Politics, free trade, violence

The claim is that the value of an object is equal to the labor put into it. That means a dell laptop orbiting Jupiter is worth infinitely more than my flat screen TV, because the TV took far fewer hours of labor to produce.

Austrian School economics, on the other hand, argue that value is a subjective construct - and that each person values things differently. That is why trade is so good - people who value A more than B trade with people who value B more than A.

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.antipop...

Here's part of the central point, which Charlie partially bolded in the essay:

...labour wants to migrate where working conditions and pay are best. Capital wants to invest for growth where working conditions and pay are worst.

By penning us (the labour) in, capital can maintain, for a while, the wage imbalances that maximize profit...

I have a similar reaction whenever someone raises praise of "the free market" particularly on a global scale. It doesn't exist.