If trade value is equal to the labor value of something, then how is it that the trade value can fluctuate so much? You emphasize its creation of value, but what of the destruction?
Instead of Pokemon cards, lets use a trend that came and went. The trade value of a Beanie Babies skyrocketed in the mid-to-late nineties. People were using it as an investment vehicle. And then the trade value plummeted. The Beanies themselves, the cloth and the plastic filling, remained unchanged through all of it. If a good is damaged, its value is permanently reduced (sans labor to repair, anyway). If trade value is reduced… doesn’t matter. It can go up or down or anything tomorrow. You would claim that process is equal to value derived from labor?
I do. I claim that trade can destroy value, and it can destroy value that is created through labour just as much as it can amplify it. A change in how much people value something can turn productive labour which produces valuable goods into a worthless activity which wastes time.
If tomorrow, people suddenly decide rice is disgusting, repulsive, and not fit for human consumption, that would destroy all the value in rice production equipment, and it would destroy the value of all the rice that has been produced but not consumed. The rice hasn’t changed. The nutritional value hasn’t changed. But since rice no longer makes people happy, its value is now far less, regardless of how much labour was expanded to produce it.
There is no objective standard for value. Value is inherently subjective. Not even for food. After all, dandelions are edible, but also perfectly worthless because it’s simply culturally unacceptable to eat them. Blackberries are another great example. In your area they might be a rare and expensive delicacy. In my region, they grow like weeds and we pay people to remove blackberry vines.
For a similar reason, we could pour as much labour as we want into producing mud cakes, but no matter how much work it was to make them, mud cakes are worthless to everyone and so there is no surplus created by making them. Instead, everyone who expended resources (money, equipment, labour) to make them has incurred an economic loss because the resources were consumed and nothing valuable was received in return.
If trade value is equal to the labor value of something, then how is it that the trade value can fluctuate so much? You emphasize its creation of value, but what of the destruction?
Instead of Pokemon cards, lets use a trend that came and went. The trade value of a Beanie Babies skyrocketed in the mid-to-late nineties. People were using it as an investment vehicle. And then the trade value plummeted. The Beanies themselves, the cloth and the plastic filling, remained unchanged through all of it. If a good is damaged, its value is permanently reduced (sans labor to repair, anyway). If trade value is reduced… doesn’t matter. It can go up or down or anything tomorrow. You would claim that process is equal to value derived from labor?
I do. I claim that trade can destroy value, and it can destroy value that is created through labour just as much as it can amplify it. A change in how much people value something can turn productive labour which produces valuable goods into a worthless activity which wastes time.
If tomorrow, people suddenly decide rice is disgusting, repulsive, and not fit for human consumption, that would destroy all the value in rice production equipment, and it would destroy the value of all the rice that has been produced but not consumed. The rice hasn’t changed. The nutritional value hasn’t changed. But since rice no longer makes people happy, its value is now far less, regardless of how much labour was expanded to produce it.
There is no objective standard for value. Value is inherently subjective. Not even for food. After all, dandelions are edible, but also perfectly worthless because it’s simply culturally unacceptable to eat them. Blackberries are another great example. In your area they might be a rare and expensive delicacy. In my region, they grow like weeds and we pay people to remove blackberry vines.
For a similar reason, we could pour as much labour as we want into producing mud cakes, but no matter how much work it was to make them, mud cakes are worthless to everyone and so there is no surplus created by making them. Instead, everyone who expended resources (money, equipment, labour) to make them has incurred an economic loss because the resources were consumed and nothing valuable was received in return.