More thoughts on Personal Economy

I was thinking today about just how "personal" a personal economy really is. Is it ever possible for two people to share the exact same personal economy? Or can two people's economies eventually converge when their experiences begin to overlap?

If two twins are raised together with the exact same conditions, and they spend the entirety of their lives together and share the same experiences, then would their personal economies be the same? Or does personal economy have something to do with personality as well?

I feel as though Herrnstein Smith's arguments regarding literature, could easily carry over into the psychology field. It seems to me that Herrnstein Smith is correct in her assumptions about personal economy though, in the sense that one can learn to like certain works of art. Many school children detest "the great" authors such as Shakespeare, but learn to like them as they grow older. Their experiences shape the value they assign to the text itself. A lot of this rests on the shoulders of society, however. If one does not share an apreciation for the works of Shakespeare then one is considered uncouth and uncultured in some way. Ideas about value hinge on social stature. One can really only climb the social ladder if and only if they appreciate the right wine, music, art, books etc. So do we really like the art, or the benefits it affords us?

On another note, there was something in her essay that confused me. I don't understand why, if our "purposes are continuously transformed and redirected" (1915), we have classic works of art. If our ideas about value are fluid things, and values is not, in fact, inherent, then why don't our ideas about the most "valuable" works of art change as well? As our personal economies change, so should our standards for what makes art valuable.