> There are lots of things I would pay more for than
> it would cost me to produce since there are lots
> things I have no desire/interest/talent to produce.
..."or acquire it from another source."
>> I ask again, is this a serious question??
>
> Yes, because I wonder if there has ever actually been
> a free market or whether all markets that claimed to
> be free were actually unfree due to the regulations
> and restrictions that existed in the real world. In
> that way, I wonder if the idea of a free market is
> just a theoretical notion that could never be
> manifested in real life.
No doubt you wonder that, but do you actually expect me to be able to answer that right here, right now?
Do you realize how complicated a question you are asking?
> What if I love the color red and want to have a red shovel?
> I might be willing to pay more for the red shovel even
> though I could get a blue one for less.
In any given transaction personal preference plays a role, assuming you can *afford* to be picky, but over time any premium price fetched by red shovels will increase their supply as producers try to cash in on the red shovel craze and this new competition will decrease there cost.
On other words, demand creates supply, supply reduces price.
>> However if I had a monopoly in the supply of shovels I
> could charge you as much as $89 per harvest to rent it and
> you would still be $1 ahead. This is the logic of Capitalism.
>
> Got it. Capitalism wants with the help of the state to keep
> prices at an artifically high level. You also rent shovels
> instead of selling them so people keep having to come to you.
> (Which is actually how Panavision works -- you cannot actually
> buy a movie camera -- even the studios can only rent them.)
Capitalism doesn't only want this, it needs this, because unless Capital can earn a return that us greater than it's cost, there is no surplus value to sustain a Capitalist class.
-- Dmytri Kleiner, robotnik Telekommunisten, Berlin.
dk at telekommunisten.net http://www.telekommunisten.net freenode/#telnik