Yet Another LTV Thread

[$lim_$weezy]

After reading many threads about the LTV on this and other sites, I find I still have many questions regarding it.

1. Why is human labor the only thing that can create value? Why cannot machines create any kind of value? I often hear that machines transmit the value that was put into them during their production to the products they are producing. This is all well and good, but why should this be so? Human/non-human dualism seems hardly in line with Marxist materialism. Perhaps the reason lies in the way wages are paid out? In other words, is what makes humans different the way they are variable in their work, whereas a machine is generally static in its output? Also, could this rest on the fact that workers sell their labor-power, as opposed to a machine, which is sold as an entirety, the human equivalent of which would be a slave? A clear, "this is what makes humans different" answer would be amazing.

2. Can idle time, but time necessary to the production of a commodity, not create value? For example, if a coat of paint must be applied to a chair, and it had to dry before it was shipped out, would this not translate into an increase in price? Has value been added in some subtle way (I understand that value is contained in the paint)? I realize that value and price are not the same thing, but they do, I assume, correlate in some way. For example, if the value of a commodity was decreased (it took less labor-time), other things equal (assuming this can be done, as I understand the nature of Marx's system to be one of motion), would the price decrease as well? I get the feeling this entire question rests on a misunderstanding on my part, and a correction would be appreciated.

3. Are there any academic books or essays (or even video lectures) that could really help me understand the validity/invalidity of the LTV, from the perspective of one who has not yet accepted it? As in, why is it superior to other value theories?

4. Do modern Marxists still use the LTV as formulated by Marx, or have revisions been made?


I may have more questions after I think on this a bit longer. I have read many things on the LTV, but the explanations given are often not satisfactory. It seems that the LTV has great empirical validity, but I would very much like to understand the theoretical side of it as well.

[Kotze]

That waiting time is time something has to be stored, and I suppose you want to keep rain from a chair while its coating dries and to keep some food frozen, there's a cost to that. Production cost isn't all there is to price. There's uncertainty about future demand for different stuff and what your future competition is. Some machines can be quickly produced, some take a long time. Some machines have broad areas of application without being particularly good at anything, other machines are very good at very specific things and useless for other stuff. For some machines the amount of energy needed in action is much bigger than the amount needed in standby mode, for other machines that isn't the case at all.

In which machine biz do you expect a big variation in profit and what machine type are humans?

[$lim_$weezy]

So the storing of the chair increases price, but does it affect value? For argument's sake, say the chair goes down a conveyer belt where a worker quickly paints it, then it is dropped off by the machine in a large storage room. Is it meaningful to measure the storage room by labor-time, since the "output" associated with storing different products is greatly varying? Say we used a paint with more value. If we view the drying process as a kind of "mechanical process", how does this relate to the value?

So you're saying it is the variation that allows humans to create value? How so? Humans are very, very complex machines, from a materialist viewpoint, which is why it is so hard for me to get the specialness of "human labor".

[Red Deathy]

The simplest way to think of it is like the Robinson Crusoe situation - stuck on a desert island the only things available are natural resources and your time, which needs to be divided between different tasks - hunting, building, etc. i.e. it is about humans organising themselves to achieve their ends - work done by machines (without human intervention) appear simply as aspects of nature, equivalent to fruit growing on a tree.

To take another example, the simplest possible. In a village humans take resources directly from nature - some hunt deer, some fish, some copice for wood and forage for tubers. Everyone is capable of doing each of those tasks, but for family, personal inclination, etc. reasons people specialise, someone copices, someone hunts, etc. They exchange their products, but they are aware of how much wood, fish, deer they could have obtained if they had done the work themselves, and so they exchange on that basis (and might start refusing to exchange and do the work themselves if someone takes the piss).

Here constant capital is zero and all values equal prices.

[$lim_$weezy]

Again, that is all well and good, but it doesn't quite answer my questions.

[Rooster]

1. You can only work a machine at a certain output. After that, then it can't give any more. Human labour can be squeezed and it's expenses can change depending on the the cost of reproducing itself. This would be like constant capital. The same way that a capitalist has to have lights on in a factory.

2. If you have something in storage then it can, to an extent, add value because of the added human labour required in the maintaining of that storage. But if you have a stack of chairs and you're waiting for the paint to dry then that's not adding value. You have to take into account the average necessary labour time. You can dry paint on chairs quicker with a machine that heats it. So a company that has to wait around to sell chairs will be selling them for more (or at the same prince with a lower profit margin) because there will be a factory churning out a greater mass of chairs faster.

3. I can recommend http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/ where there is a Law of Value Series to the right of the page. I think he goes into alternatives.

4. I believe that majority of modern Marxists use the same labour theory of value idea.

That is my best attempt at answering your questions. I probably have made some serious errors but maybe another user will correct me or provide you with better answers.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Why is human labor the only thing that can create value? Why cannot machines create any kind of value? I often hear that machines transmit the value that was put into them during their production to the products they are producing. This is all well and good, but why should this be so? Human/non-human dualism seems hardly in line with Marxist materialism. Perhaps the reason lies in the way wages are paid out? In other words, is what makes humans different the way they are variable in their work, whereas a machine is generally static in its output? Also, could this rest on the fact that workers sell their labor-power, as opposed to a machine, which is sold as an entirety, the human equivalent of which would be a slave? A clear, "this is what makes humans different" answer would be amazing.

