>I mean why do I even pay more than the capital depreciation, the input costs and some low margin? If the neoclassical theory of price converging to marginal c

>I mean why do I even pay more than the capital depreciation, the input costs and some low margin? If the neoclassical theory of price converging to marginal cost actually holds, then this is exactly what we should be paying! > Objects like resistors or pills reflect the sunk costs much more than the labour costs. You mean up-front capital expenditures? Sounds about right, but then there's the problem that somewhere back in that chain, high-skilled professional labor was expended to design the machines (that design the machines?). So you do then have present marginal costs paying for past inputs, capex, and labor as well as present inputs and depreciation. Except you're not really paying the past labor directly, but instead via the firm that owns the trade-secrets and IP created by the past labor. So there's labor in there eventually, but alienated through enough layers of indirection that the same employer gets paid a bunch of times over for one design's work of actual work. Meanwhile, the guy who did the actual work is probably hunting for a new job because he doesn't get paid for use of his old work. Hmm... we need IP reform.