Can this claim be proven?

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

I was reading a book about socialism and I came across the claim that the workers aren't being payed the full value of their labor. Can this be proven? Who decides the value of labor? I can understand that capitalists will try to pay their workers the least amount possible(enough for them to keep working), how can we prove that that small amount isn't really how much their work is worth? Is there a scientific basis for this? I'm not saying these low wages are fair wages(they usually aren't living wages), but I don't know. I'm confused.

Could someone help me out here?

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

I was reading a book about socialism and I came across the claim that the workers aren't being payed the full value of their labor. Can this be proven? Who decides the value of labor? I can understand that capitalists will try to pay their workers the least amount possible(enough for them to keep working), how can we prove that that small amount isn't really how much their work is worth? Is there a scientific basis for this? I'm not saying these low wages are fair wages(they usually aren't living wages), but I don't know. I'm confused.

Could someone help me out here?

Well, it can be shown that the value of all products is derived from labor. Seeing this, profit MUST BE the product of unpayed labor. Here's a source (sort of thick and hard to read, but worth it)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

[hatzel]

It all boils down to whether or not you believe that labour has a financial value...if you do, though, you could assume that if somebody takes exactly 1 hour making something (from scratch to completion), and is paid $10/hour, and then his product is sold for $100, then the value of his labour is $100 (ignoring the cost of raw materials, which might be another $10), and he's been paid $10. If he were paid the full value of his labour (that is his produce, as there is no other way to measure the value of labour scientifically), namely $100, then the capitalist wouldn't earn anything, so he has to be paid less than the value of his produce. For the whole capitalist system to make any sense whatsoever. I won't start trying to shoot down any theories about the value of labour or whatever, I'll just provide something solid :)

[#FF0000]

It all boils down to whether or not you believe that labour has a financial value...if you do, though, you could assume that if somebody spends exactly 1 hour making something, and is paid $10, and then his product is sold for $100, then the value of his labour is $100, and he's been paid $10. If he were paid the full value of his labour (that is his produce, as there is no other way to measure the value of labour scientifically), namely $100, then the capitalist wouldn't earn anything, so he has to be paid less than the value of his produce. For the whole capitalist system to make any sense. I won't start trying to shoot down any theories about the value of labour or whatever, I'll just provide something solid :)

Pretty much this. A worker is paid to put his labor into raw materials to create a commodity, and the commodity is sold for more than the sum of the raw materials, labor...etc. The worker is given only a fraction of the total value the worker created.

[hatzel]

Every time I read what I wrote I notice how poorly I explained it, sorry :lol: We get the idea, though...

[No Ha Muerto]

Essentially what you have to remember is, workers are not paid for the amount of labour preformed; capitalism does usually imply equal exchange, so it would be impossible to make a continuous profit in that way.

They are paid for their ability to preform labour, i.e. their labour-power, which functions like any other commodity; it increases and decreases in value depending on the amount of labour needed to reproduce the labour-power (e.g. food, housing).

Capitalists (in some cases, collectively through a bourgeois state) will always strive to keep the price of labour-power lower than the value of labour preformed, through say fixing foodprices. If they fail, they cannot make a profit.

[Tommy4ever]

The existence of profit.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Well, it can be shown that the value of all products is derived from labor. Seeing this, profit MUST BE the product of unpayed labor. Here's a source (sort of thick and hard to read, but worth it)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

Value, Price and Profit (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/) (short and easy to read)

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

The existence of profit.
But I mean how can we prove that its not just extra money?


Pretty much this. A worker is paid to put his labor into raw materials to create a commodity, and the commodity is sold for more than the sum of the raw materials, labor...etc. The worker is given only a fraction of the total value the worker created.

Could you explain this in more detail?

[Victus Mortuum]

Workers produce product while owner of capital smokes a cigar at home. Legally he has full ownership of the product that the workers created on their own. He sells their product and gets money in exchange. This money is the market value of the product produced exclusively by the workers. He then gives them a little (wages) and uses some to replenish/accumulate capital and then keeps the (considerable) rest for himself.

Summed up in my sig.

[Black Sheep]

[starting wealth] -------(LABOUR) -------[end wealth]

[1st materials]----------(L)----------[product/commodity]

ValueOfCommodity > valueOfLabor + valueOf1stMaterials , always.If not, production would be damaging financially, and the capitalist would not go for it.