The worker sells her laboring power (labour-power) with a capitalist in exchange for her means of subsistence. The capitalist then has use of her productive capacity for a set period of time. In that period of time, she produces more than what is required for her subsistence. She gives the accumulated labor in the capitalist's possession a greater value than it had before. She has created surplus value (profit).

Machines are generally sold at their value (which is determined by the quantity of labor fixed in them). Barring some special circumstance, the capitalist won't sell it for less than what he put into it. His profit comes from the surplus value created in the making of the machine.

The value of a machine is fixed. The value of laboring power is variable.

Capitalists generally pay for the machine what they will get out of it. They pay less for the worker than what they will get out of her.


Can idle time, but time necessary to the production of a commodity, not create value? For example, if a coat of paint must be applied to a chair, and it had to dry before it was shipped out, would this not translate into an increase in price? Has value been added in some subtle way (I understand that value is contained in the paint)? I realize that value and price are not the same thing, but they do, I assume, correlate in some way. For example, if the value of a commodity was decreased (it took less labor-time), other things equal (assuming this can be done, as I understand the nature of Marx's system to be one of motion), would the price decrease as well? I get the feeling this entire question rests on a misunderstanding on my part, and a correction would be appreciated.

The value of a commodity is determined by the average social labor required to create it. Social labor = the quantity of labor needed to produce it in a given state of society with average conditions, intensity and skill.

Price is a monetary expression of value. It can fluctuate, but generally comes to reflect exchangeable value in the long run. So that an amount of coal that requires X socially necessary labor will generally sell for the same price as an automobile that requires X socially necessary labor.

So when you talk about the process of painting, you're talking about the gathering and preparation of the raw materials required to make the paint, the tools and technology used to deliver those materials, to combine them and create the paint, then the tools required to do the painting, the labor involved -- the drying room, hooks, a worker overseeing the process, making sure the drying happens correctly, etc. That is all a part of it. The socially necessary labor bound up in all of that is what determines the value.


Are there any academic books or essays (or even video lectures) that could really help me understand the validity/invalidity of the LTV, from the perspective of one who has not yet accepted it? As in, why is it superior to other value theories?

Das Kapital


4. Do modern Marxists still use the LTV as formulated by Marx, or have revisions been made?

People who call themselves Marxists do all sorts of things. Many of them have little or nothing to do with Marx or his method.

[Red Deathy]

Again, that is all well and good, but it doesn't quite answer my questions.

1) Well, I'd suggest it answers question one - by definition of value as a social relation it is only about and for working out the allocation of available human labour. I realise that sounds like a circular argument, but the question is kind of like asking why aren't cricketers allowed in the golf club - because it's a golf club, for golfers, by definition. Nothing makes humans different from machines, except that we are part of the club, by definition.

2) Idle time detracts rather than adds to value. Say a widget machine costs £1 million and produces say 500 widgets a day, over ten years, that's about 54p per widget in capital costs. An engineer comes along, and says "Well, you're letting your widgets cool before going to the final process stage, if you tweak this nozzle here, no need to cool, you can have 750 widgets a day." This brings the unit cost down to 36p per widget. If you can keep selling them at the old market rate, that's a gain of 18p per widget. Idle time is a sunken cost, so things like fine wines, or mature whiskeys are quite expensive (but the labour input while they are waiting is very low, and a lot of their additional price (well above their value) is a market monopoly on their own brand - essentially a species of absolute rent.

3) Can't really help with 3 - the Wikipedia article is quite good.

4) Yes and no, depends on the marxsist, depends on the tweak. The tendency is to try and fix the transformation problem (personally, I don't think total prices can be reconciled with total values, because of things like antiques and fine wines)

[Dean]

After reading many threads about the LTV on this and other sites, I find I still have many questions regarding it.

1. Why is human labor the only thing that can create value? Why cannot machines create any kind of value?

Machines are not active and as such do not "create." They are the instruments in creation.

Marx used the words of William Petty to describe how labor creates value:


We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use values produced by labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother.

But material does not create value of its own volition. It does not have a life of its own, at least not before energy is applied to it.

In fact, ecology has the same model of production: material and energy are required for life, and in ecological theory they are accounted for separately. Energy is unique in both cases, too. While material is considered to be cycled in ecology, energy is constantly added from the sun, and lost in the form of heat.

Something similar occurs in human production. Human labor is constantly added to our global body of commodities, land improvements, etc., and in doing so we reshape our world. The ecological world is made up of a history of trends - species, temperature and chemical changes. The world of commodities is made up of a history of expanded production capacity, and a number of other variables which Marx refers to in his theories of history and economy.

Value is an incredibly complex topic, but when it comes to the exchange of value between humans, that is the social relations of value, it is the input value of human labor that matters the most. While a Tsunami may account for shifts in social relations, it is the input of human labor energy that accounts for the movements of value through society.

