Question about LTV

[papaspace]

Let's take old typewriters for example. When they were produced, they were popular commodities. Today the interest in them is almost completely gone. Did their value, according to the labour theory of value, change from when they were produced?

Let's take another theoretical example: let's say some commodity used to be very popular, but now-a-days no one will buy it at all. Does it have any value now? Did it's value change? How is that possible if value is an inherent property of a commodity dependent only on the labour used to create it?

[Tim Cornelis]

My understanding of the LTV is limited, but from what I know there is a difference between "value" and "price" (it's a theory of value, not a theory of price). The price of the commodities in your example have fallen, but I suppose the value has not.

[Rooster]

You also have to factor in supply and demand. The machines did have value but because demand is so low, their price is lower.

[Broletariat]

First, lets say that Value =/= Price (on an individual level).

The Value within those typewriters is the same, their price is not, due to market fluctuations.

This kind of begs the question, why the fuck do we bother with Value? Well, Value is a useful tool for describing Price. Value is a social relationship that exists because producers produce in isolation, and the trade relationships they enter into are considered Value relationships. While Value may not match up to Price on an individual level, it does so on a social level.

Lets take the example that a sandwich with Value 3, and a given amount of currency worth Value 5.

So you've got your 3 Value sandwich and you, being the clever business man you are, find a near starving person. You sell him this 3 Value sandwich for his currency which totals 5 Value. The basic equation is.

3 = 5

Now, on an individual level, you gained 2 Value, yes, but the man also lost 2 value, so we have a net gain/loss of 0. On the total social level, Value remains the same. (This is also why exchange is not the source of surplus Value, as laid out by Marx in Chapter 5 of Das Kapital.)

To add on to this, money is merely an expression of Value, Value cannot reproduce or grow itself. Value can only be grown through a Commodity who's use-value creates Value, that Commodity is labour-power.

[papaspace]

Broletariat: But in response to the so-called "mud pie conundrum", Marxists claim that not every kind of labour creates value, but only socially useful labour.

The labour of the typewriter makers was indeed useful at the time they were produced. But today it can't be considered useful. So either labour is not required to be useful to create value, or the typerwriters used to have value but do not anymore. No?

[Broletariat]

Broletariat: But in response to the so-called "mud pie conundrum", Marxists claim that not every kind of labour creates value, but only socially useful labour.

Certainly, what I said, and this do not contradict.


The labour of the typewriter makers was indeed useful at the time they were produced. But today it can't be considered useful. So either labour is not required to be useful to create value, or the typerwriters used to have value but do not anymore. No?

Looking at it from this perspective, you're looking back and declaring that labour as non-useful now. That sort of changing value based on what people want/need and such is more easily explain with supply/demand and fits in nicely with the fact that value does not directly correlate with price.

Essentially, my explanation has more explanatory power when looking at other situations.