Money represents the tangible (physical product) and the intangible (profit). When one uses money to purchase the tangible (tooth brush), one also pay for the intangible (profit).
Sales price - Cost (tangible + intangible) = 0
I see profit as the intangible component of the cost of the product.
I think because of the profit concept. The fundamental nature of money has changed. Does everyone know there are more money than the physical goods money can buy?
I honestly think the profit concept is absurd. “Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains”. When one pays for a product, one is paying for more than what it would cost them to make themselves. Assuming for argument’s sake that they are equal.
I think money should be divided into two components, the tangible component and the intangible component. How can you pay using the tangible for something that is intangible?
How do you measure increase in happiness when you give people money? If the product include the cost of greed, which is intangible, then the cost of greed should be paid using intangible money. like thank you, or higher status. But certainly not the tangible money. I do not believe we should mix up the tangible with the intangible.
sorry, I am not familiar with the concept of surplus value. Could you explain it in more detail?
just let me clarify.
Money represents the tangible and intangible.
When you purchase a product, you are purchasing its tangible cost and intangible cost. Tangible cost may represent the cost of the physical product. While intangibel cost, represent profit.
I don’t see it is right to represent the tangible and the intangible with a common denominator, money.
Cost of a product = cost of material + cost of labour + cost of profit
Cost of material - concerns with the scarcity of material
Cost of labour - concerns with scarcity of labour
Cost of profit - concerns with satisfying greed
The cost of material is tangible because materials are tangible, so it is tangible cost. The amount of material available is measurable, so it is appropriate to put a dollar amount on it.
But the cost of profit is intangible because greed is a metaphysical concept.
Money used to purchase a product is in actual fact purchasing two different costs. Tangible cost of material and intangible cost of greed. Since the tangible is measured differently to the intangible, how can money be used as a common denominator for both?
“Greed” in the sense that communists usually mean, or more accurately ambition, which motivates people to produce things is a good thing, not an evil thing.
The other greed, or envy, which motivates people to take what others have made is evil.
But there is a world of difference between the two motivations.
If it costs somebody less in terms of time or labor to produce something for themselves than it does for them to make something with which to buy it from somebody else, then it would make economic sense to make everything themselves. That isn’t the case in modern economies. Specialization makes you far more efficient at doing one thing than another. This leads to increases in overall efficiency if you specialize and trade. It doesn’t make sense to do everything yourself. This is the whole point of bartering, exchanging currency, or congregating in general.
Profit isn’t evil either, sense no matter how much you ask for in terms of profit, you’ll never actually cheat the consumer. If it ever becomes an unreasonable proposition the consumer can always go to a more reasonable competitor, or ultimately resort to the ultimate competitor: himself. Even under a monopoly demanding outrageous profits, one can usually go out and make the same product himself. That is, if it actually costs him less to do so.
Money, historically, is an exchange value of labor for time. But it has become highly complex nowadays. Example: The recent film “Sponge Bob.” It’s an intellectual property, created by a corporate team. Yes, there’s labor involved. And all sorts of other costs, as well. But the nature of wealth creation takes on entirely (incomprehensible) new incarnations beginning really in the late 1800’s.
Number one: How can one individual person, like myself, transform–via
personal entrepreneurial initiative–into a dual institutional capacity, namely that now occupied by the U.S. Treasury & Federal Reserve Bank.
In other words, how to create an unlimited credit line…within reason…to
help make ends meet for all concerned.