the labor theory of value

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 09/25/00 07:41PM >>>
>Brad, read the first two pages of Ricardo's _Principles_. A major
>mistake of the
>economics profession was in developing the theory of value for
>commodities that
>derive their value from scarcity, in other words, for exceptional
>cases, instead
>of focusing on the general case, *reproducible commodities*, that do
>not derive
>their exchange value from scarcity.

If a reproducible commodity ain't scarce, it has no value. We can
make oxygen out of water and electricity, but no one would say that
the cost of air is determined by its cost of reproduction...

(((((((((((((((

CB: Air has no exchange-value. It does have use-value.

As Marx says, "... if the labourers could live on air, they could not be bought at any price. "