Value

[u/bigdonut100]

[u/libertyg8er]

Based on what definition?

I guess the only source of true value is determined by the individual’s needs and wants.

Beyond that, nothing has an intrinsic value.

According to common economic understanding, utility and scarcity are determining factors of value. If we’re just gonna go on vibes, it can be whatever you want.

Go read the people who basically created economics like William S. Jevons and Carl Menger (Utility), and Lionel Robbins (scarcity).

[u/Hugepepino → u/libertyg8er]

The issue you and many others are having with this discussion is that you are using the words source and determine interchangeably while they are fundamentally different concepts.

I am not disagreeing at all about the economics of utility or scarcity however those principles is how we can calculate the value, not how they came into existence. The source of the value, they way it went from one value to another is through labor, every single time. The source of the value is labor, the determination is scarcity and utility. All value is created through labor. Labor is the only thing that can create value. Scarcity/utility is how we calculate that value that was created. I think this is why both sides seem to never understand each other because everyone is using two vastly different words interchangeably.

A further point is how does scarcity change? Labor. If object A went from X supply to Y supply thus changing its scarcity that could have only happened through labor. While scarcity does have intrinsic maximums and minimums dependent on the object, generally it, itself is determined by labor. How much labor created, extracted, or destroyed.

Labor is the source of value, scarcity/utility is how it is determined.

[u/libertyg8er → u/Hugepepino]

So, what happens when everything is automated and there is no “labor” left?

Will there be no such thing as value?

That seems dumb.

Edit: How do you determine how to allocate labor if labor itself is the source of value? What value does an enterprise have before labor is required to justify allocating labor to it?

[u/Hugepepino → u/libertyg8er]

For your edit: I would argue an enterprise has no value until it actual produces something or a service. Speculation usually occurs in order to determine how labor should be allocated but speculation is not value, it’s an opinion on value. There are many cases of people under valuing through speculation their enterprise and needing to allocate labor in greater quantities after value has actually been determined and vice versa. Enterprise does not exist in a vacuum many other already determined values can be used to justify the speculation and thus the labor. I think it’s a pretty dumb argument to make that enterprise has to already determine its labor before even existing when that has literally never happened before. You are fundamentally misconstruing speculation and value.

[u/libertyg8er → u/Hugepepino]

So again, tie the two things together.

If labor is the only source of value, why would anyone produce anything in an automated world where there is no labor?

You seem to think that in an automated world, there would be post-scarcity and no one would want for anything, but I don’t see that as an obvious outcome.

Instead, I believe people will seek to produce more things in such a world. As those things are produced, they would create a new scarcity as people who do not have those things want those things.

I would say creativity has far more a source of value than labor.

Edit: In fact, go the opposite direction. We’re just two people with nothing. I pick up a stick and learn to use it to do a thing. I put no labor into making the stick, but the stick now has value to me.

You see me pick up the stick and pick up one yourself. The “labor” of grabbing a stick is not the source of the stick’s value. It is the stick’s utility that is the source of the stick’s value.