Classical/Marxian Labor theory of value for dummies

[the zizekian]

the implication is that of exploitation, the Capitalists profit is derived from extracting excess value from labor

[FONT=Calibri]Capitalists often justify their profits by saying they have taken risks (with their money). What we should ask is what is risks here: the answer is I think that what appears as their risk is in fact their power to risk workers' lives.[/FONT]

[Luís Henrique]

[FONT=Calibri]Our "Original sin" cannot be erased.[/FONT]

Ah, so we are moving from market categories ("debt") into church categories ("sin"). So what is it, an "unredeemable debt" that cannot be paid, which somehow gives birth to money, or an "unredeemble sin" that cannot be atoned for? The former implies the naturalisation of categories of the order of the commodity, the latter the naturalisation of categories of the order of loyalty. And of course, besides that, the latter seems to have no longer any recognisable relation to the subject of money (or is the order of loyalty somehow subsumed into the order of money?).

Your sentences, taken in isolation, are undeniable impressive - but they do not seem to connect to each other in any logical way.

Luís Henrique

[the zizekian]

Ah, so we are moving from market categories ("debt") into church categories ("sin"). So what is it, an "unredeemable debt" that cannot be paid, which somehow gives birth to money, or an "unredeemble sin" that cannot be atoned for? The former implies the naturalisation of categories of the order of the commodity, the latter the naturalisation of categories of the order of loyalty. And of course, besides that, the latter seems to have no longer any recognisable relation to the subject of money (or is the order of loyalty somehow subsumed into the order of money?).

Your sentences, taken in isolation, are undeniable impressive - but they do not seem to connect to each other in any logical way.

Luís Henrique

[FONT=Arial]Money is only a futile attempt to escape the following: [/FONT][FONT=Arial]By the [/FONT][FONT=Arial]sweat[/FONT][FONT=Arial] of your [/FONT][FONT=Arial]brow[/FONT][FONT=Arial] you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will.[/FONT]

[Luís Henrique]

Money is only a futile attempt to escape the following: By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will.

So, is "the sweat of your brow" labour?

And how is money an attempt to dodge Adam's curse?

Luís Henrique

[the zizekian]

[FONT=Arial]Money is only a futile attempt to escape the following: [/FONT][FONT=Arial]By the [/FONT][FONT=Arial]sweat[/FONT][FONT=Arial] of your [/FONT][FONT=Arial]brow[/FONT][FONT=Arial] you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will.[/FONT]

[FONT=Calibri]Genesis 3:19 is a value theory of labour. [/FONT]

[the zizekian]

The arbitrariness of social hierarchy is not a mistake, but the whole point, with the arbitrariness of evaluation playing an analogous role to the arbitrariness of market success. Violence threatens to explode not when there is too much contingency in the social space, but when one tries to eliminate contingency.

— Žižek, LRB, 26 January 2012

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n02/slavoj-zizek/the-revolt-of-the-salaried-bourgeoisie

[Luís Henrique]

[FONT=Calibri]Genesis 3:19 is a value theory of labour. [/FONT]

It is certainly not. It says nothing about value, which anyway was by no means being produced in a systematical manner at the time it was written. And so, if your insight about labour not being a transhistoric category is correct, there was no labour to talk about for starters...

It seems you have been backpedaling from that insight.

Again: how is money an attempt to evade Adam's curse?

Luís Henrique

[the zizekian]

It is certainly not. It says nothing about value, which anyway was by no means being produced in a systematical manner at the time it was written. And so, if your insight about labour not being a transhistoric category is correct, there was no labour to talk about for starters...

It seems you have been backpedaling from that insight.

Again: how is money an attempt to evade Adam's curse?

Luís Henrique

[FONT=Calibri]Labor is a specific Judeo-Christian ideology that stems from valuing humanity as mere dust.[/FONT]

[the zizekian]

[FONT=Calibri]Genesis 3:19 is a value theory of labour. [/FONT]

[FONT=Calibri]Hegel’s master-slave dialectics is also a value theory of labour, a value of bare/mere life theory of labour to be more precise.[/FONT]

[Luís Henrique]

Labor is a specific Judeo-Christian ideology that stems from valuing humanity as mere dust.

This gets more confused as we progress.

First, money is an attempt to evade Adam's curse, which is in turn a "value theory of labour". Now, on the contrary, Adam's curse is no longer a "value theory of labour", but indeed the ideology of reification of human activity into labour, and consequently, value. How would money then be an attempt to evade Adam's curse?