[Rowan Duffy]

I think the original post was nearer the point in recognising that value is related to the fact of wage-labour.

It's critical that we understand use-value and exchange-value separately. Machines can definitely add use-value to a product. Other material processes like mushrooms growing in the woods or bees can also produce use-value from materials in their surroundings without any human labour input. However, the ability to derive a price from them requires that there be some inhibiting factor (labour input) which drives them to be produced as a commodity for the market. Otherwise people will simply pick them. Air, for instance, comes from a process of production which is not commoditisable (yet) because of its ubiquity. When it begins requiring human labour to obtain, we will find it acquiring a price.

So, even despite the fact that things can create items of use-value of their own volition, they will fail to be commoditised.

The need to obtain some price in excess of the material inputs derives from the fact that the subsistence of the worker must come from purchasing commodities in the market. It actually took quite a long time for the capitalist dynamic to really take hold seeing as how many people worked for subsistence and only sold some small part of their produce for secondary items.

There is nothing dualist about the LTV. Exchange-value arises from a social relation between humans. If we begin including others into this relationship (like androids or aliens) they too will begin to produce "value".

[S.Artesian]

I think the original post was nearer the point in recognising that value is related to the fact of wage-labour.

It's critical that we understand use-value and exchange-value separately. Machines can definitely add use-value to a product. Other material processes like mushrooms growing in the woods or bees can also produce use-value from materials in their surroundings without any human labour input. However, the ability to derive a price from them requires that there be some inhibiting factor (labour input) which drives them to be produced as a commodity for the market. Otherwise people will simply pick them. Air, for instance, comes from a process of production which is not commoditisable (yet) because of its ubiquity. When it begins requiring human labour to obtain, we will find it acquiring a price.

So, even despite the fact that things can create items of use-value of their own volition, they will fail to be commoditised.

The need to obtain some price in excess of the material inputs derives from the fact that the subsistence of the worker must come from purchasing commodities in the market. It actually took quite a long time for the capitalist dynamic to really take hold seeing as how many people worked for subsistence and only sold some small part of their produce for secondary items.

There is nothing dualist about the LTV. Exchange-value arises from a social relation between humans. If we begin including others into this relationship (like androids or aliens) they too will begin to produce "value".

Machines can transfer value, exchange value, to the commodity, but only such value is objectified in the machine. It is value that has already been realized , that is not new, that is not valorizing, that is to say adding a new, independent, increment of value to the object of production, the commodity. The machine receives no wage, and thus produces no "unpaid labor."

It is not just the existence of human beings that produces surplus value, it is the specific relationship of wage-labor that expresses surplus product as surplus value.

A peasant producing for subsistence or "subsistence plus surplus" is producing a surplus product that is not transformed into a surplus value.

A slave is likewise not producing a surplus value unless and until that surplus product "assumes" the "as if"-- as if produced under capitalism-- identity of the commodity in the world markets of capitalism-- and this will get us to uneven and combined development.

If brothers and sisters, Jans and Janets from other planets, are employed as wage-labor... then for all intents and purposes they will producing as human beings, as social beings. They will have to be integrated, sooner or later, into human society to maintain the reproduction of surplus product as expanded value.

[Rowan Duffy]

Machines can transfer value, exchange value, to the commodity, but only such value is objectified in the machine.

Yeah, this is just depreciation. The rest of your post does not seem to contradict anything I said, and I agree with it.

[$lim_$weezy]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'm starting to get it a little better. I picked up some books (Sweezy, Kliman, and Wolff) to help as well. I will definitely post again if and when I have more questions.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Humans invent machines. Humans use labour power to create machines. Said machines lead to value being created. Who created the value, humans or machines? Hope that logic helps.

Value can be added through any and every labour process. Value, as you correctly understand, is not equal to price, so I doubt value can be added in hidden, subtle ways. In a post-Capitalist society, this would not come into the equation, since the object would be to 'price' products according to their value (i.e. Exchange value = Inherent value), which is diametrically opposed to Capitalistic economic relations, where Exchange Value (the 'price') does not necessarily have to have a particularly coherent relationship with the Intrinsic value of a product.

I use inherent and intrinsic interchangeably, just to clarify.

[Dean]

Machines can definitely add use-value to a product.


Machines can transfer value, exchange value, to the commodity, but only such value is objectified in the machine.

I normally wouldn't nitpick but since we are dealing with the specific issue of what creates value. Machines neither create nor transfer value.

What may be confusing is that, yes, value can be transferred from machines. And the usage of machines can create value. I think we all agree that value added from the use of machines counts as depreciation of the value of the machinery.

But the acting portion, that is the energy applied that counts as new value (or the transfer of value), is always active labor.

[S.Artesian]

I normally wouldn't nitpick but since we are dealing with the specific issue of what creates value. Machines neither create nor transfer value.

What may be confusing is that, yes, value can be transferred from machines. And the usage of machines can create value. I think we all agree that value added from the use of machines counts as depreciation of the value of the machinery.

But the acting portion, that is the energy applied that counts as new value (or the transfer of value), is always active labor.


That's correct. I was just thinking about that today. The machines don't transfer value. The machine's exchange value is transferred in and by the labor process.