Cost vs. Value

This one is definitely more random, and if it would help, I'd give the whole back story to it's genesis, but I think that would only serve to complicate things more.  Suffice it to say, I was in a weird, Marxist kind of mood when I wrote it:

When I was eight years old I made an astonishing discovery.  My parents kept the allowance cups for all six of their children just behind the kitchen sink.  It was all too easy to reach up and move money from any of my siblings’ cups to my own, and in fact I did on several occasions.  At the time this amounted to just slightly more than a dollar, a paltry amount by most standards, but later in life, as I make preparations to pay an allowance to my own children, and having studied some in the field of economics, I have come to a realization about this money which nobody ever noticed was missing. 

            In studying the writings of Karl Marx I was struck by his theory of Use-Value.  This theory relates the value of a thing to its utility, and states that “Use-values become a reality only by use or consumption: they also constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth.”  What struck me especially about this is that these commodities only take on value when they are used or consumed.  By this reasoning, to have something, to simply be in possession of it holds no inherent value in and of itself.  Having grown up in a culture where doomsday preparations are a main priority this theory presented an interesting dilemma; that dilemma being that Marx’s theory rang true somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, but it also negated a large part of my life-long mental conditioning. 

            Frugality was yet another value that was instilled in me from a very young age, not only from my parents but from the culture which enveloped my small reality.  The prospect of purchasing something for less than the original price held immense value in my belief system.  Thus, whether an item was needed with any immediacy was not even a topic of discussion.  That the world would inevitably come crashing down around us and cause us to need all of these preparations was not just a possibility, nor was it a probability, it was as strongly held a belief as many have that the sun will continue to shine with each new morning. 

            With both of these strongly held “truths” in hand, that one must be in possession of large quantities of commodities, and that to acquire something for less than it was suggested to retail for represented a blessing, I began a feverish study of Marx and his Use-Value principle.  After several months of study I found myself at a completely different understanding of the inherent value of finite objects.  This new found understanding centered in the actual usefulness of an object verses the cost, both monetary and spatial, of maintaining its existence.  Both of these aspects are completely separate from the initial cost of acquiring the object, which I now believe has no merit beyond what one is capable of spending to acquire the object initially.  The conclusion which I came to was that if an object is not currently, or in the very near and real future in use, and needed, its value is diminished materially.  If said object also creates a spatial or monetary cost to maintain, it then takes on a negative value, draining both the family coffers and the space in which the family must live and function.