And of course labour isn't a specific "Judeo-Christian ideology"; on the contrary, "Judeo-Christian ideology" based a completely different world, hierarchic instead of isotopic, where interests were sin and money a mere auxiliary appendage to personal loyalties, that constituted the central fetish of feudal societies. At most it can be said that Judeo-Christian ideology could be distorted in a way that it allowed a transition into the secular religion of value, through Calvinist work ethics; but "J" is innocent of Calvin's protocapitalist garbage.

A value theory of labour would have to explain labour in terms of value, ie, situate labour as a specific form of human activity that is apparently similar to the activity of slaves and serfs, and yet radically different as the latter isn't abstracted into an empty measure of value. Genesis (to whose author "work" is evidently only concrete work, not abstract labour) doesn't do that, and I much doubt Hegel does. Indeed not even Marx does this; if someone is into it, it would be the people in Krisis/Exit! - Kurz, Jappe, Roswitha Scholz, etc.

Luís Henrique

[the zizekian]

This gets more confused as we progress.

First, money is an attempt to evade Adam's curse, which is in turn a "value theory of labour". Now, on the contrary, Adam's curse is no longer a "value theory of labour", but indeed the ideology of reification of human activity into labour, and consequently, value. How would money then be an attempt to evade Adam's curse?

And of course labour isn't a specific "Judeo-Christian ideology"; on the contrary, "Judeo-Christian ideology" based a completely different world, hierarchic instead of isotopic, where interests were sin and money a mere auxiliary appendage to personal loyalties, that constituted the central fetish of feudal societies. At most it can be said that Judeo-Christian ideology could be distorted in a way that it allowed a transition into the secular religion of value, through Calvinist work ethics; but "J" is innocent of Calvin's protocapitalist garbage.

A value theory of labour would have to explain labour in terms of value, ie, situate labour as a specific form of human activity that is apparently similar to the activity of slaves and serfs, and yet radically different as the latter isn't abstracted into an empty measure of value. Genesis (to whose author "work" is evidently only concrete work, not abstract labour) doesn't do that, and I much doubt Hegel does. Indeed not even Marx does this; if someone is into it, it would be the people in Krisis/Exit! - Kurz, Jappe, Roswitha Scholz, etc.

Luís Henrique

[FONT=Arial][FONT=Arial]Capitalism/Protestantism is founded on the illusion that the Midas’ touch is not a curse:[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial][FONT=Arial]"So Midas, king of Lydia, swelled at first with pride when he found he could transform everything he touched to gold; but when he beheld his food grow rigid and his drink harden into golden ice then he understood that this gift was a bane and in his loathing for gold, cursed his prayer"[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial][FONT=Arial]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas[/FONT][/FONT]

[Luís Henrique]

Capitalism/Protestantism is founded on the illusion that the Midas’ touch is not a curse

We are discussing Adam, not Midas.

Luís Henrique

[the zizekian]

We are discussing Adam, not Midas.

Luís Henrique

[FONT=Verdana]A theory has to be general (all-encompassing).[/FONT][FONT=Arial][/FONT]

[Luís Henrique]

A theory has to be general (all-encompassing).

It also has to have internal connections, and to be consistent. If its "generality" comes at the expense of consistency, then it is probably more an abstract generality than an actual theory. If your idea is that labour is not transhistoric, then you probably shouldn't be trying to substantiate it in what seems a quite obvious transhistoric reaoning.

How is money an attempt to evade Adam's curse?

Luís Henrique

[the zizekian]

It also has to have internal connections, and to be consistent. If its "generality" comes at the expense of consistency, then it is probably more an abstract generality than an actual theory. If your idea is that labour is not transhistoric, then you probably shouldn't be trying to substantiate it in what seems a quite obvious transhistoric reaoning.

How is money an attempt to evade Adam's curse?

Luís Henrique

[FONT=Arial]For a dialectician, the future is the truth of the past, retroactivity (anti-historicism) is all-powerful.[/FONT]

[Railyon]

[FONT=Arial]For a dialectician, the future is the truth of the past, retroactivity (anti-historicism) is all-powerful.[/FONT]

Truth is such a nebulous term. And it all sounds like falling into the mechanistic claptraps of historical determinism, Second International how are you doing?

[the zizekian]

Truth is such a nebulous term. And it all sounds like falling into the mechanistic claptraps of historical determinism, Second International how are you doing?

[FONT=Verdana]By definition, the future is undetermined.[/FONT]

[Baseball]

[QUOTE=Revolution starts with U;2402693]

My second response is that workers risk their life and livelihood as well. You can make the argument that they get a fixed wage whether success or failure, but that's simply not true. If the business goes under, the worker has to go back through the greuling and dehumanizing process of finding a new job.

But this does not really offer a solution. As Gacky points, even LTV states a point of which production ceases. At this point, workers in a socialist community either continue production (for the sake of avoiding grueling job searches) or the community finds them other jobs (but that endeavor involves risk).

