> even if they could find the identical sandwich for 5.50 on the outside, the $10 + tip or more cab fee there and back would make the sandwich $15 or more in the end anyway
And there you have it, a perfect description of value. The sandwich costs $15 at the airport, because at the airport it’s worth $15. It may be worth less elsewhere, but that’s its value there.
They’re not selling a sandwich, they’re selling a sandwich you can have between flights.
The value is no higher at the airport than anywhere else. The difference is who is able to capture the surplus value.
At the airport, the vendor captures most of the surplus value due to their monopoly. Elsewhere, the consumer captures a lot of the surplus value due to robust competition between different vendors.
That’s stretching the definition of value a bit. Value is certainly situational - you wouldn’t say that someone selling the last parachute on a plane that’s falling is « capturing the true value of the parachute » - or someone selling a bottle of water to someone dying of dehydration in the desert is capturing the true value of the water
I believe I'm using value[1] in the standard economic way as "measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent" often framed as "what is the maximum amount of money a specific actor is willing and able to pay for the good or service?".
It's not the same as market price or market value. Market price is what you actually pay, value is the maximum you would hypothetically pay. The difference between the two is the "consumer surplus"[2].
It is situational, but I don't think it varies much in this scenario. You aren't any hungrier inside the airport than you are outside. If food was equally scarce in both locations, you would pay the same amount.
The value is the same in both locations, but the price is higher in the airport. That means consumer surplus is higher outside the airport. The cost to the producer is also roughly the same, so the producer surplus is higher in the airport. The producer has used their monopoly position to take a larger portion of the economic surplus inside the airport.
> but I don't think it varies much in this scenario. You aren't any hungrier inside the airport than you are outside.
I think the poster was claiming that in fact the value is not the same. You aren't hungrier, but you are typically more tired, more rushed, and focused on bigger problems than what to eat for lunch, etc. It's a reasonable argument. That doesn't mean it's thing going on.
My god the fact that people here argue for the LTV is sad.
Literally every bit of theoretical marxism, including the Labor Theory of Value, the "absolute general law of capital accumulation", the "tendency for the rate of profit to fall", and the entire set of predictions around "dialectical materialism" are all debunked by more than a hundred years of history. Can we drop it now, or do we have to be enamored by his fashionable nonsense for another hundred years?
Consumer Surplus and Surplus Value have their similarities. Flaming someone for using some words that appear to trigger you is unproductive. Maybe give them the benefit of the doubt, especially since their last sentence seems to argue for capitalism.
More like a hundred years of obvious capitalist propaganda. Marxist theory is taught in normal economics courses in China, a country projected to be the largest economy by the end of this decade, largest economy by GDP PPP, largest number of people who escaped poverty in the last x decades, etc etc. Argue it's because of capitalism sure but LTV or Marxist theory are not "debunked" lol.
What is taught in school and what people learn are often vastly different, in any culture.
In Shenzhen every single person seemed to be running a business, and it felt like one of the most truly capitalist places I have ever been. In New Zealand people are dependent on their government, and few people try to run their own business. You don’t need to risk much in New Zealand, so most people don’t.
Food delivered to the airport, lol. Where would the delivery person park? Why would any driver subject themselves to the traffic snarls of an airport, even if you were to meet them outside? No matter how you justify it, having individual drivers deliver individual orders to an airport would cost far more than even the monopolistic, jacked-up airport food. Honestly, just the idea "food to be delivered"... like seriously, dude, the world isn't here to deliver shit right into your lap.
Given that staple food likely has fairly low elasticity of demand and food sellers in airports likely have extensive market power, I wouldn’t really make any conclusions about “value.” If sellers increase the price from $10 to $15 and the quantity of sandwiches demanded doesn’t decrease much at all, that’s a pretty good indicator that “value” to the buyer didn’t increase much. If the sellers’ economic profits went up about the same proportion as the price did, that’s another dead giveaway.
This doesn't account for all the people who simply don't buy the $15 sandwich, because they planned in advance and ate at home. Nor does it account for the people who decide that a $15 beer is a better value at the airport than a $15 sandwich. The value being measured is the markup, not the full price in isolation.
You can technically bring an empty bottle of water or container and fill it up inside of the airport.
Your options would typically be a water fountain, bathroom sink or asking a bar tender to fill it up. Typically if you go the bar tender route you may end up tipping them so you don't escape some cost there.
I've also heard you can bring a frozen water bottle. The idea there is if it were a dangerous liquid then it wouldn't freeze so you're allowed to bring it. The hard part would be ensuring it stays fully frozen while waiting on line.
That’s a very pro-capitalist way of saying you don’t really care about free markets. If the airport authority allowed competition and/or if they only granted exclusivity tied to reasonable pricing, then this issue wouldn’t exist.
And there you have it, a perfect description of value. The sandwich costs $15 at the airport, because at the airport it’s worth $15. It may be worth less elsewhere, but that’s its value there.
They’re not selling a sandwich, they’re selling a sandwich you can have between flights.