the LTV and scarcity under capitalism

[Lobotomy]

This is a thought that just occurred to me tonight, and I might have a lot of trouble articulating it, so bear with me.

for a while now I have been assuming that these two things are true:

A: the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor that went into producing said commodity.

and

B: the problem of scarcity is exacerbated in a capitalist mode of production because the ruling class can charge more money for products when the materials are scarce.

Am I missing something, or do these two ideas contradict each other? why does scarcity increase the value of a commodity if labor is supposed to be the only determining factor in that commodity's value?

[Blake's Baby]

Scarcity might change the price, but it doesn't change the value.

Marx examined 'value' seperately from supply and demand. He assumed that they were in equilibrium. Value is not the same as 'price'. Value is what prices float around.

Value is determined by labour-power - assuming that is that the thing itself is useful in some way - a very complicated thing that took ages to make, but nobody wants, has no 'value'.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

If you are talking about scarce resources, they will have more value because of the additional labour time needed to find/process them.

[Jimmie Higgins]

There are a lot of other variables at play, but generally, a scarse resource requires more of a labor effort to be able to obtain and may require more specialized labor to both retrieve and process. This makes it generally hold more value than something that can be retrieved or processed more easily.

[liberlict]

If you believe in the labor theory of value, then the valuation of all commodities is way off in the first place under capitalism. Things aren't valued that way under capitalism.

[Luís Henrique]

This is a thought that just occurred to me tonight, and I might have a lot of trouble articulating it, so bear with me.

for a while now I have been assuming that these two things are true:

A: the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor that went into producing said commodity.

and

B: the problem of scarcity is exacerbated in a capitalist mode of production because the ruling class can charge more money for products when the materials are scarce.

Am I missing something, or do these two ideas contradict each other? why does scarcity increase the value of a commodity if labor is supposed to be the only determining factor in that commodity's value?

Well, scarcity is in a huge way determined by the amount of labour a commodity takes to be produced. If it takes 6 trillion hours of labour to produce something, it isn't likely to be abundant.

Luís Henrique

[WelcomeToTheParty]

If you believe in the labor theory of value, then the valuation of all commodities is way off in the first place under capitalism. Things aren't valued that way under capitalism.

Unless you are confusing "valued" with "priced" yes they are valued that way. A perfectly competitive market will force prices down until they are in line with value (i.e. marginal revenue = marginal cost). Where marginal cost is simply the extra labour time required to produce another unit.