Labour Theory: Main Arguments

Labour Theory: Main Arguments

1. 2. A person's labour is their own and this should be taken to include the claim that the value of a person's labour is value that they own

   • Kawashima: Value of art: social, political and economic structures, conceptual art 'intellectually inaccessible' but at the same time popularised and plays important role economically
     • Value not just £
     • Knowles: Economic value 'dwarfed' by symbolic value (attracting other cultural industries, attracting tourists, bolstering image of city, country etc

2. 6. There is enough land in the world for everyone to make good use of

3. 1. People have the right to preserve own lives, this requires some appropriation from the common stock

   • Filmer: common ownership would require consent of all mankind, unrealistic, refuted by Locke himself
   • New Essays in IP: contents of common ideas don't require exclusive use/ownership cf real property
     • Rahmatian: almost impossible for something to derive entirely from author, requirement of material change
     • New Essays in IP: common property strained re: IP, fully effective sue of ideas does not required prolonged control/use and can be simultaneous
       • Sometimes needed for value to be appreciated
       • Attempts to monopolise run counter to IP 'spirit'
   • Shriffin characterisation

4. 5. A person many only appropriate to the extent that he does not waste his acquisition or allow then to spot (stewardship)

   • New Essays in IP: only applies to real property, IP cannot be wasted through spoilage because usefulness does not decay or expire
     • cf advances in technology, trends

5. 3. A person's labour can be 'mixed in' with a thing or 'annexed to' a thing which it previously didn't, labour increases the value of a thing and labour can indicate the extent of appropriation

   • Rahmatian: different amount of labour required for different types of work, inconsistent -- process
   • New Essays in IP: Exertion = appropriation, better claim, adds value and makes resource useful

6. 4. A person may justifiably appropriate only where enough and as good is left in the common stock

   • New Essays in IP: only applies to real property, IP cannot be depleted

7. 8. Invention of money occurs because people concept to value things which do not spoil, which allows for exchange of labour for imperishable materials

8. 7. Most of the value in something is the result of labour which has been 'joined to' it

   • Idea of Property: thing is no more than the embodiment of value of labour, person controls labour, labour transforms something previously worthless
     • People consent to value something scare (original) and will exchange it for something (money)
       • Incorrect to think in terms of solitary labourer, better to consider cooperation between individuals as the norm (art world actors)
       • Mixing with contract
   • Cohen: value of labour requires use, includes control to use at will
   • Kawashima: droit de suite rationale, value not always realised upon first sale