I explain it poorly in an oooold video i uploaded, a few years ago.
*WARNING*, i was a stalinist back then :(
7wRRVz14K1w

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

Pretty much this. A worker is paid to put his labor into raw materials to create a commodity, and the commodity is sold for more than the sum of the raw materials, labor...etc. The worker is given only a fraction of the total value the worker created.
But I mean, if the commodity is sold for more than the cost of labor and materials, wouldn't the cost of labor be the value of labor? How do we know that the full value of labor isn't payed but the product being sold for more, that more could be the profit? Does that make any sense?

How can it be a fraction of the value? If what said above is true then profit wouldn't be stolen from the worker but is extra money coming from the price being higher than the cost of labor/materials.

Sorry but this is still confusing me.

So the worker sells his labor for a certain amount, and he doesn't get that much in return? So like if I sell my labor to make a gum ball for a quarter to a capitalist, he sells the gum ball getting money in return, but doesn't give me the quarter I sold that labor for?

But how much is the value of labor? Who decides? Does the worker consciously say that he is selling his labor for say 15 dollars an hour and the capitalist consciously says he will only give him a fraction of it? I don't think a worker would agree into doing that unless they have no other option and in that case becomes wage slavery. I can't really imagine every worker going around saying the value of their labor is a certain amount that they know about. Do we make up a number at random? Then we could say the value of our labor could then be a million dollars if we wanted.

Please help me with this.

[Broletariat]

But I mean, if the commodity is sold for more than the cost of labor and materials, wouldn't the cost of labor be the value of labor?

Price is not the same thing as value, that's the whole point of exploitation. Worker's are paid less than the value of their labour.


How do we know that the full value of labor isn't payed but the product being sold for more, that more could be the profit? Does that make any sense?Because value can only be added during production of a commodity. Value is the shape that labour takes under Capitalism, labour is only performed on a commodity in production.

Valid questions all yes.


How can it be a fraction of the value?I guess I got lost here in responding to you, define "it" and I'll answer.


If what said above is true then profit wouldn't be stolen from the worker but is extra money coming from the price being higher than the cost of labor/materials.This could only be true in the situation of a monopoly, otherwise another company could undercut the one in question.


Sorry but this is still confusing me.S'all good man


So the worker sells his labor for a certain amount, and he doesn't get that much in return? So like if I sell my labor to make a gum ball for a quarter to a capitalist, he sells the gum ball getting money in return, but doesn't give me the quarter I sold that labor for? http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2208/2488405893_c27096f6e6.jpg?v=0


But how much is the value of labor?

The value of labour is determined by the same way the value of anything is determined. The amount of socially necessary average labour time to produce it.


Who decides?The invisible hand of the market essentially


Does the worker consciously say that he is selling his labor for say 15 dollars an hour and the capitalist consciously says he will only give him a fraction of it? I don't think a worker would agree into doing that unless they have no other option and in that case becomes wage slavery. I can't really imagine every worker going around saying the value of their labor is a certain amount that they know about. Do we make up a number at random? Then we could say the value of our labor could then be a million dollars if we wanted.It more goes like this

Worker: shit I'm hungry, job time
Employer: aww yea exploitation and profit time, here's some money
Worker: *eats and lives meagerly*
Employer: *turns around and sells those products the Worker made for more than the Worker is being paid. Lives lavishly*


Please help me with this.Hope I can be of assistance, if you have more questions lemme know.

[Zanthorus]

I was reading a book about socialism and I came across the claim that the workers aren't being payed the full value of their labor. Can this be proven?

Generally when people claim that workers' are not being paid the 'full value' of their labour they are making an ethical claim. Ethical claims are not propositions, they do not assert anything about the world, and as such they cannot be proven by testing them against any given state of affairs.

There is the Marxian sense of the 'value of labour' (More accurately the value of labour-power), which refers to the amount necessary for the worker to maintain himself and his family as well as to cover the costs of any training the worker may need to carry out their job, although even here what counts as proper maintenance is not necessarily something objectively established but relative to a specific cultural and historical setting. "In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element." Nonetheless, it would probably be fairly clear in many cases that workers were not getting paid the value of their labour-power if they were unable to maintain themselves or their families in adequate physical condition, although one of the points which Marx establishes in Volume I and elsewhere is that the exploitation of workers' occurs even when labour-power is paid for at it's full value.

