Part I defines value by what it does, and the definition is the most useful sentence in the chapter for our purposes. When people specialise they raise their marginal productivity in a narrow domain at the cost of no longer producing their own necessities, so they must embed in networks containing people with the skills they lack, and that requires a conception of value to mediate the flow of goods inside the network and between networks. The resulting group has greater productive capacity than a tribe with no means of mediating exchange. So value is both a by-product of and a catalytic factor in the tendency to specialise, which is another positive feedback loop. Part I states the function plainly: value exists because intermediation lets social networks increase their productive capacity and therefore their power. Intermediation is not a service attached to the economy, it is the thing value is for.

Evidence 1 passage

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value exists because the function of intermediation allows social networks to increase their productive capacity and therefore their power. This trait became entrenched in our mentality because nature and evolution are tireless tinkerers – selecting for systems that work and deliver benefits. Thus, the concept of value

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