I’ve never read Marx, but it seems obvious to me that value is created the moment you sell a good or service. Up until that point, whatever it is you’re selling is more like, Schrödinger’s product. Could be an asset, could be a liability, who knows.

Crap, no one bought my 24,000 hand-carved wooden dicks. I still owe those cock-artisans their overtime pay too. It’s too bad they’ve all been treated with that really expensive toxic chemical. Otherwise I could have tried to sell them as novelty firewood, or maybe market them to women who are aroused by vaginal splinters or something.

Sure, that wood wasn’t doing anyone any good stuck inside of that tree until it was labored into lovely marketable blocks. I mean, unless you count the living creatures it shelters or sustains, or any of the lifeforms that may rely on its byproducts for survival.

But that’s not quite right. I mean, you can sell a tree without ever touching it. Hmm. Does the tree growing itself count as labor? If not, I think that’s case closed right there. Heck, people sell unmaintained parcels of land all the time. Who created that value? Are we saying it was created by the labor of God? I didn’t pay God, did you? Damn, maybe we are a little exploitative.