[ar734]

But I mean, if the commodity is sold for more than the cost of labor and materials, wouldn't the cost of labor be the value of labor? How do we know that the full value of labor isn't payed but the product being sold for more, that more could be the profit? Does that make any sense?

How can it be a fraction of the value? If what said above is true then profit wouldn't be stolen from the worker but is extra money coming from the price being higher than the cost of labor/materials.

Sorry but this is still confusing me.

So the worker sells his labor for a certain amount, and he doesn't get that much in return? So like if I sell my labor to make a gum ball for a quarter to a capitalist, he sells the gum ball getting money in return, but doesn't give me the quarter I sold that labor for?

But how much is the value of labor? Who decides? Does the worker consciously say that he is selling his labor for say 15 dollars an hour and the capitalist consciously says he will only give him a fraction of it? I don't think a worker would agree into doing that unless they have no other option and in that case becomes wage slavery. I can't really imagine every worker going around saying the value of their labor is a certain amount that they know about. Do we make up a number at random? Then we could say the value of our labor could then be a million dollars if we wanted.

Please help me with this.

I think the first think to keep in mind is that all commodities are sold at their true value. (Marx, Smith, Ricardo.) Thus, a gumball sold by the capitalist is sold at its true value, say, 25 cents. The gumball worker sold his/her labor, also a commodity, to the capitalist at its true value, say, 15 cents. The capitalist paid another 5 cents for raw material, rent, utilities, financing, etc. Thus, the capitalist paid 20 cents for something worth 25 cents. He keeps the 5 cents as profit, for which he has paid nothing.

Marx argued that the profit is surplus value, added by the worker during the production process. I think it can also be understood as value added, a term familiar to all capitalists. In fact, it is only human labor which can actually add value to any commodity or product. thus, if you see all the ingredients for a gumball on a table, sugar, coloring, the part of each machine used in the process, the sum of the values of all these things is not the same as the value of the actual gumball produced. (sum of total is worth more than the sum of parts, etc., although I dont think Marx ever used this analogy.)

It is my uninformed opinion that this can be scientifically proven using statistics from the bible of capitalism, the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 1.15: Price, Costs and Profit per Unit. This table shows the price, cost and profit per unit of everything, on average, (non-financial) produced in the U.S. The price is equal to labor costs plus non-labor costs plus profit. This is exactly what Marx predicted. It is also important to keep in mind that these figures are determined before the product goes on to the market, again, exactly what Marx said. The capitalist will deny to the very end that profit is determined prior to the commodity entering the market. He will say that profit can only be determined in the magic place of the market. Therefore, he accepts no responsibility for taking, or appropriating what does not belong to him.

The number one rule in a commodity market is that all commodities are exchanged for their true value. There may be variations between individual commodities, esp in a gigantic modern economy, but in the end, commodities are exchanged for their true value. Or as Marx put it 150 years ago:

" To explain, therefore, the general nature of profits, you must start from the theorem that, on an average, commodities are sold at their real values, and that profits are derived from selling them at their values, that is, in proportion to the quantity of labour realized in them. If you cannot explain profit upon this supposition, you cannot explain it at all." (Marx, Value, Price and Profit, Ch. VI)

[ar734]

Veg-Athei:


So the worker sells his labor for a certain amount, and he doesn't get that much in return? So like if I sell my labor to make a gum ball for a quarter to a capitalist, he sells the gum ball getting money in return, but doesn't give me the quarter I sold that labor for?

The worker sells his labor, a commodity, for its actual value, in your case .25 cents. this .25 is determined by the amount of labor (socially necessary) to produce your labor--an exchange of equivalents. What the capitalist gets, however, at the end of your work is not just a commodity worth 25 cents. He gets 25 cents plus the surplus value added to the gumball by your work. Now you might say, well, if the agreed cost of labor is 25 cents then, what is the problem? What difference does it make to the worker if the capitalist sells the gumball for 30 cents? I think the problem is (apart from the moral issue of robbery) that the cost of labor is, on average, the minimum wage, the wage just necessary to reproduce the worker. The value created by the worker is where the real money is, and that value should belong to the worker, society, etc.

