The source of value is labor and not technology & generally the labor theory of value

[stoneMonkey]

I'm not sure how justifiable this is. Couldn't at least some capitalists have completely automated operations?

I think for Marx this comes down to its derivation from the labour theory of value, but I don't think Marx's argument for that theory in Capital I (at least as far as I've gotten) is very convincing, that there has to be some common property underlying value, and labor is the only candidate.

I'm sure as for myself I would go on being a communist whether or not I believed in the labor theory of value or in the idea that labor is the source of all (market) value. Regardless, the exploited classes need to overthrow the parasitism of the exploiting class and the inhumanity of capitalism out of control. But it would be nice to believe that workers are the source of value, as it gives you a quick argument that labor doesn't need capital since it is the source of all value. (Maybe, after all "value" is just value under capitalism... to some extant it's not necessarily a good thing.)

I am curious how seriously people take the labor theory of value these days and whether there are good reasons to believe it.

[Dean]

What created the machinery? Labor. What maintains and directs it? Labor.

In many jobs, the common worker is bound by the rules and regulations of policies implemented above. Despite the worker's ability to see and improve their own service, they are micromanaged in order to secure the power of those above them - an aspect of this is the claim that many employers have to the improvement of services that is usually the result of good work on the laborer's end.

And this is all the consequence of the ownership of the labor of others that capitalists enjoy. It's important to understand that controlling the means of production is not a value-addition to products, but that the design and construction of machinery which expands labor productivity is value-addition.

What is a lot more interesting is the issue of collaboration between workers, not only in terms of the workers who created the means of production and those who use it, but also between all the different workers in a production process. Marx might say that the relative training and honing of skills that each worker engages in is determines the relative magnitude of the value of labor, but I think there is a lot more going on there than meets the eye.

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

I'm not sure how justifiable this is. Couldn't at least some capitalists have completely automated operations?

I think for Marx this comes down to its derivation from the labour theory of value, but I don't think Marx's argument for that theory in Capital I (at least as far as I've gotten) is very convincing, that there has to be some common property underlying value, and labor is the only candidate.

I'm sure as for myself I would go on being a communist whether or not I believed in the labor theory of value or in the idea that labor is the source of all (market) value. Regardless, the exploited classes need to overthrow the parasitism of the exploiting class and the inhumanity of capitalism out of control. But it would be nice to believe that workers are the source of value, as it gives you a quick argument that labor doesn't need capital since it is the source of all value. (Maybe, after all "value" is just value under capitalism... to some extant it's not necessarily a good thing.)

I am curious how seriously people take the labor theory of value these days and whether there are good reasons to believe it.
I don't think you have to believe in the labor theory of value to be a socialist/communist. As far as I know, the theory of marginal utility has replaced it. There seems to be more evidence for it.

[28350]

I don't think you have to believe in the labor theory of value to be a socialist/communist. As far as I know, the theory of marginal utility has replaced it. There seems to be more evidence for it.

nah bra.

[Broletariat]

I'm not sure how justifiable this is. Couldn't at least some capitalists have completely automated operations?

Some capitalists could yes, but their profit comes from the average rate of profit that involves the entire capitalist class. I'm actually not to familiar with it.


I think for Marx this comes down to its derivation from the labour theory of value, but I don't think Marx's argument for that theory in Capital I (at least as far as I've gotten) is very convincing, that there has to be some common property underlying value, and labor is the only candidate.

I'm quoting Zanthorus because he gives me a hard on.

"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 Every society has to apportion labour out somehow, in Capitalism we use the system of value.

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

It's basically impossible to make production from beginning to end completely free of labor. At some point, humans have to build some machine, etc.

You say that production can be automated and that this contradicts the labor theory of values, but why then does the price of a good decrease when it's production is mechanized. Then that displaced labor is used to make different goods. Things become more and more plentiful and cheaper over times for that very reason... less labor is required per unit and so more units can be made. Since the value of the commodity is the average value of labor put in to create that sort of commodity, prices are driven down.

I don't see your argument against it.

[ZeroNowhere]

I don't think Marx's argument for that theory in Capital I (at least as far as I've gotten) is very convincing, that there has to be some common property underlying value, and labor is the only candidate.Well, no wonder it's not very convincing, because Marx didn't argue that. He never said that 'there has to be some common property underlying value, and labour is the only candidate', he rather defined value as the property of a commodity of being the product of abstract labour. As such, the so-called 'labour theory of value' is strictly tautologous (that name seems to have only become popular by contrast with the 'subjective theory of value', but the idea that this is a 'conflicting' theory of value is just a cap of feathers that its advocates like to strut around in to pretend that they have something of import to say.) Marx's interest is investigating production for exchange; coincidentally, capitalism only exists because of production for exchange, and does not exist independent of production. What a fortunate coincidence.

