Adam Smith and David Ricardo argued that all value comes from labor, and the value of something is in the amount of labor it took to produce it.
But Henry George understood that this is backward. The value of something lies in how much labor we’re willing to exchange for it.
Too often, we’re tempted to price things based on what they cost us to make. It’s more useful to price things based on what they’re worth to those that might want to buy them.