Economics and Margin

As has been previously discussed, the so-called "paradox" of the relative values of diamonds and water derives from a contrast of Ostentation-Value vs. Use-Value.  In turn, the latter contrast is rooted in that of Social-Value vs. Personal Value, a difference of kind that is glossed as a difference of degree in both traditional Utilitarianism and standard concepts of Demand--with the significant consequence that as less profitable, vital need is a lower priority in some Economic systems.  Now, that difference in kind is often conceived as an ontologically fixed conflict, e. g. as Collective vs. Individual, and, hence, as the fundamental topic of Morality, e. g. Kantian, or of Psychology, e. g. Freudian.  However, that antagonism can itself be diagnosed as contingent--as a symptom of a dysfunctional society, e. g. as Alienation, i. e. as a breakdown of a healthy Whole-Part relation of the Social and the Personal.  But, if so, then the Economic system in which that dysfunction is represented as a 'paradoxical difference of degree' is itself a symptom of the dysfunction.  Accordingly, the 'margin' that emerges in the "paradox of value" is not, as the Marginalists analyze it, that of increments in the Utility of diamonds or of water, but the very limitations of these Economic models themselves, beyond which are social and personal conditions that are the contexts from which the models have been abstracted.