the LTV is correct

[anticap]

The Labor Theory of Value seems IMO essentially correct. Exploitation is an objective observation re the nature of profit under conditions of wage labor and private property. The LTV explains the social relations of capitalism and how these relations take on concrete form; subjective value theory does none of these. All commodities have exchange value only b/c they are the product of labor.

You've just made my day. Thanks.

[Left-Reasoning]

This is silly. If people valued cars less, at some point cars wouldn't be produced. That's because what people would be willing to pay would not be enough to cover the costs of production. On your theory, the prices of cars should just keep going down as "subjective evaluation" falls.

There is nothing in Subjective Value Theory that makes the ridiculous claim that men will repeatedly build and sell cars at below cost.

In fact, it proves just the opposite.

[mikelepore]

There is nothing in Subjective Value Theory that makes the ridiculous claim that men will repeatedly build and sell cars at below cost.

In fact, it proves just the opposite.

"Objective" means something that's true whether we know it or not, and therefore it doesn't depend on any particular individuals, such as: food contains carbon atoms.

"Subjective" means something that's true only in relation to an individual mind, such as: music by the Grateful Dead sounds better than the music by the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Clearly, economic values, that is, the exchange ratios of commodities that are found in this society, are objective truths. If one person says that one ounce of gold is currently exchanging for 500 pounds of potatoes, and another person says an ounce of potatoes is currently exchanging for 500 pounds of gold, the first person is correct, and the second person is incorrect.

If the exchange values of commodities were subjective, there couldn't be a predictable pattern. When asked "Select the more probable statement of these two: Is one ounce of gold currently exchanging for 500 pounds of potatoes, or is one ounce of potatoes is currently exchanging for 500 pounds of gold?" we would have to answer, "There's no way that anyone can choose the best answer to that. It depends on your opinion and your state of mind today. How are you feeling today? What mood are you in?"

If values were subjective, because of that absense of any truth or falsity when saying that a particular ranking of commodities dominates, it would necessarily mean that many manufacturers go on knowing making goods that are priced below their costs of production.

[Left-Reasoning]

"Objective" means something that's true whether we know it or not, and therefore it doesn't depend on any particular individuals, such as: food contains carbon atoms.

"Subjective" means something that's true only in relation to an individual mind, such as: music by the Grateful Dead sounds better than the music by the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

This is correct.

Clearly, economic values, that is, the exchange ratios of commodities that are found in this society, are objective truths.

Here, we see the problem. It is of definition. The price of a commodity is an objective truth. That a potato can be purchased for a dollar is objectively true. This is known as exchange value or price.

But the value of the good to me, that is how much the good is worth to me, is subjective. I may consider the dollar to be worth more than the potato or I may consider it to be the other way around. This is subjective.

If one person says that one ounce of gold is currently exchanging for 500 pounds of potatoes, and another person says an ounce of potatoes is currently exchanging for 500 pounds of gold, the first person is correct, and the second person is incorrect.

Absolutely. No subjectivist has ever said otherwise.

[anticap]

the value of the good to me, that is how much the good is worth to me, is subjective. I may consider the dollar to be worth more than the potato or I may consider it to be the other way around. This is subjective.

For crying out loud, why do you people keep repeating this mantra as though it had anything to do with what the LTV is intended to show?

Why do you doggedly refuse to read?

Why don't we have a working wiki, where we can bury this unending stream of shit in one place instead of smearing it all over the place and sticking our thumbs in it again and again, in thread after thread?

These people are trolling. This is what trolls do, they completely ignore everything we try to tell them and simply go on repeating themselves, endlessly, tying us up in knots of repetition. This is a game to them.

[Nolan]

We can do it too:

Subjectivism seems to me to only apply to yard-sales and Latin American open markets in the town square. When I go fuel up, I don't barter with the gas station workers.

[Left-Reasoning]

We can do it too:

Subjectivism seems to me to only apply to yard-sales and Latin American open markets in the town square. When I go fuel up, I don't barter with the gas station workers.

There is nothing in the STV about how bartering is a necessary condition for it to be true. In fact, we know the STV to be true a priori. We can be as sure of it as we are that two plus two is four.

