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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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the_dunk_tank
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Marx does talk about precious/luxury goods in Capital volume 1 actually. If I remember right he specifically talks about pearls and paintings. But if I remember right he doesn't define paintings as commodities, since their value can't be reproduced through the same methods, since the value comes from the rarity associated with the artist. He says something similar about pearls too.
But that poster is completely wrong. Gold doesn't take labor to mine out of the ground? Diamonds don't take labor to mine or synthesize? What
Literally in the first chapter of Capital Volume 1:
"Jacob doubts whether gold has ever been paid for at its full value. This applies still more to diamonds. According to Eschwege, the total produce of the Brazilian diamond mines for the eighty years, ending in 1823, had not realised the price of one-and-a-half years’ average produce of the sugar and coffee plantations of the same country, although the diamonds cost much more labour, and therefore represented more value. With richer mines, the same quantity of labour would embody itself in more diamonds, and their value would fall. If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour, in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks."
I like that Marx mentions diamonds. Lab grown diamonds are around a third the price of mined diamonds, specifically because there are less people performing labor on them. I believe most of the cost of lab diamonds comes from the cutting of it, since diamonds still take specialized equipment to cut.
Yeah, he really mentions how diamonds would be "the price of a brick" and industrial diamonds pretty much are. But jewelry diamonds are still expensive, and the diamond industry is a great way to introduce people to Marxist concepts of value.