"jmh" <j_m_h@cox.net> wrote in message
news:MdiUa.43636$AD3.18275@lakeread04...

> Who is to decide what a person values? That person or someone else?

    Who is to decide what two plus two is? The short answer is -- whoever
needs to for whatever reason to the best extent they can with the
information available to them.

    If I need to figure out how much something is of value to you, perhaps
because I'm buying you a gift and I want it to be useful, then I do the best
I can. I may be wrong. You may be wrong about what's actually of value to
you, and that may cause you to act inefficiently. Oh well.

> I agree that because we are all humans we can make some fairly
> informed suppositions about what another person values but we
> never really know without clear confirmation from the other
> person.

    The other person might not know. It's like asking what flavor of ice
cream would taste best to another person. We can comprehend the question and
understand that there is an answer, but neither they nor we might know if
they haven't tried them all. A person can be in error about what would be of
value to him.

    I mean the actual ability of a thing to benefit a person, regardless of
whether they think it would benefit them or not. This is certainly a
difficult thing to measure, but it's certainly a coherent concept.

> If that's the case then it's not labor that is what
> produces value. Labor produces objects that are
> valued but the value is the subjective appraisal of
> each person.

    People may choose to make a subjective appraisal of how much they thing
something might benefit them. But it's obviously false that people always
know precisely how much something will actually benefit them.

> So prior to the invention of mechanical engines there
> was no value to being able to either go faster or directly
> to a location rather than being at the mercy of the wind?

    I'm sure there probably was, regardless of whether anyone realized that
would be valuable.

> I think you're using the term value in a purely reified
> manner and the result is that you equivicate between value
> and the object that is valued. In some cases that distinction
> makes little difference but if you're going to discuss value
> the distinction is critical.

> Can you explain the difference between the car and the value
> such that I can understand that labor is producing the value
> and not just the car?

> Since this is the heart of the matter in my mind I'll stop here.

    I hope I can. Suppose cars occured in nature. Certainly, in this case,
labor doesn't create the car.

    But a car would be of no value to you if you had no way to use it, if
you couldn't get to it, or if you had no roads to drive it on. An object has
no value without a potential relationship between the person to whom it is
of value and the thing valuated. It is always labor that creates this
potential relationship.

    DS