But what makes water not scarce, abundant, but diamond scarce?

If I were to get a gram of water, all i'd need to do is go to the faucet and turn it on

If I were to get a gram of diamond, I'd have to take a pickaxe and dig for the rest of my life

The same generally holds for everyone else. On average, it takes a lot less time to get a gram of water than to get a gram of diamond

But maybe you live right on top of a diamond mine, so it takes you no work at all to get a diamond

But when you go to market to sell it, you sure as hell aren't going to sell at cost of production.

You are going to sell it for as high as you can

demand is high

so you can sell for a high price

that will be determined by the average amount of work it takes for every other diamond producer to get their diamonds to market

Would you say that demand for water is even higher?

After all, without water, you can't even enjoy diamonds because you'll be dead

water is more abundant

and the people without water dont have any money

They have their labor power to sell

water is less scarce than diamonds

true

But why is that so?

because their labor is near worthless

Even though water is abundant, it still has a price

How so?

because they have no skills

It doesn't take much labor to work in a sweatshop

The whole point of division of labor is to simplify tasks

there are people lining up to work in sweatshops

supply is high

It's in the benefit of employers to keep the supply of labor as high as possible, and to keep the size of the unemployed as high as possible

why aren't more people becoming entrepreneurs to bid up the price of labor?

overpopulation driving down wages

driving down wages increases profitability, should be seeing more employers

Higher profits should incentive more investment into businesses, and thus the hiring of more workers

which would decrease the supply of labor and thus push wages up, decreasing profitability, which would disincentivise investment into businesses, thus less workers hired, thus pushing wages down

You see this fluctuation in profitability, wages, employment, investment.

what determines this point which all these measures fluctuate around?

The average, long term point?

my peepee

gottem

my wiener is the long term point which all measures fluctuate around

gottie

I'mma go jack off now. My sperm is the source of all value

@PugSlugger