Abstract: This article suggests that one of the great strengths of Jonathan Friedman’s global systemic anthropology is that it offers theoretical tools whereby objective systems and subjective experiences can be comprehended within a single analysis. This article argues that the anthropological study of values pursues a similar project of linking objective structures and personal desires and motivations and can for this reason make contributions to global systemic anthropology. This article argues that the most fruitful place to make this link is around the topic of identities, a key point of interchange between systems and experience in Friedman’s work. I argue that identities play this role because they are constituted by their links to specific values that they realize. Having developed an argument along these lines for linking Friedman’s work to the anthropology of values, I go on to illustrate the potential of the resulting theoretical synthesis by exploring the links between identities, values and the reproduction of social systems of various scales among the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea.