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Labour theory of value?
I remember hearing one of the idiots in OI say that Marx's LToV was false because paintings change in value as they get older and such. He also mentioned housing changing in value, although I'm not sure that the theory can be applied to it because it's land. So I'm a bit confused, what's the difference between value and price?
'i would punch u in the jawside so hard it would lean more left than the ICC' - bailey_187 to AK
"Now the states in the business of casually arresting successful protest groups at the end of fully automatics we really are going to have to be very clever about how we go about things if the far left movement grows. ("First they came for the half witted tossers")"
- Comrade Joe on the arrest of EDL members
[FONT=Calibri]Value is determined by the amount of labor time socially necessary for production. This value is determined when commodities engage in exchange. Price (money) is a medium that is determined in the same way as when commodities go in to exchange for money represents gold and the amount of labor time necessary to obtain this is exchanged for a commodity with the same labor time.[/FONT]
The LTV applies to commodities produced via capitalist production.
GLS/SS d- s-:- a- C+++ P+ L+++ W+++ w-- PS+++ PE t R+++ tv+ b+ D++ e+++ h+ r---
The admin-mod team lacks standards.
"[...]driving down the highway screaming 'Ploterait of the world, unite!'."
This. Everything else is a strawman.
The quotations from the literature that I posted in another place:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...2&postcount=63
I think the point you need to make is that the changes in price for those items are based on their Exchange Value. That is, their price when they go to market, and not their Use Value. That is, their inherent value to humanity as products with utility.
[FONT=Arial]Capital Vol. III[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Part VI. Transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-Rent[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Chapter 37. Introduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch37.htm[/FONT]
just be careful here. Utility (usefulness) is not inherent. The usefulness of something to me is subjective, even if the use-value of a commodity is given by the object's material properties.
For example, a coat is a use-value because it keeps you warm and dry, looks nice, etc., but the coat's usefulness to me depends on the weather, its design, the current fashions, its size, and so on. The human want is satisfied by the properties of the object in question, but the properties themselves do not create inherent wants, so an object is not by itself inherently useful.
(A use-value does not actually need to be a physical object, like a coat. It can be a service, for instance.)
Value is the socially necessary labor time required for the reproduction of the commodity. The LTV is the analyis of the commodity both as a useful object and a social relation where the value of the commodity is a product of the labor time consumed in its production.
Price is the social mechanism, the mediation by which value is represented and social necessity of the commodities is realized; where in effect the total social value is apportioned. Price fluctuates above or below the individual value, but as consequence of the influence, demands, needs of the LTV.
Great book just published by Haymarket, called The Capitalist Cycle, by Pavel Maksakovsky, gives about the best explanation of these categories I've read since Marx's own explanations.
As for paintings,antiques etc. Marx was analyzing social production, although certainly the prices paid paintings are derived from general and specific economic conditions.
I haven't heard of that book, but it looks quite good so I will check it out.
As for Old Masters, etc., they are things produced outside a capitalist labour process but introduced into a capitalist market. Because they are one-offs, there cannot be an average market price, price of production, etc., of these individual artefacts.
However, the fact that price deviates from value (or that something can have a price but no value) is not a disproof of Marx's theory. Indeed, it is one of the vital components of it.
