Value determination has nothing to do with causality and everything to do with teleology. The price of the chair has priority because it is most important, and it is most important because the value of the chair is the end. The value criterion. The chair and its value determination of the factor prices does not take place in a causal time dimension (first cause then effect); to think like that is absurd. Like making a judgement about the relative artistique quality of Shakespeare's sonettes versus Tragedies by placing them on a weight scale. The teleological explanation is not some kind of 'reverse causality' (the effect, that is, the price of the chair is the first, and the cause, factor price the second. For example, Böhm-Bahwerk misunderstands himself, the subjective value theory, by thinking of it as causal. The same goes for Menger,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_GwDwdEV2Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Causality involves time.
The hammer is the physical cause of the chair. But it doesen't make any sense to say the value of the chair causes the value of the hammer; all we can say is the value of the chair determines the value of the hammer.
A distinction without a difference? Please define what you mean by cause and determine in the above.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under - Mencken
Okay.
Essentialism claims the economy has a telos, an end, value, and the thematic order within the economic theory must reflect the real priority, for Austrians first goods then factors of production. Therefore the categorial connection must be understood teleologic (from greek telos = end), and causality with its cause and effect expelled from the economic theory as such to where it came from, physical connections (one snooker ball causes the other to go in the hole). The CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY concerns physical things happening in time and space (first cause, then effect) and therefore has no relevance for economic value theory as such; it's limited to the analysis of the technological preconditions. The hammer is among the physical causes of the chair, but it does not make sense to say the value of the chair causes the value of the hammer; all we can say is the value of the chair determines the value of the hammer.
The price of the chair and its determination of factor prices does not take place within the causal time dimension but rather within the realm of a teleological dimension.
Menger, Principles, Chapter one, The general theory of the good, p 67.
4. Time and Error
".....the idea of causality, however, is inseparable from the idea of time...."