy cell phones in the world, but through marketing and built-in obsolescence, one can at least sell multiple phones to the same consumer. The point is that to overcome the physical limitations that cap the cumulative value of such things, you have to translate them into the unlimited virtual world of money. Trees are very slow to reproduce, and are also susceptible to fire, disease, and infestation—so a company that owns forests is pushed to cut them down into lumber or paper as soon as possible and turn them into cash, where the value can grow exponentially. As for decision-making by vote, that’s a number-based value system because, when voting for or against something, the option getting more votes is more highly valued and is the one selected. However, in reality, popular opinion can be manipulated and is a very unreliable measure of the actual wisdom of a decision. Opinions don’t just have a quantity—they have a quality as well. There are plenty of instances where the minority is smarter, has better information, and is tragically correct but ignored.

Alas, as such number-based valuations of successfulness and wealth became prevalent and more powerful in society, human-based qualitative values (like justice, affection, health, wisdom, joy, freedom, morality, satisfaction, culture, and integrity) were increasingly over-ruled and ignored. The crushing domination of today’s mega-corporations and their indifference to human values is entirely due to their near-exclusive number-based value system programming, resulting in an obsessive pursuit of profit and the externalization of related costs to society.

Note that this is not an exercise in dividing people into two groups. We all use qualitative and quantitative values at different times. However, we do exhibit preferences and choose different values to govern our lives. The key premise is that far too often, the number-based values veto our more human values so that those important qualitative values that governed our evolution for thousands of years ultimately don’t have the precedence that they desperately deserve. Also, when speaking of number-based values such as money, there is a tendency to assume that the problematic issue is greed. This is a misnomer. It is important to understand that greed is excess, and can only exist where a sufficiency is exceeded. In a system that can only indirectly embrace the idea of sufficiency, ‘greed’ might simply be a manifestation of people rationally pursuing ‘success’ within the principles of an unnatural value system.

What Happened?

So, if number-based value systems are limitless, linear, and consistent, while innate human value systems have none of those properties, how did humans end up with a society run by numbers? I propose four possible contributing factors:

Firstly, all lifeforms are programmed to consume and procreate. Hence, from an individual perspective, more is often worth more—but not always. More food is generally better than less; same for clean water, shelter warmth, fresh air, helping hands, and stone tools. Still, in the natural world, all of those things eventually reach sufficiency, after which, in most cases, more might actually be less desirable—i.e. worth less.

Secondly, when biological programming sets any lifeform on a course of exceeding sustainable boundaries—think consumption or population growth—nature has built-in negative feedback (satiation, food and energy shortages, predators, disease, etc.) to keep such growth in check. Humans, however, have used their knowledge, technology, and now fossil fuels to bypass many of these natural limitations. Moreover, when we introduce more arbitrary, unnatural concepts such as monetary wealth, the planet’s built-in feedback loops and self-regulation no longer apply at all, and our pursuit of more becomes limitless.

Thirdly, in our quest to become more rational, we academically decided that things which could not be measured did not exist or had vastly diminished relevance. This doctrine advanced scientific thought, but it also deprecated human qualitative values which defy quantitative measurement. Rather than give such values their own weight, we increasingly adopted definitions of wealth and power that left the complexity and fuzziness of subjective ‘irrational’ human values behind.

Finally, it should be reiterated that, as our world grows in complexity, decision-making by number is easier—the greater quantity is valued higher. Successfulness, measured by number, comes from simple math-based decisions and can be proven by simple scorecards. It seems more rational and objective, but in reality, it is a lazy approach to the challenge of value decisions. Qualitative values are difficult to define linearly. More often, they are a polarity of contrasting opposites, with no absolute right or wrong answer, where context is everything. Still, our brains are wired for that. A four-year-old already has a profound sense of what’s fair and what’s not, long before they can grasp math. In contrast, number-based values often apply well when considering the mechanistic parts of a system, but fundamentally fail to work for the complex systems of nature and society.

The Value Crisis

The idea of the Value Crisis is an assertion that the greatest threats to humanity can be primarily attributed to the excessive precedence of number-based values. Our society has arrived at a state where quantitative values (such as money) consistently trump qualitative (life-based) values, which has led to an existential crisis. Major impacts of the Value Crisis are a breakdown in the integrity of our ecosystem (manifested by what is known as ecological overshoot), and crippling social inequities and decline (collectively called sociological shortfall). The first is directly caused by our obsessive application of the flawed core concept that "More is Always Better"—a concept that defies natural laws. The second shares the same origin, with the additional consideration that number-based value systems tend to be zero-sum games. When what you value is countable, then a gain on one side is typically reflected as a loss on the other. In contrast, qualitative values are often rooted in relationships and sharable win-win successes.

An understanding of the difference between quantitative and qualitative value systems is pivotal to moving humanity to our next level of progress (and even surviving our current state). The Value Crisis is a metacrisis (fundamental to more visible crises such as climate change and social inequity) which can only be solved by restoring qualitative values to having an equivalent precedence over number-based values, when appropriate.

[Might I suggest heading over to a brief summary list of my other articles, to see if there are others that might interest you. It’s like a little tasting menu!]