[Left-Reasoning]

For crying out loud, why do you people keep repeating this mantra as though it had anything to do with what the LTV is intended to show?

It has nothing to do with what the LTV intends to show. STV and LTV are theories regarding completely different phenomenon. In fact, the LTV can be explained entirely in terms of the STV.

Read Carson: http://www.mutualist.org/id56.html

[Nolan]

There is nothing in the STV about how bartering is a necessary condition for it to be true.

I was responding to anticap's last post.

In fact, we know the STV to be true a priori. We can be as sure of it as we are that two plus two is four.

A priori? Do explain. I'm pretty sure that's not why mainstream economics accepts it.

[anticap]

Read Carson

While I respect him as the only market-anarchist to give Marx a fair reading, all Carson really does is attempt to graft the good bits of Marxian theory, as he sees them (i.e., the undeniable bits, which all other market-anarchists deny anyway), onto Misesian theory (which Carson more strongly identifies with). Again, I find that admirable as far as it goes, but let's not make more of it than there is.

Here's what comrade Cooney has to say about Carson:

... Kevin Carson... attempts to provide a subjective framework for the labor theory of value. His arguments remind me, in some ways, of what Marx says [in Kapital vol. 3 Part 1 Chapter 1: Cost-Price and Profit]- that in addition to cost-price (c+v) the additional surplus value of a commodity, in a system of simple-commodity exchange, comes from the valuation that the worker makes of his/her own surplus labor. But I think where Carson errs is in calling this subjective. He doesn't understand Marx's idea of fetishism- that objective laws are worked out through the subjective valuations of individuals in the market. Perhaps Carson's big synthesis about subjective valuations is actually just an account of the micro-details Marx didn't even consider interesting enough to elaborate on. The interesting thing for Marx is the way these subjective valuations in the market are structured by objective forms, the way the process of exchange creates a world in which we have no choice but to give our working-time a market price. How subjective are these valuations of labor-time really? By not understanding the notion of fetishism Carson falls prey to many of the mistakes Marx warned of. He assigns the "free choices" people make in a market some sort of determining agency without realizing the way the market structures these choices. Thus he treats the "subjective" valuation of labor as an ahistorical concept extending backwards through history. Marx argues the opposite, that the phenomenon of value is unique to markets and that this structure of market relations explains the unique subjectivity of market interactions. Although Carson provides a lot of useful rebuttals of Austrian criticisms of the LTV, in the end he falls prey to the basic false dichotomy of the Austrian position: the subjective-objective dichotomy. Marx's treatment of value goes beyond such a simplistic dichotomy.

http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2...ce-and-profit/

And:

... bourgeois theories of the LTV going back to Adam Smith ... imagine primitive man operating under the law of value merely because he must weigh the utility of his product against the disutility of his labor (Smiths “toil and trouble”). Marx doesn’t deny that any labor entails a subjective valuation of the usefulness of the product in relation to the amount of labor expended. But he maintains that something entirely different and unique happens when we exchange those products in a market. We don’t place any utility on the products of our labor. We produce them merely for their exchange value. This changes everything. (Actually even in a less developed economy where exchange is of surplus products left over after producers have produced their means of subsistence it is still true that this surplus product has no direct utility for the worker. It exists merely to be exchanged.) The law of value does not pertain to all work in all societies. It pertains to commodity exchange. Incidentally, Kevin Carson, whose book “Mutualist Political Economy” I’ve been reading recently, makes this same mistake in his attempt to create a “subjective reformulation” of the LTV.

http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2...urplus-profit/

And:

Marx ... shows how the law of value implies the existence of capital. The analysis of capital is merely a higher stage of the analysis of the law of value. Capital is a theory of the expansion of value through the exploitation of labor. This brings a second social relation into view: the antagonism between labor and capital. [For market socialists like David Schweikart the labor-capital relation does not immediately spring from the value relation. Market socialists believe that markets between worker cooperatives can exist without a labor-capital relation coming into existence. I do not know what the justification of this position is in light of Marx's methodical derivation of the capital relation from the value relation. For mutualist anarchists like Ben Tucker and Kevin Carson it is precisely the opposite from Marx. Capital is an abomination that disturbs the law of value. They see capital as the result of unequal exchanges made possible through state violence. Without the state they say the law of value would make exploitation impossible. In my opinion such views grossly misunderstand the duality of labor power and the notion of capital as self-expanding value. For Carson this mistake is probably due to his attempt to think of the law of value in subjective terms.

http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2...duction-draft/

STV and LTV are theories regarding completely different phenomenon.

