Re: The Labor Theory of Money w/ regards to Microeconomics...
I think most people here would agree with your assertion that the injection of dollars will bring about inflation and that the use of this money to buy up worthless assets has done little but enrich state/corporate cronies
Yeah, I definitely agree with you. In fact that was the first, and easiest article I wrote for coinchan. This article, which I might need to refine, as much as I hate doing 2nd and 3rd drafts, was intended to be based on the importance of HOW the money is distributed. It was supposed to beg the question, 'does it matter that we're printing money and giving it to people who don't deserve it?' I think it does matter, based on simple supply and demand microeconomic theory.
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But, I don't think you have said much regarding the labor theory of value here. I think the labor theory of value is quite important, but I think you will find most people here would argue instead for marginal utility theory and further argue that there can be no normative theory of value -- that is, nothing "should" be worth anything -- as long as all exchanges are voluntary everything is "worth" whatever the traders agree to give each other for it and that labor is no different from diamonds or pizza in this regard.
I believe that the concept of "voluntary" is quite abused by Libertarians and especially the Austrian school in not recognizing the inherent power differentials and coercion that creep into any relationship where one is selling one's labor to another.
But, I don't think you have said much regarding the labor theory of value here. I think the labor theory of value is quite important, but I think you will find most people here would argue instead for marginal utility theory and further argue that there can be no normative theory of value -- that is, nothing "should" be worth anything -- as long as all exchanges are voluntary everything is "worth" whatever the traders agree to give each other for it and that labor is no different from diamonds or pizza in this regard.
I believe that the concept of "voluntary" is quite abused by Libertarians and especially the Austrian school in not recognizing the inherent power differentials and coercion that creep into any relationship where one is selling one's labor to another.
Ah, I'm really grateful if you can elaborate on the labor theory of value. I simply picked up on the term because I really like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (the link to the clip has been fixed since you posted... there's a good chance you missed it), and then did about 30 minutes worth of research on the labor theory of value, just until I saw how I could relate it to microeconomics (which I'm actually quite familiar with).
Notice on the graph I included (and made in mspaint
), there are no $ or quantity markings/units, that's because it's meant to be a relative measure. Value, as I see it, is a function of the Supply curve and the Demand curve. The idea I had when writing this article is that, independent of the Demand curve, the supply curve will change based upon how easy to come by the good in question is. To put it simply, if something is easy to come by, then you'll be willing to provide a lot of it for a low price whereas if something is hard to come by then one will only be inclined to supply it for a higher price.