To Each Their Own

• Donna Newberry, for example, thoroughly enjoys the taste of horseradish sauce. She applies it to anything and everything--hot dogs, bologna sandwiches, ice cream, apple pie, breakfast cereal. It provides Donna with a great deal of satisfaction. As such, Donna places a high value on horseradish sauce.


• Rhonda Newberry, Donna's twin sister, has a dramatically different opinion of horseradish sauce. She hates it. She hates it with a passion. Not only does Rhonda not apply horseradish sauce to any food product, she does not patronize a restaurant that serves it. Horseradish sauce provides Rhonda with no satisfaction. As such, she places a low value on horseradish sauce, as in zero.

Indirect Value

In contrast, the value of productive resources (labor, capital, land, and entrepreneurship) is indirectly based on the value of the goods produced. A resource used to produce a good highly valued by society is also valuable.

Consider the situation facing two equally intelligent, equally talented, equally industries, college graduates.

• Robert Fredrickson decides to pursue the study computer programming. Fredrick Robertson, his college classmate, chooses to study of classic English literature. The outcome seems obvious. The value of the labor resources of each graduate is ultimately based on the value of the goods each produces.


• Robert Fredrickson takes a job with OmniComputer. The software he helped to develop, along with a hundred and forty-three other programmers, sells for $49.95 and is used by millions of computers. Based on software sales, OmniComputer places an annual value of $75,000 on Robert's productive resources.


• Fredrick Robertson, in contrast, spends over a decade as a starving artist working on a science fiction trilogy. The trilogy sells over 100 million copies. Based on book sales, Fredrick's book publishing company places an annual value of $10 million on Fredrick's productive resources.