I just asked my daughter what her watch is worth, to which she replied that she wasn't sure. I followed this up by posing the scenario where she offered it to me for one hundred dollars, and I declined, making a counteroffer of fifty dollars-- but then she offered it to her brother for one hundred dollars, and he accepted.

"I see: the watch is worth fifty dollars to you, and one hundred dollars to my brother", she correctly clarified. I followed this up by asking her whether the value of her watch is the same for all people, or different for each person-- to which she again correctly replied, "Different for each person."

One of the silliest things I've read lately is the news that some pandering, manipulative politicians-- are there any other kind, really?-- in the UK are pushing for "anti scalper" laws, because some soy boys weren't able to buy a new video game system for themselves, like the kind mommy used to placate them with.

"Scalping", of course, means selling something for above its "value". But how can that be, if the value of something is different to everyone as even my ten year old daughter knows, and even changes from moment-to-moment? Selling "above its value", according to whose value exactly, and as of when?

The answer-- never expressly stated in these terms, mind you-- comes from Karl Marx, who thought that the value of something was the sum of the labor which went into it. And if the object was sold for more than that value, you see, then that "excess value" was being "skimmed" from the exploited laborers.

Of course, the value of the labor itself is also subjectively defined, moment-to-moment and differently by different people: if Karl Marx walked into three different McDonalds restaurants today, in three different geographical regions, and tried to establish the "objective" labor value of identical cheeseburgers, he'd find that the costs to make them were different, and perhaps had even changed in the time he was standing in line.

How to know then whether to buy the cheeseburger, or not? How can one even know if it's being sold for an "excessive" value? Is poor old Karl supporting slave labor by eating a bacon McDouble for dinner?

The answer, of course, is that he'd weigh the asking price of the cheeseburger against his own subjective notions of what the cheeseburger is worth to him, in that moment: in other words, he wouldn't even operate by his own theory in real life. The cheeseburger is worth to him whatever he'll pay for it, and that amount will be different for a different person, regardless of how much the cheeseburger cost to make.

So back to the UK law: I could go onto eBay right this minute and probably get eleven hundred bucks for my PlayStation 5. In January, maybe twelve hundred. In February, perhaps nine hundred. It's still the same PlayStation 5, with the same amount of labor which went into it. Am I "scalping" in December? How about January? Or what about February? Should people still be asked to pay the same price for my eighteen year-old car, as when it was brand new, because the labor which went into it never changed?

On that note, what if I wait a year and sell my PlayStation 5 for only two hundred dollars? Isn't the buyer "scalping" me now, by buying it for less than the amount of labor which went into it? Should the price of a PlayStation 5-- nay, all knowable objects in the universe-- be set by the government, to make sure no one is "scalping"?

Even further: isn't Sony selling the PlayStation 5 for less than it cost to make? Aren't the workers exploiting the company, and should have to pay some of their wages back, to make up the difference? And yet further: these "anti scalper" laws use the MSRP of the product to determine if a reseller is "scalping". In other words, they are using the already "excessive" price set by a multi-billion dollar corporation, as the moral holy grail for determining what that product's "value" is.

What about labor itself while we're at it? I bet each and every one of the people cheerleading the creation of these laws tries to get the highest paying job they can, without a single iota of thought given into how much "labor" educated them in the first place. Can you imagine them in a job interview saying, "I'm sorry, you'll have to pay me less so I'm not scalping." And I bet when they go to sell their Honda Civic, they put it up on Craig's List for the maximum amount they think they can get.

All of this is purely academic, naturally: the politicians behind this are pandering for votes from brainwashed Millennials, a fact of which I'm fully cognizant-- this post is merely a thought exercise.