I don't understand this. Oxygen is not air. Oxygen is a " (re)producible
commodity" isn't it? And is not the cost of oxygen -in those pressure
cannisters and used for welding and in health care- determined by its cost
of "(re) production"? Perhaps I fail to understand what is going on. If so
perhaps you could explain it in terms a non-economist might comprehend.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message -----
From: Brad DeLong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 6:41 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:2285] Re: RE: Re: Re: the labor theory of value
> >Brad, read the first two pages of Ricardo's _Principles_. A major
> >mistake of the
> >economics profession was in developing the theory of value for
> >commodities that
> >derive their value from scarcity, in other words, for exceptional
> >cases, instead
> >of focusing on the general case, *reproducible commodities*, that do
> >not derive
> >their exchange value from scarcity.
>
> If a reproducible commodity ain't scarce, it has no value. We can
> make oxygen out of water and electricity, but no one would say that
> the cost of air is determined by its cost of reproduction...
>
> Brad DeLong
>
