“If one machine can be used to make X (and nothing else) and another can be used to make Y, and each uses the same raw materials in the same amounts to make a unit of its product, and X is more valuable than Y, then the first machine is more valuable than the second, even if each machine contains the same raw materials and took the same amount of time to make. The first machine, having a more valuable final product, will command a higher price than the second. This may give rise to the illusion that its products are more valuable because it is more valuable. But this gets things backwards. It is more valuable because its products are.”
―
Robert Nozick,
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
