Thread by @Seanmaloney0

@GravelInstitute …government of various form is what facilities & enables any such imbalanced negotiations; fiat currency, taxation, & simple robbery are theft.

#Utility, for #Bastiat, is the substrate of #Value attributable to nature, #Labor, and “almost always” the combined activity of both.

@GravelInstitute …But

“I call #Value only that portion of #Utility that #Labor imparts or adds to things, so that two things have value when those who have labored over them exchange them freely for one another.”

Water is worth nothing. It does not have value, although it has utility.

@GravelInstitute …If we all always had a spring right at our feet, evidently water would not have any value, since there would be no occasion to exchange it.

But if it is half a mile away, we must go and get it; that is #Work, and there is the origin of its #Value.

@GravelInstitute …If it is a mile away, that is double #Work, and hence double #Value, although the #Utility remains the same.

Water for me is a gratuitous gift of #Nature, on condition that I go and get it.

If I do so myself, I render myself a #Service by taking some pains.

@GravelInstitute …If I entrust this task to another, I put him to some trouble and owe him a #Service.

Thus, there are two pains, two services, to compare and discuss.

The #GiftOfNature always remains free of charge.

#Bastiat on the relationships between #Utility, #Work, #Service & #Value

@threadreaderapp unroll please