I wouldn't put it quite like that, but I'll roll with it, because it is useful enough to me that you've said it, since your comrades can't seem to grasp that the LTV is concerned with what lies beneath such childish simplicities as preferring chocolate ice-cream over vanilla.

[Left-Reasoning]

A priori? Do explain. I'm pretty sure that's not why mainstream economics accepts it.

It can be summed up best in the vulgar phrase: "Men dive for pearls because pearls are valuable. Pearls are not valuable because men dive for them."

Man acts in order to satisfy certain wants. He is hungry and therefore wants to eat. Because he wants to eat a Ham Sandwich becomes valuable to him. It does not matter the number of labor hours that went into constructing the sandwich. That is a sunk cost and in the past. What is relevant is that the ham sandwich, he believes, can be used as a means to attain his ends and thus it is valuable to him.

[Left-Reasoning]

I wouldn't put it quite like that, but I'll roll with it, because it is useful enough to me that you've said it, since your comrades can't seem to grasp that the LTV is concerned with what lies beneath such childish simplicities as preferring chocolate ice-cream over vanilla.

I would not consider "an"caps my comrades any more than you would.

[anticap]

"Men dive for pearls because pearls are valuable. Pearls are not valuable because men dive for them."

As your kind always do, you've equivocated in your use of "valuable" in order to intentionally mislead. Viewed through Roddy Piper's sunglasses, your vulgar phrase looks like this: "Men dive for pearls because women want shiny baubles and men want women; therefore pearls have use-value. Pearls have exchange-value because men labored in diving for them."

On to the ham sandwich...

Here's what you think you said:

Man acts in order to satisfy certain wants. He is hungry and therefore wants to eat. Because he wants to eat[,] a Ham Sandwich [has exchange-value] to him.

Here's what you actually said:

Man acts in order to satisfy certain wants. He is hungry and therefore wants to eat. Because he wants to eat[,] a Ham Sandwich [has use-value] to him.

And that could have been said by Marx himself as he slathered on the mayonnaise. But then he'd want to know how to get from there to determining an exchange-value for the sandwich. You'd simply offer him a dollar for it, and, if he accepted your offer, infer from there that a ham sandwich is worth $1. And then Marx would laugh at you.

[Left-Reasoning]

As your kind always do, you've equivocated in your use of "valuable" in order to intentionally mislead.

I did no such thing.

Viewed through Roddy Piper's sunglasses, your vulgar phrase looks like this: "Men dive for pearls because women want shiny baubles and men want women; therefore pearls have use-value. Pearls have exchange-value because men labored in diving for them."

Pearls have value in exchange, or have a high price, because others are willing to exchange that much for them. It has nothing to do with the amount of labor that went into finding the pearl.

Though certainly if the price reaches too high a level others will enter the pearl diving field, increase the supply of pearls and thus lower prices.

[anticap]

I did no such thing.

You most certainly did, and I demonstrated it clearly. It only appeared as though you weren't equivocating, because in both instances you used "valuable" to mean "saleable." But the truth lies hidden behind your omission: why are pearls saleable? The answer is that they are useful (it doesn't matter for what purpose). With your omission reintroduced, the picture changes, as I've already shown.

This is why it is critical that one stipulates whether they mean use-value or exchange-value. Hand-waving by subjectivists does not nullify this distinction: the use-value of a pearl (i.e., what you can use it for) is X; its exchange-value (i.e., what you can exchange it for) is Y. The two concepts are not the same. X =/= Y. Saying simply "value" regardless of whether you mean X or Y is deceptive. Frankly, I find it absolutely baffling that this should ever need to be explained.

