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Same thing. My point is that the cost of the digging up is proportional to the cost of the diggers. Cheap labor digs up the fossil fuels cheaply. It isn't that labor becomes expensive for everything else except for the machines, and the fuel for them.

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What makes the machines expensive is (as the article says) the capital cost. An investor must sink a considerable amount of money into producing or obtaining a machine before any money is made, that money is now locked up until the machine (with a limited lifespan) turns a profit, at the cost of not making better investments elsewhere.

The cost of the machine is proportional to the cost of labor needed to make it. Cheap labor means cheap machines, expensive labor means expensive machines.

What about resources needed to make the machine?

> Cheap labor digs up the fossil fuels cheaply

Only if you have fossil fuel to dig up though. To do that you need to have identified where it is and build the infrastructure and skills to be able to dig it up.

Coal mines are far from everywhere, without them you would have to grow fuel and thus compete with human food.

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