So where does love fit into all of this? First consider the different kinds of love. These different kinds of love add up to a very complicated thing that we call 'Love.' We need to break Big L love back down. This does not discount love. In fact, we may find an entire other economy that operates at a strange intersection of the biological, societal, and intellectual. We should look at the different kinds of love and see what economies work at the different levels.
Romantic love has its roots in the biological. We find a direct line from our bodies building up feelings of romantic love and our genes being passed on.
Familial love sits at an interesting intersection between the biological and the societal. Biologically we gravitate toward love and care for our relations because they share some quantity of our genes. But the family also has societal structure that helps control and smooth out access to resources.
We define rusting love, aka, friendship as an intellectual love. We build a relationship on trust, and when trust gets violated we feel broken hearted. This kind of love bleeds down and crosses over into our romantic and familial love as well. This complicates the bounds of love even more.
Ultimately, I do not think love has its own economy, but I also don't think this cheapens love at all. It has a complicated and remarkably antifragile system that we should take joy in and celebrate. Love’s realness derives from all kinds of quality at all different levels.