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.
Suppose we imagine a fantastical world where no one is able to trade, and a second fantastical world where nobody is able to labor.
In the first world, people would still be able to get stuff done, alter their surroundings, and invent new things - they’d just have to do it each for themselves. In the second world, there would be nothing to trade.
How can the process of exchange value be equal to labor value when it can only exist with the prerequisite of labor?
This is non-sequitur. The fact that value derived from labour is required to exist for value derived from trade to be generated does not mean that either category of value is less real.
Labour gets you from 0 to 1. Trade gets you from 1 to 100. Labour generates value by adding to what’s available. Trade generates value by multiplying what’s available. The observation that zero multiplied by anything is still zero does not invalidate the fact that multiplication is still more powerful than addition. It just means that one cannot exist without the other if you want to have more than zero.
It is not a non-sequitur, I’m arguing against a claim you made;
trade is equally as valid as value created from the production of resources or services
I think you’re overstating trade and downplaying labor here. It’s not the trade that’s multiplicative, it’s labor saving tools that expand what an hour of labor can accomplish. It’s why the modern exponential explosion in economic activity correlates to industrialization, and not expanding trade routs.
I don’t agree. The explosion in economic activity is not solely because of industrial advances. The global supply chain is extremely well-connected, and it’s this system of global trade that is the real oil of the modern economy. There is almost nothing more advanced than a wheelbarrow that can be economically made without involving some aspect of global trade. Sure, industrial advances are part of it, but it’s the trade that makes any of the products worth anything.
A machine that can manufacture a million wheelbarrows in one hour produces extremely little value unless those wheelbarrows are traded.
If you want to see what shutting off trade does to a country, take a look at the current happenings of United States.
But it is labor that facilitates the logistical work! The someone has to drive the trucks, load the boats, log the inventory. It’s all still predicated on labor!
It’s a prerequisite but the amount of labor does not determine the value here. You could be performing near-exact labor to facilitate trade but get wildly different value from it.
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.
Suppose we imagine a fantastical world where no one is able to trade, and a second fantastical world where nobody is able to labor.
In the first world, people would still be able to get stuff done, alter their surroundings, and invent new things - they’d just have to do it each for themselves. In the second world, there would be nothing to trade.
How can the process of exchange value be equal to labor value when it can only exist with the prerequisite of labor?
This is non-sequitur. The fact that value derived from labour is required to exist for value derived from trade to be generated does not mean that either category of value is less real.
Labour gets you from 0 to 1. Trade gets you from 1 to 100. Labour generates value by adding to what’s available. Trade generates value by multiplying what’s available. The observation that zero multiplied by anything is still zero does not invalidate the fact that multiplication is still more powerful than addition. It just means that one cannot exist without the other if you want to have more than zero.
It is not a non-sequitur, I’m arguing against a claim you made;
I think you’re overstating trade and downplaying labor here. It’s not the trade that’s multiplicative, it’s labor saving tools that expand what an hour of labor can accomplish. It’s why the modern exponential explosion in economic activity correlates to industrialization, and not expanding trade routs.
I don’t agree. The explosion in economic activity is not solely because of industrial advances. The global supply chain is extremely well-connected, and it’s this system of global trade that is the real oil of the modern economy. There is almost nothing more advanced than a wheelbarrow that can be economically made without involving some aspect of global trade. Sure, industrial advances are part of it, but it’s the trade that makes any of the products worth anything.
A machine that can manufacture a million wheelbarrows in one hour produces extremely little value unless those wheelbarrows are traded.
If you want to see what shutting off trade does to a country, take a look at the current happenings of United States.
But it is labor that facilitates the logistical work! The someone has to drive the trucks, load the boats, log the inventory. It’s all still predicated on labor!
It’s a prerequisite but the amount of labor does not determine the value here. You could be performing near-exact labor to facilitate trade but get wildly different value from it.