| | Jeff,
On the other hand, I'm inclined to side with Andy's disputants, since I can trade my services for physical goods or other services, and this sure strikes me as "wealth". That's OK. Call services wealth if that makes better sense to you than my definition. That doesn't change the hierachy of economic activity I have identified. First we must produce goods, then we can provide services, and finally we can engage in aesthetic pursuits. It's like building a house: First the foundation, then the frame, and finally the roof.
I must think Miss Rand would be perplexed by the mental blocks some here have regarding the primacy of material production. Its primacy is not in contradiction with her observation that the human mind is where everything starts. It is literally true that you can't dig a ditch without thinking about it. Not every thought that is valuable must be artsy-fartsy, high-minded deepness. In fact, give me one thought that is valuable before exerting some sweat to make it real.
For example, a novel exists only after it has some physical presence - if nothing else a computer file containing a manuscript. The same with a song, and its value only increases by being performed. The design for the next great invention is nothing until it is a blueprint. Let's take something prosaic, like raw land. A homesteader envisions a farm, but his dream is only that until he at least does the minimum of staking out the land to physically define what he owns.
So, if we think about what we value economically, there is no idea that has any value until there is a physical manifestation of it. Now if that physicality is in the form of an action (like a service) instead of a thing (like food or goods), and you want to call all of that wealth, I'll take your point. But that doesn't change what must come first in an economy.
Andy
|
|
