Labour, capital, and the ‘free gifts of nature’
www.resilience.org
Political economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth century employed a curious phrase to denote the source of wealth at the base of the economy: the “free gifts of nature.” Alyssa Battistoni, a political science professor at Barnard College, believes that careful attention to the meanings of this phrase illuminates many aspects of the world we inhabit today.

In short, capitalism pays no price for nature’s gifts even though these gifts are immensely valuable. Yet they are valuable in only one of two key senses of value: they have use value but not exchange value. (Exchange value comes into play only later, after they have been harvested, extracted, appropriated, and offered on the market.) Because they have no exchange value, the “free gifts” are free because they are priced at zero.

And with that, we’re deep into the weeds with Karl Marx.

I think this is a very solarpunk-ish insight and look forward to reading this book.