Do you believe the Labor Theory of value to ...

[Comrades Unite!]

be discredited ?
Why is it their are so many claims for it to be discredited.

[pluckedflowers]

Do you believe the Labor Theory of value to be discredited?

Last I checked, raw materials still weren't magically turning themselves into commodities, so no.


Why is it their are so many claims for it to be discredited.

Because once someone understands where value and wealth really come from, capitalists start to get very nervous in their presence; particularly if there are sharp objects around. So, naturally, the capitalist is not likely to be very fond of a theory that tells people where value and wealth really come from.

[Book O'Dead]

Marxists call it the Law of Value.

The "Labor Theory of value" as you call it, is the wrong signifier as it posits, a priori, the accretion of value entirely on the labor of the the worker.

Marxian economics does not accept that assumption, at least not as far as original accumulation is concerned.

What the Marxian Law of Value teaches, fundamentally, is that in the process of capitalist production the value created by the worker is disproportionally larger than the share they receive in the form of wages and that the share that the capitalist receives for his role is larger than the actual value he invests in production, given that most existing capital is real labor power actually crystallized in the form of commodities.

Moreover, capital is ennobled with the qualities of use value, exchange value and surplus value only to the degree that they contain the requisite amount of socially necessary labor time.

[Book O'Dead]

Last I checked, raw materials still weren't magically turning themselves into commodities, so no.



Because once someone understands where value and wealth really come from, capitalists start to get very nervous in their presence; particularly if there are sharp objects around. So, naturally, the capitalist is not likely to be very fond of a theory that tells people where value and wealth really come from.

Under capitalism some commodities need not have any amount of labor time invested into them to possess use value or even exchange value. Think of a tree, a forest or the real estate it sits on.

[Positivist]

What the Marxian Law of Value teaches, fundamentally, is that in the process of capitalist production the value created by the worker is disproportionally larger than the share they receive in the form of wages and that the share that the capitalist receives for his role is larger than the actual value he invests in production, given that most existing capital is real labor power actually crystallized in the form of commodities.

Moreover, capital is ennobled with the qualities of use value, exchange value and surplus value only to the degree that they contain the requisite amount of socially necessary labor time.

Yes this. And the existing capital that isn't crystalized labor, is merely claimed natural resources.

[JPSartre12]

Of course I think that it's still relavent. Why wouldn't it be? Commodities are still being made via productive forces, so I think that it's still a very useful way to describe the value of each of the commodities produced.

I do think, however, that the theory should be extrapolated a little more and we should use hindsight and our understanding of history and its material conditions to make it a little more specific. The value of something is equal to the average amount of socially necessary labor-time needed to produce a commodity is all well and good, but if we could start quantifying how long it takes to produce something and reifying the theory by putting it into practice instead of talking about it theoretically, then I'd be a little happier.

[mew]

capitalists misinterpret it a lot. for instance they ignore what marx says about use-value and claim things like the labor theory of value is invalid because a hole that someone spends 8 hours digging has no value etc.

[Teacher]

In Andrew Kliman's The Failure of Capitalist Production he makes a very convincing empirical case for the LTV. Alan Freeman has recently done the same with data from the British economy (Kliman was working with U.S. data). Another very good source for understanding Marx's value theory for beginners is the kapitalism101 blog.

At first when I became a leftist I was not all that interested in the debates about value theory because they sounded like a philosophical pissing contest to me, but I eventually came to realize it is a very important part of really understanding why you should be a Marxist.

I think a lot of Marxists misinterpret the value theory in addition to capitalists. In fact a lot of "Marxists" just disregard the value theory.

[Book O'Dead]

In Andrew Kliman's The Failure of Capitalist Production he makes a very convincing empirical case for the LTV. Alan Freeman has recently done the same with data from the British economy (Kliman was working with U.S. data). Another very good source for understanding Marx's value theory for beginners is the kapitalism101 blog.

At first when I became a leftist I was not all that interested in the debates about value theory because they sounded like a philosophical pissing contest to me, but I eventually came to realize it is a very important part of really understanding why you should be a Marxist.

I think a lot of Marxists misinterpret the value theory in addition to capitalists. In fact a lot of "Marxists" just disregard the value theory.

I disagree with some of what you're saying. For example, your use of the acronym "LTV".

The "Labor Theory of Value" is a misleading designation for the reason I stated above. Stop using it.

Also, there is no better study guide for understanding the Law of value than two tiny little, teeny-weeny paphlets, both authored by Karl Marx, the discoverer of the Law of value:

Value, Price & Profit
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/

Wage Labor and Capital
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm

[Book O'Dead]

Yes this. And the existing capital that isn't crystalized labor, is merely claimed natural resources.

I'm glad you brought that up because I realize that I fucked up with the "crystallized labor" bit.

I should have said that capital is the crystallization of uncompensated labor.

Marx is very explicit on that in his analysis of the Law of value.

[Mr. Natural]

Book O'Dead, This post is not in disagreement with you or the Law of Value, but is perhaps a radically new, deeper understanding of labor and value and of the nature of living relations.

Life--human and non-human--is an "economic system": all living systems, from cells to bodies to the social relations of bodies (herds, flocks, human social systems) "go to work" to obtain the energy necessary to their being. Living material systems such as people and tiger beetles are "proletarians," although worker beetles naturally come to natural, viable economic relations, while the labor of humanity has been captured and controlled by the alien system of capitalism. Capitalism's relations function as a cancer of living, natural relations, and life absolutely could not have appeared on Earth and then evolved with capitalist organizational relations. Life generates a sustainable energy surplus (profit) in order to maintain its communities; capitalism manufactures a runaway profit at the expense of the human and non-human communities of life.