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

I think the first think to keep in mind is that all commodities are sold at their true value. (Marx, Smith, Ricardo.) Thus, a gumball sold by the capitalist is sold at its true value, say, 25 cents. The gumball worker sold his/her labor, also a commodity, to the capitalist at its true value, say, 15 cents. The capitalist paid another 5 cents for raw material, rent, utilities, financing, etc. Thus, the capitalist paid 20 cents for something worth 25 cents. He keeps the 5 cents as profit, for which he has paid nothing.
Wait, what part did the five cents that he payed nothing for come from?


Marx argued that the profit is surplus value, added by the worker during the production process. I think it can also be understood as value added, a term familiar to all capitalists. In fact, it is only human labor which can actually add value to any commodity or product.Wait, so the value of labor is surplus value which is profit? That would mean the worker wouldn't be payed anything it sounds like.


thus, if you see all the ingredients for a gumball on a table, sugar, coloring, the part of each machine used in the process, the sum of the values of all these things is not the same as the value of the actual gumball produced. (sum of total is worth more than the sum of parts, etc., although I dont think Marx ever used this analogy.)So the gum ball would be worth more than all the materials used to make it because of the value added by labor? So if labor gives it an amount of value and the materials give it an amount of value, that would be the total value. So somehow profit is extracted from the labor value added? I don't quite understand how though.


It is my uninformed opinion that this can be scientifically proven using statistics from the bible of capitalism, the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 1.15: Price, Costs and Profit per Unit. This table shows the price, cost and profit per unit of everything, on average, (non-financial) produced in the U.S. The price is equal to labor costs plus non-labor costs plus profit.What is the difference between labor cost and labor value?


This is exactly what Marx predicted. It is also important to keep in mind that these figures are determined before the product goes on to the market, again, exactly what Marx said. The capitalist will deny to the very end that profit is determined prior to the commodity entering the market. He will say that profit can only be determined in the magic place of the market. Therefore, he accepts no responsibility for taking, or appropriating what does not belong to him.Wouldn't the market effect profit in some way? I mean doesn't competition keep one company's commodity price trying to be cheaper than the other?


The number one rule in a commodity market is that all commodities are exchanged for their true value. There may be variations between individual commodities, esp in a gigantic modern economy, but in the end, commodities are exchanged for their true value.So essentially every commodity is sold for true value(the value of labor and materials, just the capitalist steals profit out of the labor part of value? How much of it does he steal?


Or as Marx put it 150 years ago:

" To explain, therefore, the general nature of profits, you must start from the theorem that, on an average, commodities are sold at their real values, and that profits are derived from selling them at their values, that is, in proportion to the quantity of labour realized in them. If you cannot explain profit upon this supposition, you cannot explain it at all." (Marx, Value, Price and Profit, Ch. VI)

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

Generally when people claim that workers' are not being paid the 'full value' of their labour they are making an ethical claim. Ethical claims are not propositions, they do not assert anything about the world, and as such they cannot be proven by testing them against any given state of affairs.

So the claim is not like a scientific fact?


There is the Marxian sense of the 'value of labour' (More accurately the value of labour-power), which refers to the amount necessary for the worker to maintain himself and his family as well as to cover the costs of any training the worker may need to carry out their job, although even here what counts as proper maintenance is not necessarily something objectively established but relative to a specific cultural and historical setting. "In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element." Nonetheless, it would probably be fairly clear in many cases that workers were not getting paid the value of their labour-power if they were unable to maintain themselves or their families in adequate physical condition, although one of the points which Marx establishes in Volume I and elsewhere is that the exploitation of workers' occurs even when labour-power is paid for at it's full value.
So its more of a moral issue that if the worker isn't being payed enough to live descently then he must be being robbed?

[ar734]

Wait, what part did the five cents that he payed nothing for come from?

From the value added or surplus value the worker added to the gumball raw materials (as well as the value added by workers who produced the machines which the worker used to make the gumball.


Wait, so the value of labor is surplus value which is profit? That would mean the worker wouldn't be payed anything it sounds like.

Well, the worker is not paid anything for the value which he adds to the gumball raw material. He is only paid for his labor time, wages or price of labor. The surplus value is what is added by the worker, and that is the profit.


So the gum ball would be worth more than all the materials used to make it because of the value added by labor? So if labor gives it an amount of value and the materials give it an amount of value, that would be the total value. So somehow profit is extracted from the labor value added? I don't quite understand how though.

OK...raw materials=10 cents, labor time (wages) = 15 cents, profit=5 cents. The capitalist pays for everything except the profit. One problem is that profit does not suddenly appear and say, "I am the profit." Even a modern capitalist could not tell you where profit comes from.

