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Author | Topic: Decline And Fall Of The American Empire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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But the real "value" of something can only originate in labor, I think. How are you defining labor? What about valuable natural resources?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I don't understand how that answers my questions.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
If labor is the only source of value, then who's labor causes the value that naturally occurs in the resources?
Say I buy a plot of land for 100 bucks, and somebody offers me 200 bucks for the rights to harvest the timber. I just gained 100 bucks through no labor.
To pretend that the entire value of such things comes from labor is ridiculous. So you can manage the value of things without using labor, like through market forces n'stuff, but value, itself, is a human creation. It requires people, and at the very bottom somebody has to make the value. Except for natural resources - those things are the shit. So, you could define labor so broadly as to be like "human activity" or something, to spin it so all value technically comes from labor - but I don't know if that's what they're trying to do or not - and I'd agree that it would be ridiculous. Too, natural resources would still be an exception.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Do you understand that digging resources out of the ground requires labour? I do, but the resources already have value before they're dug out of the ground. Say I buy a plot of land for 100 bucks, and somebody offers me 200 bucks for the rights to harvest the timber. I just gained 100 bucks through no labor. If labor is the only source of value, then who's labor causes the value that naturally occurs in the resources? From Message 87:
Show me a capitalist who says he doesn't "work hard' for his money. Say I buy a plot of land for 100 bucks, and somebody offers me 200 bucks for the rights to harvest the timber. I just gained 100 bucks through no labor. Also, not all hard work is labor, imho.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Where does the 100 bucks you gained come from? At some point, doesn't somebody work for it, even if you don't? Your claim is not that all bucks come from labor. It is that all value comes from labor. It's not true. If labor is the only source of value, then who's labor causes the value that naturally occurs in the resources?
If you define it like that, I'm still waiting for your definition of labor.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
You haven't established that natural resources have any "value' beyond what can be added by labor. Someone paid me for the rights to harvest the trees from my property. Those trees have value before anybody has ever touched them, and I made money off them without doing anything. I just had to own the land. Who's labor do I owe the value of the rights to those trees to? Nobody planted them, they were just there when I bought the place. Nobody has chopped them down yet, they just paid for the rights to. But I still made money through no labor of my own.
Maybe you can give some examples of human activity that can't be called labour. Maybe you could define the terms you're using instead of making people guess and check... Owning the business requires human activity but they are typically excluded from the labor class.Making sales deals on the fruits of the labor is also typically exluded from the labor class. The stock brokers trying to sell shares in the company are typically excluded from the labor class. The Accounting and Human Resources Department are sometimes exluded and sometimes included. The context that you entered the discussion was:
quote: From wiki:
quote: So in that context, when you say all value comes from labor, its pretty ambiguous what you mean. At face value it is wrong. But you won't explain what you meant.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
But just how did you acquire the property? By your own labor you were able to buy the property. Sure, the original 100 bucks came from the value of my labor. But now I have an extra hundred bucks that came from no labor at all. Dude hasn't even paid me to get the trees yet, he just bought the rights to the timber. So there's actually two labor-less values here: the trees themselves, and the rights to the timber. The trees naturally exist and have value - no labor needed. I acquire the right to the value of the trees by purchasing the property - no labor needed. Then I sell the rights and make money without labor. Then the guy pays me to come and get them and I get more money without labor. Or here's another one: I bought some silver bullion years ago when the price was low. The price has sense gone up. If I sell that silver bullion at a profit, where is the labor that this extra value that the silver has came from? I haven't done shit, it's been sitting in a safe. Before you go on about the labor needed for the money that I'm selling the silver for - I'm not talking about the value of that money, I'm talking about the value of the silver, itself.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Value is defined in human terms of need. I'd say use or want rather than need as you can value you things that you do not need.
The trees have value as flooring or other wood by-products. Labor is involved in creating that added hundred dollars. No, the added hundred bucks (not dollars) came from selling the rights to the timber. There was no labor at all involved in that value of the rights to the timber.
The property has value as a place to live or to exploit or to simply enjoy. You sold your trees so it appears you don't mind losing them. I sold the rights to the trees. The trees are still there. And they gotta pay me for the actual timber, too.
The Indians never could understand how the palefaces attached a monetary value to land, rivers, and trees. They also never invented the wheel... *shrugs*
Value always involves labor in one way or another. That's a different claim than value only being able to originate in labor. And it depends on what you mean by labor.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
New Cat's Eye writes:
Those trees didn't magically increase in value when you bought the land. You just underpaid for them. Someone paid me for the rights to harvest the trees from my property. Those trees have value before anybody has ever touched them, and I made money off them without doing anything. I just had to own the land. You're not making any sense.
I don't know what you mean by "the labour class". I'm just talking about labour. You prolly shouldn't enter a discussion involving the proletariat if you don't know what the labor class means. And whatever it is you're "just" talking about, you refuse to define it - and until then you'll continue to be posting nonsense.
Indeed. It's a bullshit classification - you can include or exclude at your convenience. That's not what that meant, but whatevs. Look: Some people own the land. Some people work the land. The land owner can make money without there being work done by laborers. It's not magic.
YES! It's ambiguous. And yet you guys call it nonsense. Uh, being ambiguous is not making sense by definition. You just admitted you're posting nonsense.
All I've done is ask for examples that don't involve labour. And you've been given them.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I don't see how you're following anything that I'm saying and I feel like I'm wasting my time.
Good day, sir.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I'm asking direct questions about what you're saying. How is that not following what you're saying? You're not following because your questions are not about what I'm saying. They're hardly tangential. They're certainly not direct to the point. You're literally posting nonsense. And you refuse to answer my questions. We're done here.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
You pay 100 for a plot of land and sell the logging rights for 200. You claim that's a "gain in value" of 100. But the trees didn't change. They fact that you only paid 100 means that you underpaid, not that the trees magically gained value. How is that not about what you're saying? It doesn't follow the story. I bought the land outright, no thought about the trees. The land had a value of 100 bucks to me. Then later somebody came along and offered the money for the rights to the timber. Now, the land has more value to me - solely from the rights to the trees, not even the trees themselves. Now that I know that the timber is worth money too, the land has even more value to me.
If you buy something for half price, the value doesn't double the minute you leave the store. If it isn't what someone is willing to pay for it, then what determines the value?
not that the trees magically gained value. If all value comes from labor, then who's labor provided the value to the rights to the trees? How many times have you dodged this question now? Who's labor adds the value that naturally exists in the resources?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
If all value comes from labor, then who's labor provided the value to the rights to the trees? Yours. You had to earn the hundred bucks to buy the trees somehow. I got the money from capital gains
Your value can only increase through another persons labor. The client also had to work (or someone did) in order to offer $200.00 to you. The part I disagree with is the "only". There are other ways for my value to increase. I've got some silver bars that are worth more today than when I bought them... All I had to do was let them sit in a safe.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
That's a fictitious "value". Then that's just another undefined term in your claim. All value comes from labor - for your own private definitions of value and labor that you refuse to explain. Nice job.
There is no value that naturally exists in the resources.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
So, no substance in your answer = no substance in your position. You looking in the mirror? You won't define your terms and you refuse to answer questions.
quote: Until you define value and labor you're just having a toss. So I'll leave you to yourself.
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