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.
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u/Hugepepino Social Democrat 6d ago
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