In this article, we take a critical approach to the conception of value in the mainstream economic sense, being value understood only in terms of the price of a given object or activity. Following this line of argumentation, only activities that are associated with a price, mainly waged labour, are considered to be valuable. We argue throughout this article that this conception of value can be reductionist and have significant implications in the way we conceive the mechanisms of social protection, especially in welfare states that followed the Birmarckian architecture, which are based on occupational status in the regular job market. The article is divided in three main sections. In the first section, we take a critical approach to the concept of value as price put forward by mainstream economic theory, especially in relation to waged labour, mobilizing various contributes to this discussion from classical and modern authors in different areas of knowledge. In the next section, we examine a concept that may serve as an alternative to rethink about value, post productivism. In short, post productivism calls attention that multiple forms of production and exchange of value take place in modern societies and that waged labour, although of crucial importance, cannot represent the only valid source. Other sorts of activities such as voluntary work or multiple forms of care work are vital to the lives of many people and, according to the concept of post productivism, should be integrated in the definition of value. Finally, we explore how the reductionist conception of value as price (in the form of waged labour in this case) structures the protection mechanisms of Welfare States that share a Bismarckian architecture, which are based mainly of protection based on occupational status in regular job market. Considering a Post Productivist approach, we explore other policies that can function in parallel with ‘traditional’ Bismarckian protection mechanisms and, at the same time, enable the creation of value in multiple and creative ways

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