Ok, say the subject at hand is oil…

One can argue that there’s no value in it until it is discovered, brought up from the ground, and converted for human use. Thus, the value of it came from the labor required to make it useful.

Now, with that in mind, look at who tends to get the wealth from oil. Speculators, those with political connections, and corrupt, unrepresentative politicians. The US knows this all too well, oil vis-a-vis the dollar being the key to the clusterfuck we’re currently embroiled in. It is typical for people in the US concerned about this to say the following:

Our oil habit not only makes us dependent on some creepy suppliers, but we look like fools as we work nonstop to hand over our earnings to those who are rich by an accident of sitting atop oil someone else found and developed.

Makes sense. Problem is, that’s a quote from Victor Davis Hanson, a staunch supporter of the foreign policy status quo of “if you can’t get what you want, bomb everything”. He has taken this logic, and used it to slip in the suggestion that the US is somehow entitled to the natural resources of other countries. Somehow I doubt that’s what David Ricardo meant…

Props.