Re: [OPE] intermission: value of knowledge

Paula wrote:
> Paul C wrote:
>
>> But the same can be said of many industrial products.
>> The information content of two ( you can have any colour you want so long
>> as it is black ) model T Fords was the same.
>> It was this information content that distinguished a Ford from a Buick.
>>
>
> Yes, but their value would not depend on that information content, only on
> the amount of abstract labor-time needed for the production of each car.
> Indeed a Ford and a Buick can have exactly the same value even though the
> information content differs.
>
I agree with this. I am not saying that information is value. What I am
saying is that it costs work to produce certain types of information,
and that the information has a value. This is then amortised accross the
multiple copies of the information that are made.
> Another example comes to mind here, that of 'fake' brand goods. A factory,
> say, produces luxury handbags, but some of them are smuggled onto the black
> market. All the handbags are produced the same way, but the legal ones are
> the 'genuine brand', therefore they carry a different information content
> and sell for a much higher price. I would argue, however, that the value is
> the same. The difference in information content does not enter into it.
>
One has to be clear what one means by the difference in information
content here.
Does it mean more or less information or different information. I doubt
that the
genuine Dior items have more information.
> Paula
>
> PS - regarding Jurriaan's comments, it's fine to start 'by inventorizing the
> ways in which intellectual property is actually sold, and what sort of
> property rights pertain to it'. But if we are trying to decide whether
> knowledge has value, then at some point we would indeed have to abstract
> from these markets, since value is produced before exchange.
>
> Also, knowledge is not exactly the same as information, but the two are
> closely related. Here we are considering whether labor that produces
> knowledge and/or information is productive of value.
>
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Received on Thu Nov 19 05:27:25 2009