Incidentally, I've noted that anti-Marx/anti-LTV types seem to have an aesthetic distaste for these terms. I can only assume that this is because of the association. My message to those petty twits is to get the fuck over it. I'm not accusing you of this, although I do note your use of "value in exchange" instead of "exchange-value"; that's three characters wasted! What ever happened to efficiency?!

Pearls have value in exchange, or have a high price, because others are willing to exchange that much for them. It has nothing to do with the amount of labor that went into finding the pearl.

You can go on bleating this until the cows come home, but you can't tell the whole story in bleats. And before you reply, remember that isolated incidents (e.g., finding a pearl in your flipper, as you might find a rock in your shoe) are not even relevant to the LTV (I can smell straw a mile away).

[Left-Reasoning]

You most certainly did, and I demonstrated it clearly. It only appeared as though you weren't equivocating, because in both instances you used "valuable" to mean "saleable."

I did no such thing. Value refers to the value derived from the item either do to the fact that it is useful in itself or that it could be exchanged for what I consider to be valuable.

But the truth lies hidden behind your omission: why are pearls saleable?

Because others value them.

The answer is that they are useful (it doesn't matter for what purpose).

Agreed.

[anticap]

You're obviously not hearing what I'm trying to tell you, so I give up. All I could do is go on repeating myself at this point. Also, I'm a bit peeved that you've completely ignored my second paragraph above, which contains the meat of the matter; so I doubt that I'll bother giving you much more than curt replies from now on, which is all you seem to want to give me (I had to drag responses to those videos out of you in that other thread, for example).

[LeftSideDown]

This is why it is critical that one stipulates whether they mean use-value or exchange-value. Hand-waving by subjectivists does not nullify this distinction: the use-value of a pearl (i.e., what you can use it for) is X; its exchange-value (i.e., what you can exchange it for) is Y. The two concepts are not the same. X =/= Y. Saying simply "value" regardless of whether you mean X or Y is deceptive. Frankly, I find it absolutely baffling that this should ever need to be explained.

Exchange value is derived from use value. If something gives no utility to anyone then it has no exchange value. If something, in fact, only gives utility to one person it cannot be exchanged (think of something like a stone your father gave you that has sentimental-utility value, but whom no one else would want). Ignoring this distinction is a large problem, but I think, in general, subjectivists refer to use-value as it is the one that matters.

[LeftSideDown]

You expect us to assume that your citing actual data. Do you have some old catalogs advertising horse carriages before and after the introduction of the automobile? We know that the quantities manufactured and sold were reduced, but a reduction in throughput quantity isn't the same as a reduction of unit price.

In addition, if insist on using the words "price" and "value" interchangably as synonyms, then you have already closed yourself off from investigating a theory that they are not the same thing but related in certain ways.

When you see something rise or fall in price that doesn't always mean that it rose or fell in value. Sometimes the new price reflects a new value, and sometimes it doesn't. There are many factors that can make a price offset from the value or oscillate around the value.

I don't feel like finding the going rates of horse and buggies at a steady dollar value, but I will say that it is pretty intuitive. I apologize for not distinguishing from price (exchange value) and value (use value), but obviously the more important value is the use value as without it nothing would have exchange value.

And to your final paragraph: yes.

[mikelepore]

Exchange value is derived from use value. If something gives no utility to anyone then it has no exchange value. If something, in fact, only gives utility to one person it cannot be exchanged (think of something like a stone your father gave you that has sentimental-utility value, but whom no one else would want). Ignoring this distinction is a large problem, but I think, in general, subjectivists refer to use-value as it is the one that matters.

Just be aware that in Marxian terminology use value isn't a quantity at all, it's binary to either have it or not have it. For example, copper has at least one use, say, making brass doorknobs, therefore presence of use value = yes. (Mud pies, presence of use value = no.) If it's yes, there can exist a marketplace. Use value is an enabling variable like a series electrical switch or an opened pneumatic valve. It has to be "yes", otherwise exchange value will be zero. But in itself it's not a number or any kind of magnitude.