Of course, you can't have wage-labour without labour. An individual employing his own, personal means of production in commodity production is not a capitalist (as Marx notes on Capital vol. III), as capitalism is based on collective production. There is no capital without labour.


I don't think you have to believe in the labor theory of value to be a socialist/communist. As far as I know, the theory of marginal utility has replaced it. There seems to be more evidence for it.It's not a matter of 'evidence'. One could not do an experiment to determine whether bachelors are, in fact, unmarried.


I'm sure as for myself I would go on being a communist whether or not I believed in the labor theory of value or in the idea that labor is the source of all (market) value. Regardless, the exploited classes need to overthrow the parasitism of the exploiting class and the inhumanity of capitalism out of control.That could make you a utopian socialist just as much as a communist.

Really, though, the 'labour theory of value' is not a claim about the world which one must 'believe in', it's a definition.

[mikelepore]

I think the labor theory of value is an assertion about something that occasionally happens, and would continue to happen, at the marketplace for the products, which needs to be proven.

Suppose the process of building houses were to become so automated that capital investors could easily say, "Robot, in the next hour, build the house shown in this diagram", then come back in an hour and see it done. In that case, there would be some number of investor who do just that. There would be a sharp increase in the supply of the product. The increase in the supply would cause the prices to fall relative to less mechanized types of products.

In the above example, the cause would be the removal of much of the need to invest capital in the purchase of labor time, and the effect would be the decline of the exchange value of the product. If Marx's theory of value means anything, it must mean this claim.

But does it really happen?

It has been proven experimentally with other products.

An experience well known to us is what happened to the 1970's-era one-dollar-per-byte computer memory. Miniaturization took most of the labor investment per byte out of process, and as a result the market for an 8-million-dollar 8-megabyte computer no longer exists.

An explanation that considers the utility of the product would get nowhere. We don't now have any specific quantity of "utility" for computer applications that the people a half-century ago wouldn't also have had. Sure, we could say that, now that we have the new product, we have also found some new utility for it, but that would be a redescription of the effects, not an explanation or theory of how manufacturing may affect the marketplace.

[S.Artesian]

Well, no wonder it's not very convincing, because Marx didn't argue that. He never said that 'there has to be some common property underlying value, and labour is the only candidate', he rather defined value as the property of a commodity of being the product of abstract labour. As such, the so-called 'labour theory of value' is strictly tautologous (that name seems to have only become popular by contrast with the 'subjective theory of value', but the idea that this is a 'conflicting' theory of value is just a cap of feathers that its advocates like to strut around in to pretend that they have something of import to say.) Marx's interest is investigating production for exchange; coincidentally, capitalism only exists because of production for exchange, and does not exist independent of production. What a fortunate coincidence.

Of course, you can't have wage-labour without labour. An individual employing his own, personal means of production in commodity production is not a capitalist (as Marx notes on Capital vol. III), as capitalism is based on collective production. There is no capital without labour.

It's not a matter of 'evidence'. One could not do an experiment to determine whether bachelors are, in fact, unmarried.

That could make you a utopian socialist just as much as a communist.

Really, though, the 'labour theory of value' is not a claim about the world which one must 'believe in', it's a definition.

Although it might appear Zero is hanging on the margins, or playing off the subtleties in his distinction, those are exactly the subtleties that make up the distinct/integrated/antagonistic/unified nature of the commodity.

It's not that there has to be some common property underlying value, but that the commonality established by all commodities in their reciprocal exchanges; in the expressions of their equivalence is their value, and the value is the social expression of the production process itself.

That production process is defined historically, materially, as the separation of the laborer from the conditions of labor, thus forcing the laborers into the condition where their own labor serves no purposes, has no use, other than its use in exchange for the means of subsistence or an equivalent.

The commodity compels labor to continuously re-present itself as a commodity, as value, which can valorize [increase] value.

So what we get is a self-reflecting, self-reproducing loop.

So I agree that the "LTV" is "not a belief" I agree that it is the definition of value. ATST I think the LTV is more than a definition; the economic expression of a specific social relation of production. The LTV is derived from just that opposition of labor to the conditions of labor.


Marx says this in many different ways, one of which is when he points out how the question the political economists do not even think to ask, much less even attempt to answer, is how is it, what is the history, what are the social conditions that would make labor appear as a commodity, that would transform or "mutate" labor into wage-labor, that compel labor's organization as value.

[Rooster]

I don't think you have to believe in the labor theory of value to be a socialist/communist. As far as I know, the theory of marginal utility has replaced it. There seems to be more evidence for it.

I'm pretty sure that just came about because the labour theory of value became so strongly associated with Marx, and none of the classical economists and the ones that came about later wanted to be labelled as Marxist.