Sign value

In sociology as well as in economics, a term sign utility denotes in addition to describes a value accorded to an object because of the prestige social status that it imparts upon the possessor, rather than the material value and utility derived from the function and the primary ownership of the object. For example, the buyer of a Rolls-Royce limousine might partly value the automobile as transport, yet might also value it as athat signifies his or her wealth to a specific community and to society in general. The automobile’s transport-function is primary, from which arises its use-value, whilst the social prestige function is secondary, from which arises its sign-value.

The French sociologist Jean Baudrillard presents the conviction ofvalue as a philosophic and economic counterpart to the dichotomy of exchange-value vs. use-value, which Karl Marx recognized as a characteristic of capitalism as an economic system.