"Tim"
q.con> wrote in
news:-4edndXBfehz5VDVnZ2dnUVZ_gqdnZ2d@aci.on.ca:
>> Perhaps you can grasp the point if put this way.
>> If "labor" is a fundamental component of market value, then how do
>> you explain the market value of labor itself?
> Supply and demand. S and D exist due to scarcity. Scarcity allows a
> good or service to command a positive price in a market. Labour, among
> other things, is a service. I'm letting go of your hand now.
>
>> Labor itself has value,
>
> yes.
>
>> which
>> differs greatly depending upon the type of labor in question.
>
> yes.
>
>> Even you
>> can probably see that trying to explain the the market value of labor
>> in terms of the amount of labor invested in it would be circular.
>
> Who was trying to do that? Scarcity is the basis for the market value
> of labour, and for the market value of anything else
Aha. Now you're contradicting yourself. Previously, you declared that land,
labor, and capital were the bases of market value. Now you say that
"scarcity" is.
That might explain why the diamond-laden meteorite has a market value *in
situ,* despite the fact that no labor has been invested in it. Diamond-
laden meteorites are fairly rare, after all.
Can we say, then, that labor has value, when it does (and it doesn't
always), only when the particular labor in question is scarce?
Note that we have to say "particular labor" here, because you insist on
treating labor *per se* as a fundamental component of value, and refuse to
analyze the factors which make some labor worth a lot, some worth only a
little, and some worth nothing at all.
But perhaps the point is moot if scarcity is the fundamental factor
determining market value, rather than labor. So let's look more closely at
"scarcity."
Why should the fact that an item is scarce render it valuable?
Suppose I type up a random string of characters, a full page long, on my
computer and print it out. We can probably be certain there is not another
page exactly like it in the world; hence it will be unique, and that is as
scarce as you can get. It must be exceedingly valuable, eh?
Before we go further with this, you should try to define "scarcity." The
term has several meanings in economics, and you need to be clear on them
before you can rely on that term to explain market value.
>> Oh. Are you denying, or at least questioning, that the meteorite has >>
a market value where it lies? Before an iota of labor has been
>> invested in it?
> You'd have to look up the going rate for meteorites. That takes
> labour, as did determining the going rate. The rarity of the thing
> would be, I believe, a significant factor in its market value.
You mean that my labor in checking the current price for meteorites or raw
diamonds is what imparts that value to the meteorite? Isn't that circular?
Those things must already have a market value for me to look them up, don't
they?
But you also offered rarity as an explanation of the meteorite's value.
That is "scarcity" again. Are you now admitting that labor is not a factor
in that value?
> But getting back to the issue, how much would you get for the meterite
> if you didn't find it?
Nothing. So is stepping out my back door and finding the meteorite
sufficient "labor" to endow it with the considerable value it probably has?
Why doesn't the same amount and kind of labor endow the dead pigeon I found
yesterday with value?
>> The authors of your first-year econ text are trying to get some basic
>> ideas of economics across to boneheads. So they approach the subject
>> via its simplest, classical formulation. If you'd delve further into
>> the subject, you'd find that labor is not a *fundamental* component
>> of value. Neither is land, BTW. The value of land is a function of
>> its incidents and location.
> It is a function of a lot more than that. But since you've delved
> deeper cite me your sources, or do you get to bypass proof of
> authority, again ?
>> When you've mastered all those subtleties, then you can tackle the
>> puzzle of how *any* investment of *any* factors in *any* good can
>> manage to impart value to it.
>
> Not until you solve the puzzle of how there is any good or sevice
> without that investement. Note that *anything* is kinda meaningless,
> yes?
I already cited one. The meteorite has neither land, labor, nor capital
invested in it, *in situ*. Yet it has value.
>> No good has a market value, regardless of the
>> amount of land, labor, and capital invested in it, unless someone is
>> willing to pay for that good.
>
> And no consumer will buy a good that didn't have some amount of land,
> labour, and capital investment, unless they are willing to pay for
> nothing.
What about the meteorite?
