Purposive Drift

Valuable no value

Abe Burmeister, raise an interesting dilemma in a recent post. He has three bikes and thinks he should get rid of one. The problem he poses is this:

"From a purely bike riding perspective its an easy question, the one I call my neighborhood cruiser has practically no value at all, it's worth more as parts than as a complete bicycle and those parts are not worth much. It shouldn't be too hard to part with, should it? But that is exactly the problem. I live in New York City and this bike is actually tremendously valuable based on the sole fact that it has no value.

This is a bike I can lock up on the street and not stress about in the least. I can, and do even leave it out overnight. From an economic standpoint this creates quite an interesting situation, a value that can not be monetized, for the very act of this feature taking on a monetary value would eliminate any value that existed. A bike with a real monetary value is worth stealing and that translates directly into both financial risk and psychological stress for a bike owner."

This reminds me of a similar problem faced by my son and some of his friends when they were younger. Wearing many of the popular brands of sneakers and clothes made them potential victims of street crime, so they had to evolve a style of dress that felt OK to them, but didn't scream 'rob me'.

This concept of the valuable no value looks to me one that is worth further exploration.

As a kind of PS, I would also urge you to take a look at his book, "Nomadic Economics", written under the name of William Abraham Blaze.