Price of a commodity=labor costs + non-labor costs (raw material, etc.) + profit. (See table 1.15 of the BEA.) The profit is the value added by the worker...not his time, which has been paid for.


What is the difference between labor cost and labor value? Labor cost is the price or money expression of labor, usually wages. Labor value is, usually, the value which a worker adds to raw materials, etc. Also, raw materials are also a product of labor.


Wouldn't the market effect profit in some way? I mean doesn't competition keep one company's commodity price trying to be cheaper than the other?

Absolutely. The temporary fluctuations of the market, supply and demand, regulate the the price of a commodity. The market is not, however, where the price originates. Competition is part of the process. The capitalist wants to eliminate competition. You put your competitors out of business, create a monopoly. Bill Gates undersold his operating system competitors, put them out of business, then became the richest person in the world.


So essentially every commodity is sold for true value(the value of labor and materials, just the capitalist steals profit out of the labor part of value? How much of it does he steal?

He steals all of it. However, as capitalism becomes more and more advanced, extensive, the capitalist is forced to make more use of machines to produce, say the gumball, if he wants to stay in business. Before, he could use 100 workers and 10 machines, now he uses 100 machines and 10 workers. He can't make a profit off a machine like he can a human being. He can, however, make more of a profit, but at a lesser rate.Thus, as capitalism becomes more advanced the total amount of profit increases, but the rate of profit declines.

I think I see what you are saying. There is the value of labor (let's call it wages), and the value of raw materials. The capitalist pays for both, at their real value. But during the process of production the worker actually adds value to the raw materials---that is the profit. That essentially, I think, is the labor theory of value, discovered by David Ricardo, not Karl Marx.

[ar734]

So the claim is not like a scientific fact?


So its more of a moral issue that if the worker isn't being payed enough to live descently then he must be being robbed?

I think the labor theory of value is absolutely a scientific fact. And I think it can be proved using statistics from the capitalists themselves.

Not only a moral issue, but also,more importantly, an economic issue. A worker sells his labor as a commodity. Therefore, he gets true value for it. This value may go up or down depending on supply and demand and on the cost of living in a certain society at a certain time. But his commodity, labor, is valued, on average, at the minimum cost necessary to get the worker to the job (food, clothing, education for his kids, housing, etc.)

For a worker at McDonald's this cost is extremely low. For a computer programmer at Microsoft, the cost is much higher. However, on average, the cost is the minimum necessary to reproduce the "worker." This is why the average yearly wage in the U.S. (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) is about 17-25 K per year, which is about $8-9 per hour.

[mikelepore]

I was reading a book about socialism and I came across the claim that the workers aren't being payed the full value of their labor.

The book said it wrong. The book was supposed to say: the workers are not paid the full PRODUCT of their labor.

The workers are robbed because they ARE paid the value of their labor, which is amount needed to produce them as commodities that get sold on the labor market (the wages needed to barely keep them alive).

They are robbed because their VALUE is less than their PRODUCT.

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

Something that also inspired me to ask the original question is because I stumbled across this quote at Rational Skepticism.org


With respect to Marx, it may interest you to know, that despite attending what was a university with a particularly spectacular left-wing reputation in the 1980s, I rejected Marxism. I did so because none of its assertions ultimately made sense to me. I was not, in my youth, able to articulate the reasons for this, because my youth was spent acquiring the means to do so, and thus it was only later that I alighted upon the fundamental reasons for rejecting Marxism, and those reasons are the same reasons that I reject supernaturalism, namely that Marxism, like supernaturalism, is based upon unsupported blind assertions, presented as purportedly constituting "axioms" about the world. If you still remember any of your university tuition, you may recall that a fundamental axiom of the Marxist system is the Labour Theory of Value axiom, which states that the value of any commodity is exactly equal to the value of the labour required to produce it. Which, on the face of it, sounds compelling at first reading, and no doubt sounded extremely compelling to thousands of 19th century workers struggling to escape from truly squalid conditions. The problem, of course, is that this purported "axiom" has never been subject to any genuine critical empirical test. Indeed, Marx spent ten whole chapters of his magnum opus, struggling to provide a quantitative basis for the term "undifferentiated labour", as a first step toward placing the Labour Theory of Value axiom on a critically firm foundation. In doing so, he borrowed a principle from 19th century physicists, namely, that understanding of your system of interest is facilitated if you have units of measurement of relevant quantities in place, so that detailed understanding of relevant relationships can be extracted from the real world data. Marx tried to apply this principle to his analysis of labour, and ultimately failed. Instead of stepping back from that failure, and striving to find another means of validating his original axiom, or striving to find an analysis that was more amenable to real world test, Marx presented the Labour Theory of Value axiom as a supposedly inviolable principle applicable universally to economic affairs, asserted that his work on "undifferentiated labour" supported this, and then launched into the erection of the Surplus Value axiom on that shaky foundation. In doing so, he converted his economic analysis into a secular theology, and this brings me back once again to doctrine centred world views.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post609275.html?hilit=nihilism%20marx#p609275

