Labour Theory of Value

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

I understand that Marx is stating that labour is the sole Creator of value but I don't understand the significance of this.

Currently, the guiding principle of the Capitalist production is the extraction of surplus value. Distribution occurs on the basis of exchange value, which fluctuates according to supply and demand. Would it not then be correct to say that Capitalism does not adhere to the 'true' law of value?

Marx and Engels both stated that as the Law of Value was a relic of the Capitalist mode of production and should be abolished under socialism.

What then is it that makes the Law of Value significant?

[Blake's Baby]

It's significant in that it's a critique of capitalism. Wages and profits are the product of labour; as wages go the worker but profits go to the capitalist, then the capitalist is expropriating (the resturns of) labour. So capitalism is based on the exploitation of the workers. That's the nub of it, and that's why capitalists find it all so annoying, as it shows that they're parasites on the workers.

I don't know what you're getting at by 'true' law of value. If you mean 'in the real world, capitalism doesn't even function as smoothly or efficiently as Marx assumed it would for the purposes of the argument' then yeah, I'd agree.

What Marx was doing was stripping out all of the complications; he assumed that supply and demand were balanced, and then derived profit from labour. The theory holds just as good if supply and demand aren't balanced; but it's more confusing.

If supply exceeds demand, prices and profit will fall, and wages will be squeezed; if demand exceeds supply, prices and profits will rise, and wages might rise too; but actually they're irrelevent to the working out of the method. Disequilibria between supply and demand are not the source of profit, just a factor influencing its rate. The source of the profit is the work that the labourer does that is not compensated - whatever the specifics of the supply-demand equilibrium (or lack of).

So; in the end, Marx argues that the prices of things fluctuate around the value of reproducing them - this is the 'Law of Value'. In other words, things trade against each other at more or less the cost to society of producing them. That's all it is.

[NewLeft]

The law of value deals with the averages of supply and demand. The exchange value is changing with the labour time and the price is near the value.

The law of value would still apply under socialism, where the labour time is exchanged directly. It would not apply under communism.

[Blake's Baby]

Hold on.

Whaty do you mean by 'socialism' and 'communism' there? Do you mean what Marx called the 'lower stage of communism' vs 'the higher phase of communism', or do you mean the Dictatorship of the Proletariat vs socialism/communism (higher or lower phase)?

[the zizekian]

I think that we have to deal with the dialectics in which the labor theory of value is also a value theory of labor. I mean, there would be no surplus value to talk about if labor would not be reducible to only a money issue (i.e. if labor would not be a commodity) and if money would not be only a fetish, an unacknowledged unredeemable symbolic debt.

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

The law of value deals with the averages of supply and demand. The exchange value is changing with the labour time and the price is near the value.

The law of value would still apply under socialism, where the labour time is exchanged directly. It would not apply under communism.

But is the law of value not the very basis of commodity production? Are you suggesting that the Capitalist mode of production will remain in socialism/lower form of communism? Seems awfully similar to Lenin's quote that 'Socialism is state capitalism made to work for the people's.

[Stalin Ate My Homework]

I think that we have to deal with the dialectics in which the labor theory of value is also a value theory of labor. I mean, there would be no surplus value to talk about if labor would not be reducible to only a money issue (i.e. if labor would not be a commodity) and if money would not be only a fetish, an unacknowledged unredeemable symbolic debt.

Sorry, but I'm completely unfamiliar with dialectics.

[Rooster]

There's a thread like this going on at a board which I can't post. But, to quote:


It is useful to first understand why Value exists at all.

The preconditions for the existence of Value relationships are as follow.

1. Producers acting in isolation
2. A division of labour amongst these producers (e.g. each producer isn't making everything they need to live)

Because of both the isolation and the division of labour, producers have a need to exchange their goods in order to survive. These exchange relationships are what constitute Value.

Simply put, Communism would abolish Value relationships because it abolishes the preconditions for Value to exist, specifically isolated producers. Communism would have producers act in social harmony in a conscious way rather than isolated and goods distributed through the anarchy of the market.

source: Google red marx.

[NewLeft]

Hold on.

Whaty do you mean by 'socialism' and 'communism' there? Do you mean what Marx called the 'lower stage of communism' vs 'the higher phase of communism', or do you mean the Dictatorship of the Proletariat vs socialism/communism (higher or lower phase)?
My bad, I am still getting used to Marx. I meant the latter.

