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A theory of value is an analytical description of how value of economic variables is determined. Complexity economics is a school of thought that, using complexity science conception achievements, is intended to establish a new approach to economics, compared with conventional economic theory, i.e., neoclassical economics. The view of economic reality expressed by complexity economics literature so far, however only elaborated a different formulation of the premises from which the theory of value dominating economic science since a century and a half, actually proceeds. After pointing out the current position of complexity economics and neoclassical economics literature, the article indicates how, in order to constitute itself as an alternative economic theory, complexity economics should also produce a new theory of value: an explanation of the way economic variables values are determined, based on a view of the world as a complex system and constantly evolving reality. The concluding part of the paper, therefore, hints at a theory of value in which the value of economic variables is determined during all the phases of the unfolding of an economic system, considered as part of a larger natural complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoclassical Economics assumes that economic agents are independent and optimizing. The achievements of Psychoanalysis concerning the development of mind and human interactions, on the contrary, indicate that considering an individual as independent and optimizing is incorrect, as everyone, since birth, is mentally interconnected with other agents. In this research we firstly deal with and criticize the Neoclassical economics concepts of Independence and Optimization; then, on the basis of the psychoanalytic model of the mind, we draw a new definition of Competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]