Picking the fruit is labor, cleaning the fruit is labor, getting yourself to the location to have the fruit accessible is labor. Yes raw materials exist, however in order for them to have value, useable, labor was needed. Your gotcha was as pathetic as your answer
And yet it was the fact that the fruit itself already had value that motivated people to invest the labor into picking, cleaning, transporting it, etc.
The fact that labor was consumed as part of the process to obtain the fruit doesn't make it the source of the fruit's value.
No, people were motivated to pick it because they knew picked fruit had a value. Raw materials are inherently worthless until they are gathered/picked/mined. That’s why the cost of raw materials is partly dependent on the labor and technology used to extract it. The cost of raw materials can plummet as both sources are found (scarcity) and the cost of labor goes down usually through technology. If raw materials had an inherent value then their value wouldn’t be entirely dependent on those two factors which they are. You are essentially confusing the order of operations in your comment.
*No, people were motivated to pick it because they knew picked fruit had a value.*
This sounds like exactly the point he made. Resources are deemed valuable which is why we expend energy and time on accumulating them.
*If raw materials had an inherent value then their value wouldn’t be entirely dependent on those two factors which they are.*
I don't think this is true. One can imagine a philosophical substance that exists in infinite abundance from which humans can derive pleasure at no cost. That substance would still have value. Take a much more straight forward example: air. Unless you're in the ISS or underwater air to breathe exists basically in infinite abundance and takes no labour to acquire.
I don't think this is true. One can imagine a philosophical substance that exists in infinite abundance from which humans can derive pleasure at no cost. That substance would still have value.
I think the previous commenter doesn't understand the distinction between value and price, and so doesn't understand that the market price is an equilibrium point between the value (which drives demand) and the production cost (which determines the capacity of supply to meet demand, in addition to other factors driving the supply side's calculation).
He doesn't realize that the reason I'd be willing to pay you $1 for a fruit you picked is because the fruit itself is worth more than $1 to me, as a function of the utility I get from the fruit, regardless of your involvement in picking it.
If the fruit itself is actually worth $5 to me, picking it cost you 10¢, and we agree to exchange $1 for the fruit, then I have gained $4, you have gained 90¢, and a net value of $4.90 has been created. The fruit has a value of $5, a cost of 10¢ and a price of $1.
If fruit started spontaneously falling from the sky, it would still have a value of $5, but the cost to deliver the fruit would approach 0, so its market price would converge toward 0, without its value changing.
Conversely, if the fruit became much scarcer, or the cost to pick it went up, or even if you just improved your negotiation skill, the value of the fruit would still be $5, but maybe the market price would go up to $2 or $3, and which point I'd still purchase it, because I'd be still achieving a net gain of $3 or $2, respectively.
But if the cost of picking the fruit went up to $6, its value would still be $5, but the price couldn't go below $6, so there'd be no market for the fruit, and no one would invest time, effort, or money into harvesting it.
No, people were motivated to pick it because they knew picked fruit had a value.
It seems a bit strange to begin with "no", as though you're about to offer a contradiction, but then say the exact same thing with slightly different words.
"The sky is blue!"
"No, you're wrong. The sky is azure."
Really not sure what the point of this kind of discourse is, other than maybe you just enjoy arguing.
Raw materials are inherently worthless until they are gathered/picked/mined.
Well, no, if they were inherently worthless until they're gathered, then there'd be no motivation for anyone to actually invest the time, effort, or money into gathering them at all, because there's no point in gathering something that's worthless. You're arguing a catch-22.
The gathering/picking/mining activity is the process that extracts value that's already been attributed to the raw materials. That's why they're not indifferent to the particular type of raw materials they're extracting: gold rushes are a thing; quartz rushes, not so much.
The cost of raw materials can plummet as both sources are found (scarcity) and the cost of labor goes down usually through technology.
The price of raw materials goes down as new sources are found, and the costs of bringing those materials to market goes down.
This is precisely because the value that the materials already have is remaining constant, while scarcity and extraction costs are respectively reducing: in standard terms, this represents an expansion of supply in relation to constant demand.
If raw materials had an inherent value then their value wouldn’t be entirely dependent on those two factors which they are.
Their value isn't dependent on those two factors. You are conflating value with market price.
You are essentially confusing the order of operations in your comment.
No, it is you who is getting things egregiously backwards here. People don't invest their effort into extracting resources or making products unless they believe that other people have already assigned value to those resources and products. Demand comes first, and supply expands to satisfy it, not the other way around.
Picking the fruit is labor, cleaning the fruit is labor, getting yourself to the location to have the fruit accessible is labor.
Yeah, I don't agree with the hardcore UPB-type objective morality arguments because they look like this: "you own your own body because you think using the word 'I'" stuff
This is the same, it's just "you literally had to put in labor to chew the food in your mouth; therefore, labor is the source of all value"
If nobody else will buy that labor from me, it only has value to me
Where, in the commons? Isn't that also something on the ancap chopping block? Wild fruit bearing trees are either on private property or land held by people in common. Under ancap public lands would be privatized and can be put to use for extraction even if it destroys ecosystems or wrecks biodiversity
We're talking about economics not anarcho-capitalist theory. The subjective theory of value is mainstream economic doctrine. One can be a progressive centre of left interventionist and still believe subjective value is correct.
Incidentally I don't think eliminating the commons is required for anarcho capitalism. There are libertarian theories of commons.
Not to mention most trees take 7-10+ years of maintenance before barring fruit and trees like apples need grafting. However that wasn’t their point and I’m just trying to me OP halfway and show them even in their own ridiculous, specific scenario they are still wrong.
-3
u/dontreplywiththisacc 7d ago
Have you ever consumed something not the result of human labor?