So what does have value? Life.

I've learned a lot doing science; for example, we often talk about a material as being the mixture of two end-members. What you get if you mix eggs and milk is a good example. At one end you have pure egg. Add a bit of milk and you might get English-style scrambled eggs (after cooking of course - work with me here). At the other end, take a pint of milk. It is pure milk. Whisk in an egg and you have egg-nog, more or less. OK this is crude, but as a first pass at working out where and what value is, it serves. We can look around for something that is all pure value and then for something that has no value at all. Most everything will fall between these limits. It will be an interesting thought experiment.

What has absolute value? It must be something we need - and need in an absolute sense. We know what a human being needs and it is not much. Two thousand calories a day, enough shelter to survive whatever the weather is, rudimentary sanitation. Enough exercise, but not exhaustion. It is a pretty short list and would make for a marginal life, but that is the entire point. To speak of anything above the absolute minimum to sustain life as a need is to diminish our regard for the fundamentals. If you are facing starvation, then one day's worth of food has great value - perhaps as much value as a human life. Like it or not, that's the basic premise of our culture - that people would rather eat than starve and so will exchange their efforts for food in the ratio of one day's work for one day's food. You doubt me? Go read Engels. Look at the television. Read the newspapers. There are people starving all over the world because nobody sees their output as being worth a day's food. In the cities of the west, we do not see it happen, not out in the open on our smooth streets, but think for a minute of the stories of malnourished or neglected children in housing projects. It is not that far away. Go to another country, a poor country and the real meaning of the word "need" will be very obvious.

By now you are thinking I must be crazy. Maybe. But I can't see any error in the logic above. The things we need have absolute life-size value. That's a good place to start. Next - what can we find that is common and really has very little true value? It has to be something that nobody in possession of the facts would spend money on but also something that sells in huge volume. Have a guess?

Dr. J.