Prestige and Utility

Prestige-Value is the Utility of social status, i. e. the Pleasure of being admired by others.  So, the relative Utilities of diamonds and water that some Economists find paradoxical are plainly those of their respective Prestige-Values.  Equally plainly, the ranking of the two in their studies is contingent, i. e. might be very different under drought conditions, or in a society in which greed or ostentation were generally disapproved of.  Furthermore, their attention to what is a superficial comparison distracts from deeper problems--the nature of Prestige-Utility, and its relation to Vital-Utility.