| This question <44|64> overall <53|55> Sammy: <1412|252>. |
| Question 104: How is the value of raw materials determined in Marx's theory? How does the scarcity of these materials influence their value? Is Marx's argument still valid in the case of an exhaustible resource, which is present only in finite supply? |
| [54] Sammy: According to Marx, the value of raw materials is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor that is needed to produce (or make available for exchange) the commodity. The scarcity of the resource only plays a part because as scarcity increases, so does the amount of socially necessary labor that goes into production. |
| An example that I can think of would be a haystack with a million needles mixed into it. At first, it would be relatively easy to find a needle or two, but as each needle is found, it will become more difficult (and time consuming) to find the next. When there is only one needle left in the stack it could take days, weeks, months or years to locate it. I think this example fits well in explaining the “exhaustible resource part” of the question. If our exhaustible resource is the one needle left in the haystack, it can be assumed that the one remaining needle would become valuable beyond measure simply because it would take an incredible amount of labor to find it. |
| Hans: Your explanations are clear, accurate and interesting, except that you cannot count on it that the production cost rises with increasing scarcity. As I said in [1997sp:48], schools of fish can be spotted by satellite, and the last school of a certain kind of fish is as easy to discover and “harvest” as a school of fish which is in plentiful supply. The market does not always deal properly with these environmental resource issues. |
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