Functionality vs. Monetary Value

As I looked around my room to take an inventory of all the stuff, I realized that a typical college kid's everyday stuff is evaluated on function.  Food, clothes, books...the necessities of a college student.  In contrast, everyday stuff of the Colonial English people in America was evaluated for monetary value.  In her article, "Everyday American", Sarah Green writes,

           "When a person died in the 18th century, it was necessary for the government to figure out what they owned so that the items could be passed on to the appropriate heirs and all the people who were owed money, the creditors.

This was a society that was run on credit—bookkeeping credit and debts. So it was very likely at any given time that any one person had loaned money or goods to someone and was owed money or goods. The creditors would have to be paid off, and only then could the heirs receive what was owed to them.

The county court would appoint some officials who would go to the person’s home and make a list of what was in each room and assign a valuation to it and submit it to the court.

I think there was a lot of subjectivity because you were judging the condition of things, the quality of goods. You were judging their market value."

          The differences in needs and in cultures allows for this difference in "everyday stuff".  When we finish college, we're not going to be so focused on how much our stuff is worth, as we are going to be focused on how much our stuff helped us to attain the degree and the education that we did.  In colonial America, those citizens would be focused on how much money one would be able to get for a certain possession, and what they could buy with that money.  This is a large contrast that made me think about why I have what I have in my room -- I decided that it was mostly function based.