Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this

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Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

Again, no examples provided for natural resources that don’t need to be processed in any way, shape or form, including transport, as the average way to get them. No, it isn’t obvious at all that there are natural resources that involve no processing or transport yet are sold this way on average, and you continue to refuse to provide an example for something so “obvious.” Very unserious.

Regarding Marx on value, you’re confusing how Marx builds up his argument, proceeding from the most basic element upward and outward, and developing a many-sided view, with the totality of the base of his argument. Marx is specifically referencing how prices appear “random” at first, as prices of each commodity is itself different, but that they can all exchange for each other in consistent ratios through the universal commodity, money, and that this all proceeds from how we produce and distribute, ie labor. This naturally also includes natural resources, which themselves have no “value” alone.

In other words, prices are not actually random, despite first appearances, and they all reduce down to their constituent elements, the basic block of value being labor-time as this is the basic input in production from which all else flows. Capitalism is a control system for the distribution of labor, and works to accumulate as much capital as possible.

None of this is based on “assumption,” it’s based on clear observation of how capitalism functions.

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