"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Icebound wrote:

It is not the exchange that creates value. It is the work, the labour.

In fact, it is both. If you have something that you value at 10 but I
value
at 15, and I buy it from you for 12, then the net value has increased:
I've
gained 3 and you've gained 2.


Well, yes and no. The "net value" has not really increased. It is just
that I did not recognize the true value because there is information that I
did not have. Part of what I said earlier about the ability to hide the
worth of work. One reason the rich-poor gap grows is because one of those
segments has the better ability to understand and "hide" the value of work.

Now if you had bought it for 12, added some work to improve it, then sold it
for 15, that's a different story.


This doesn't only apply to things; services are subject to the same
effect.

This is also why investment works. I give you 10 to use for a while. You
use it to make 5 more, and pay me back 12.


Investment is a way of paying for the privilege of not doing labour and
that's okay, assuming that the original money was honestly earned in the
first place. You give me 10 and I put in some labour that adds value to
your 10 so that I can sell it for 15. I could not have achieved the result
without your 10, so I am happy to share the extra 5 with you. I give you
your original 10 plus 2 and only keep 3. In effect, you have received 2 for
MY work, but that's okay, I couldn't have done it without you.


Sure, work plays a role too. But if we assume that you bought labor
(another word for "service") with that 10 I loaned to you, then absent the
loan of 10 that service could never have been purchased.

Not exactly true. The provider of the "service" could "trust" me to
eventually compensate for his provision. Rather than you loaning me 10, he
can loan me the equivalent work. When I eventually "sold" the final
product, I would be able to give HIM the 12 and keep 3. You are simply a
convenient middle man, so that he does not have to do that. Without you, he
would have been happy with 1.5, but you have overhead keeping track of all
those you loan to, and you ARE providing some additional convenience, so you
need something more.