So a comprehensive labor theory of value would include the labors of the natural world. This meta-theory would be based in energetics and life's organizational relations. Communism has a natural organization: it has the same organization as the communities of life, and anarchists/communists would with awareness organize themselves into various forms of community to naturally generate the social relations and energy necessary to their being.

Humanity must wake up soon and learn to organize in the pattern of life. Are we not life? Not much longer: capitalism is cashing us in. Unless ....

My red-green best.

[Geiseric]

The theory of value is honestly central to any kind of workerist ideology, because it states how capitalists have honestly no claim to the surplus value (profit) extracted from their workers labor value. if it wasn't true or if it wasn't realized, there would be no marxism and we wouldn't have our politics directed towards the working class. Capitalists will discredit anything that states how Rockefeller and Mellon don't deserve a cent of the money they've stolen. The only counter arguement to TOV is "intellectual value," which really isn't an argue since it doesn't actually explain ownership, it explains modern petit bourgeois fantasies.

[Ocean Seal]

Even most capitalists will tell you that the falling rate of profit is an empirical fact. They try to say that this isn't a permanent trend, but hey if it is empirical it would suggest that the LTV is true.

[RedMaterialist]

What the Marxian Law of Value teaches, fundamentally, is that in the process of capitalist production the value created by the worker is disproportionally larger than the share they receive in the form of wages

I would say that Marx showed the worker receives NO share in the value they create.


and that the share that the capitalist receives for his role is larger than the actual value he invests in production,

The capitalist has NO role in the creation or production of value. The capitalist, on average, receives back the money he invested (wages, raw material, interest, etc.) plus the value created by labor, profit. The price of a commodity is based on costs (wages, materials, etc.) + profit (unpaid labor, the value created by labor.) This is how a capitalist makes a profit, by not paying for the value created by the worker.

I think it is important to keep distinct two different concepts: 1) labor-power, the time during which the worker actually transforms raw material into a commodity, and 2) the value of the commodity produced by the worker. The two concepts are different monetary values. The price of the commodity is higher, on average, than the wages of the worker. The difference, in my view, is the value created by the worker, or the profit. The capitalist would say the profit is created, by magic, in the market.

[Book O'Dead]

I would say that Marx showed the worker receives NO share in the value they create.



The capitalist has NO role in the creation or production of value. [...]

If you go and read Value, Price & Profit or Wage Labor and Capital you'll see why those two statements are wrong.

[o well this is ok I guess]

I don't think that any value theory is in any position to be "proven" or "disproven".
One could certainly discuss this or that consequence of holding a particular theory on value or why it cannot achieve a particular goal, but could one really say that it is impossible to valuate in such a way?

[RedMaterialist]

If you go and read Value, Price & Profit or Wage Labor and Capital you'll see why those two statements are wrong.

" What is the common social substance of all commodities? It is labour. To produce a commodity a certain amount of labour must be bestowed upon it, or worked up in it. And I say not only labour, but social labour...

"We arrive, therefore, at this conclusion. A commodity has a value, because it is a crystallization of social labour...

"I suspect that many of you will ask: Does then, indeed, there exist such a vast or any difference whatever, between determining the values of commodities by wages, and determining them by the relative quantities of labour necessary for their production? You must, however, be aware that the reward for labour, and quantity of labour, are quite disparate things...

"Well. We suppose, then, that one quarter of wheat and one ounce of gold are equal values or equivalents, because they are crystallizations of equal amounts of average labour, of so many days' or so many weeks' labour respectively fixed in them. In thus determining the relative values of gold and corn, do we refer in any way whatever to the wages of the agricultural labourer and the miner? Not a bit. We leave it quite indeterminate how their day's or their week's labour was paid, or even whether wage labour was employed at all..."

Value, Price and Profit, Chap VI

Value is created by labor. Wages and value have no relation to each other, excepting that wages are equal only to the value of the commodites that the worker must purchase to live. The worker sells his labor to the capitalist, the capitalist then uses that labor to extract a profit.

At any rate I think we can agree that profit or surplus value is created during the production process. Because the capitalist does not see or realize the profit until the commodity is sold, she thinks the profit comes from the process of buying and selling in the market. (hence, the "magic" of the market.) An entire economic theory has developed based on the idea that value is created (somehow) by the relative demand of the user or consumer. Thus the marginal utility crowd. It always amazes me that an economic theory can be based on such total bullshit. I suppose it shows the absolute refusal of capitalism to admit that value comes from labor.

[Book O'Dead]

[...]
At any rate I think we can agree that profit or surplus value is created during the production process. Because the capitalist does not see or realize the profit until the commodity is sold, she thinks the profit comes from the process of buying and selling in the market. (hence, the "magic" of the market.) An entire economic theory has developed based on the idea that value is created (somehow) by the relative demand of the user or consumer. Thus the marginal utility crowd. It always amazes me that an economic theory can be based on such total bullshit. I suppose it shows the absolute refusal of capitalism to admit that value comes from labor.

Your conclusion is incorrect.

John Maynard Keynes, when developing his theories on credit and deficit spending was forced to acknowledge the Law of value, although in a veiled manner. His theories have been a prevailing feature of post-WW2 capitalist economic thinking.

[RedMaterialist]

Your conclusion is incorrect.

John Maynard Keynes, when developing his theories on credit and deficit spending was forced to acknowledge the Law of value, although in a veiled manner. His theories have been a prevailing feature of post-WW2 capitalist economic thinking.

Keynes did admit that capitalism could not provide for full employment and that deficit spending would have to be used to provide for the subsequent inadequacy of demand.

However, it is hard to believe that Keynes acknowledged in any way the law of value. He had this to say about communism and the working class:

"How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement?"