[ar734]

Something that also inspired me to ask the original question is because I stumbled across this quote at Rational Skepticism.org


http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post609275.html?hilit=nihilism%20marx#p609275

The quote from "Rational Skepticism" claims that Marx is the originator, creator of the religious Labor Theory of Value. In fact, the theory had been around for a long time; some even say that Aristotle commented on it. The high priest of capitalism, Adam Smith, (who I am sure is worshipped at rational skeptcism) said this:

"The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be observed, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value not only of that part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into profit." Labour is the measure of price as well rent and profit. David Ricardo: ""The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production, and not as the greater or less compensation which is paid for that labour" (Ricardo 1817).

if the folks at rational skepticsm want to condemn the labor theory of value as a religion, they will have to discard Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Benjamin Franklin (as well as many others.)

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

One member there says than the theory was discarded and replaced by marginal utility. What do you think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility

[ar734]

One member there says than the theory was discarded and replaced by marginal utility. What do you think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility

As far as I can tell (and I am serious) marginal utility cannot be explained in understandable language.

For instance: "In economics, the marginal utility of a good or service is the utility gained (or lost) from an increase (or decrease) in the consumption of that good or service." In other words, the value of a commodity is determined by the change in the consumption of that commodity?

What exactly does that mean? You have a BMW and a Buick. More people use Buicks than BMWs. Buicks have more value than BMWs or vice versa? Now, if you go into the factory, you can see immediately why a BMW is worth more than a Buick: more people work longer on BMWs.

Or, one of their favorite examples: A diamond has little utility; water is used by everyone. Diamonds are worth more than water. Therefore, the less utility something has the more valuable it is.? And this is easier to understand than it takes more labor to produce diamonds than water?

[Broletariat]

Something that also inspired me to ask the original question is because I stumbled across this quote at Rational Skepticism.org


http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post609275.html?hilit=nihilism%20marx#p609275

Imma quote Zanny cuz he's cool.

"The idea that labour is the substance of value comes out more clearly when we examine the historical preconditions for the existence of value relations. For individuals to produce exchange-values, the products they produce must be use-values not to themselves but to other individuals, that is, social use-values. Labour which creates social use-values is social labour, and presupposes a social division of labour which forces individuals to rely on the production of society to satisfy their needs. However, only in certain instances of the social division of labour do the products of society appear as exchangeable values. These instances are where the various branches of the social division of labour carry out production independently of one another and for private account. In such instances, the products of labour become social through the medium of the value-form. Value serves as the substance which undertakes the natural necessity common to every society of apportioning out the labour-time of society to different branches of production in order to serve social wants. As the medium through which labour becomes social labour, we can see clearly that the essence of value is labour. In fact, to say that the substance of value becomes a tautology, which is equivalent to saying that the substance of social labour is social labour."

tl;dr don't think of Labour as the source of Value, think of Value as the form that Labour takes under Capitalism.

[ZeroNowhere]

As Zanthorus pointed out, the claim that workers are not paid the full 'value of their labour' is not the labour theory of value, as labour does not have a value. Conversely, the labour theory of value needs no statistical evidence or proof, and nothing could prove it in any case. It is inherent to capitalism qua generalized commodity production. Marx didn't derive the labour theory of value from statistical evidence, and the many Marxists that now think it reliant on statistical evidence can only have made a regression.

Marx is not concerned with what people in the market think, but what they do. Coincidentally, the market is also interested in what people do, and not what they think; demand is, after all, effective demand. One does not carry out empirical studies to find out whether the meaning of a word or phrase is its use in a language-game.