The outrageous price of World Cup tickets
I can't quite believe what a ticket to the World Cup costs. You'd have to pay me to be there. This is subjective value in action. We should understand it if we want to drive down the cost of living.
At church on Sunday, a football fan was agitated. FIFA, he explained, are charging thousands of dollars for a top-tier ticket to the World Cup final. Eight thousand dollars for the final, he said. Two thousand dollars or so for an ordinary match. Two hundred and fifty dollars to park a car.
I was astonished. But the prices are even higher than that, it turns out.
Now you may be shocked, but the truth is, I am not a football fan. A ticket to the World Cup final may be worth thousands of dollars to you, but it is worth nothing to me. At a time when the cost of living is pinching so hard, this illustrates one of the most important and most neglected ideas in economics: subjective value.
It is ultimately very simple – something is worth what someone will pay for it – but mistakes were made about value by two of the most influential thinkers who ever lived: Karl Marx and Adam Smith. Their error of objective value is still made.
