Comments on: Just felt like quoting…

By: Michael M. Butler

Michael M. Butler — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:19:01 +0000

And some things people think are commodities might not be. QED. Thanks!

By: skzb

skzb — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:11:55 +0000

Or, alternately, from what you say, the cookies she baked might not have been a commodity. Some things really ARE pretty simple.

By: Michael M. Butler

Michael M. Butler — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:36:03 +0000

What there is to choose between one and another cookie she made is minimal, I’ll agree, ignoring bad batches that never saw daylight.

But I’ve been looking for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, specifically, for twenty-plus years now, and I’ve never found them. I choose this as an example of a failure of the commodity label as you frame it.

Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies != chocolate chip cookies; chocolate chip oatmeal cookies != oatmeal cookies. Both of the latter are things that can be found in the marketplace.

The intention of the term “commodity” is to describe fungible members in a class that has approximately stable market behavior across some domain, I think. There are ontological-epistemological as well as some practical complications, but that’s probably not something to be taken up here.

By: skzb

skzb — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:47:34 +0000

A commodity is something with an exchange value (a quantity), a use value (a quality), that is produced for exchange, and that is interchangeable with another of its type. The work of the individual artisan in today’s world may or may not be a commodity, depending. If those chocolate chip cookies were baked in order to be sold or traded, and if there is nothing to chose between one and another, I suppose they would qualify as commodities.

By: Michael M. Butler

Michael M. Butler — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:38:54 +0000

Argh, misspelled my own name.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft

That’s the link. Grist for mill, maybe?

By: Micheal M. Butler

Micheal M. Butler — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:36:52 +0000

OK, so anything that requires craft is not a commodity?

I understand these are approximations, and I always have. A once-good-friend of mine used to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for a small Mpls bakery.

Well, cookies are a commodity in a typical economist’s’ eyes, I’d expect.

But it turns out making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies is tricky. Or so it seems. The bakery stopped making them when she had to retire due to allergies; the recipe wasn’t enough.

Steve, I know you don’t think everything done with human effort is a commodity, but I think that sentiment was another thing Heinlein’s character was taking a shot at with the pie. Have you read the essay “Shop class considered as soulcraft”? I’ll dig up the URL after work. It’s something you might like and includes some Marxian aspects.

By: skzb

skzb — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:09:19 +0000

Seth @ 25: For producing commodities (and remember we are speaking specifically of ‘commodity production,’ something else Mr. Heinlein chose to ignore) it is taken as a society-wide average, including the inevitable rejects (wasted labor) and so on. Something where the quality of labor invested makes a significant difference on the quality of project is by definition not a commodity.

Yes, your book finally went into the mail; sorry for the delay.

By: Seth

Seth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:27:37 +0000

Define “amount of labor *necessary* to produce something”.

The best in the world can do it in one day.

The tenth best can do it in one week.

The ab0ve-average practitioner takes 3-6 months.

The average practioner can’t do it at all.

(BTW, have you mailed my book yet?)

By: Michael M. Butler

Michael M. Butler — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:21:47 +0000

Not sure that pie hits him square in the face, because “necessary” is not single-valued in the real world. But thanks for replying even when tired.

By: skzb

skzb — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:11:13 +0000

*yawn*

Michael, no one has ever said that the value of a commodity was related to the amount of labor that went into producing it. What Adam Smith, and Ricardo, and the other classical political economists (on whom Marx based his work) said was that the value of a commodity was determined by the amount of labor *necessary* to produce it; leaving Mr. Heinlein with, if you will, pie on his face.