[Blake's Baby]

Right.

Well, the question of what the DotP is, is really complicated and you're going to get a whole host of different opinions from people here.

My own view is that it is capitalism, because socialism only exists after capitalism has been defeated. That means capitalism as a world-system, not just capitalism in one territory. Capitalism everywhere must be abolished before socialism can be built. So there will still, probably, be 'value' in the DotP, as it's essentially what Lenin described when he referred to 'state capitalism managed in the interests of the people' or whatever it was. That's the DotP, more or less. It's not 'socialism'. That comes after.

[the zizekian]

As a communist, I think capitalists would be right if they would say that labor comes only after having found something valuable to do.

[ckaihatsu]

[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://postimage.org/image/1bygthl38/

[Geiseric]

[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://postimage.org/image/1bygthl38/

^This is great, i'm going to use that.


Capital combines with Labor to produce a commodity. However the ownership of "Capital," is what we're trying to sort out with the whole revolution, since whoever owns the Capital decides where the revenue goes, thus the benefit of "ownership," which at this point is a completely imaginary concept since the ownership has nothing to do with production. The ownership may in some cases plan out the begining of production i.e. Henry Ford, however the ownership doesn't realize that they are completely replacable by workers.

The aspect of denial of replacability is also what drives the male sex to be dominant over the female sex, capitalists can be replaced by any other person who is educated. The relisation of inherit worthlessness is what forces people to be in control, since if they make the people who create the only tangible worth in the world (a commodity created by a proletarian) think that the Capitalist, King, Tyrant, Dictator is "special, smart, charasmatic" than they have less chance of being replaced.

At this point te process is going towards making money which is used to buy different money that somebody thinks will be worth more in a few years, so ckaihatsu i'd love to see a M-C-M-M graph that works with post Nixon abolition of the Gold Standard.

[ckaihatsu]

^This is great, i'm going to use that.


Thanks -- like the feedback. (!)





Capital combines with Labor to produce a commodity. However the ownership of "Capital," is what we're trying to sort out with the whole revolution, since whoever owns the Capital decides where the revenue goes, thus the benefit of "ownership," which at this point is a completely imaginary concept since the ownership has nothing to do with production. The ownership may in some cases plan out the begining of production i.e. Henry Ford, however the ownership doesn't realize that they are completely replacable by workers.


Yup.





The aspect of denial of replacability is also what drives the male sex to be dominant over the female sex, capitalists can be replaced by any other person who is educated. The relisation of inherit worthlessness is what forces people to be in control, since if they make the people who create the only tangible worth in the world (a commodity created by a proletarian) think that the Capitalist, King, Tyrant, Dictator is "special, smart, charasmatic" than they have less chance of being replaced.








[H]uman beliefs and behaviour are divine or genetic, certainly not socially constructed. At the center of liberalism stands the same bourgeois "sovereign individual", with a "divine right" to take possession of the World as much as they can, for as long as they can.





Um, yeah, that's cute and everything, but I just need to let you know here that God told me I'm to own the property you live on and that you should pay me every month for it.


= D





At this point te process is going towards making money which is used to buy different money that somebody thinks will be worth more in a few years, so ckaihatsu i'd love to see a M-C-M-M graph that works with post Nixon abolition of the Gold Standard.


Hey -- sketch it out and either post it here or email it to me, and we'll see what we can do...!

[the zizekian]

I understand that Marx is stating that labour is the sole Creator of value but I don't understand the significance of this.

Currently, the guiding principle of the Capitalist production is the extraction of surplus value. Distribution occurs on the basis of exchange value, which fluctuates according to supply and demand. Would it not then be correct to say that Capitalism does not adhere to the 'true' law of value?

Marx and Engels both stated that as the Law of Value was a relic of the Capitalist mode of production and should be abolished under socialism.

What then is it that makes the Law of Value significant?

What is important to understand is that labor is the only commodity that has its use-value is closely connected to its exchange-value.

[ckaihatsu]

What is important to understand is that labor is the only commodity that has its use-value is closely connected to its exchange-value.


No, this is spurious.





So; in the end, Marx argues that the prices of things fluctuate around the value of reproducing them - this is the 'Law of Value'. In other words, things trade against each other at more or less the cost to society of producing them.

[the zizekian]

I understand that Marx is stating that labour is the sole Creator of value but I don't understand the significance of this.

Not labor but surplus labor is the sole creator of value.