If to exchange is just as productive as to produce (Simmel, again). If I displace you you displace me. Somewhere in there value is created. This value, according for this schema to work, would have to be real (but what then, is fake value, anyway?). That is, we don't have to worry where it's all from, it will all be there.
Value is generated by comparing the uncertainty of what could be with the certainty of what is.
Look, it's all for us, each of these battles has been fought in our honor. And what do we get? What do we really get for all those guns and all that ammo? We get the privilege of interacting with others who the battles were fought for. That is we get the privilege of joining society. Mostly, this means buying stuff.
Just staring at the permits to know what will exist.
They just know that there is something there and thus, ask if you want to save that something. But it cannot see if that thing is a mere scrap or a confirmed masterpiece. Therefore, people are still necessary.
We all know that things happen, but how many of us can name them? You've seen the placards on the street that inform us what happened here and what happened there. We need to make our own signs and staple them to the walls, tape them to the monuments.
History is just as ephemeral as you say it is.
