Mixing one's labor with land gave "natural" ownership claims to land
according to Locke. However, there is as Nozick (the erstwhile libertarian)
notes an explicit proviso to the effect that there be enough and as good left
over for others. Even Nozick recognizes the problems inherent in this idea.
" What are the boundaries of what labor is mixed with? If a private
astronaut clears a place on Mars, has he mixed his labor with
(so that he comes to
own) the whole planet, the whole unihabited universe, or just a particular
plot? Which plot does an act bring under ownership?" (ANARCHY, STATE, & UTOPIA)
Nozick himself notes that if someone dug a well in an area and
that was the only place that there was water in the area that the Lockean
proviso would imply that the well-digger would not have any exclusive
"natural" ownership claims since it would violate the proviso. It seems then on
this labor theory that one would not necessarily have a claim to the total
value produced by one's labor nor natural ownership claims as a result of
mixing ones labor with an unowned object.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
P.S. I thought that Marx's theory of value was about exchange value within
capitalism. It presupposes that there are utility values or use values as well
as exchange value. It is
only a theory about what determines exchange value (not price)
within a certain economic system. It is not a
general philosophical theory of value, nor does it pretend to be. As for
machines contributing to value, isn't it part of the Marxist view that machines
are themselves the result of surplus value produced by labor i.e. dead as
compared to living labor?