Not only does the worker risk just as much, if not more, than the capitalist in any given enterprise.

In a socialist community, this is much more true, since the risk is more spread out to more people.

People will be incentivised to work harder under cooperative enterprise.

But, see, you still need to describe the nature of this "cooperation."

[Revolution starts with U]

This was like weeks ago Hopefully I can remember what we were talking about without having to go back.

But this does not really offer a solution. As Gacky points, even LTV states a point of which production ceases. At this point, workers in a socialist community either continue production (for the sake of avoiding grueling job searches) or the community finds them other jobs (but that endeavor involves risk).

Nope, gona have to go back...
Ok, that's easy really. If they want to continue, they do. If they don't, they don't. They will not be under market coercion to accept a job just so they can "pay their bills" and instead work where they want, when they want.

Now, are you going to take the Rafiq line that you would "do nothing?" Or would you find something with which to productively occupy your time, as we all would?

In a socialist community, this is much more true, since the risk is more spread out to more people.

Exactly, and good that it is. Risk makes one more careful and responsible. The other benefit of spreading risk is exactly why corporations have overtaken self-proprietorship and other purely private business models; the hit doesn't hit quite so hard.
For example, a big log is swinging at you. I can put my hand in the way, or my body. Which do you think will have a better chance at stopping it?

But, see, you still need to describe the nature of this "cooperation."

It's not my job to define that, other than as "working with not for."

[the zizekian]

First off there are many labor theories of value, this is just a basic basic overview. Karl Marx did not invent the labor theory of value, he added to it, and applied it to his economics, Adam smith and David Ricardo had different versions, even Aristotle, St Thomas Aquintes and as far as Benjamin franklin had theories based on the labor theory of value.

The basic theory is that the value of a commodity is based on the labor put into it, so origionally you have raw materials and capital, those things are bought at a price generally also based on labor, and then you mix it with labor, which creates the added value of the commodity. So basically the value is all the material value that went into creating the commodity PLUS the value.

Now when we say value, we are talking about an objective measure, we are not talking about what people as individuals value certain thing (so maybe value is'nt the right word), we are talking about a basic point on which exchange values are based, you could say its what commodities would be priced if supply and demand are at equilibrium.

A commodity are things, (when we are discussing the LTOV) which are consumer goods (many would include services, as would I) and valued based on their use value. So for example, a hat is a commodity, and its value is based on the fact that you can wear it and keep your head warm and so on and so forth, but if you have a hat that was given to you by your father before he died that was his favorate hat you are not going to sell that hat for the market prices of a regular hat, that price will not be a commodity price, you have added sentimental value, the LTOV is NOT talking about that, its NOT talking about stocks and bonds, which are not commodities they are loans and non material capital, it is NOT talking about pieces of art who's value is sentimental, the LTOV is talking specifically talking about commodities based on use value.

Now when you put supply and demand in the mix you get price, so for example a bottle of water is generally not that expensive in a competative market, and it generally has a low labor value as well, but when your at a music festival, where you have a supply and demand situation totally out of whack and you'll have prices much higher, the LTOV is NOT talking about that.

So why is the labor theory of value important? Well it gives you an idea of a basic price that supply and demand will derive the market price from, and it also (especially when it comes to Marxian economics), shows the source of value and profit.

Many opponents of the LTOV like to bring up the buggy vrs a car example, i.e. a carriage and a car take a similar amounf of labor to produce, yet most people weould value a car more, Sure, but go out and buy a carriage, lets say your a movie producer or a collector, and you want a carriage, its gonna cost you, because as demand dropped so did supply, but the price is STILL based on the labor time, which will be significant.

Any time, the market value drops below the labor value of a product, it will stop being produced.

You can basically track this overtime, the supply and demand of computers has'nt changed that significantly overtime, as more computers have been made more people have wanted them, but the prices have dropped, why? productivity means that it can take less labor to produce a computer, the same is the case with most commodities, (in this sense the supply and demand is effected by the Labor value, in the sense that productivity increases allow for more potential supply, meaning less labor time is used in production per unit).

Now what do we mean when we say labor? We mean all muscle and brain power put into the production, So software production is not just printing the CDs, is finding the concept, writing the code and so on. This gets rid of the argument that neo-liberals have in their constant and desperate defences of capitalists when they say "But the bosses also contribute a lot, they come up with ideas and so on," YES, sometimes they do, and that is included, but whether of not their compensation is based on their labor is the subject of a different discussion.

So as Industry develops ways to produce MORE per hour of labor, even if the supply and demand is the same, the price will drop, because the value has dropped.

The implications of this theory are different, but for Marxists, and most Socialists, the implication is that of exploitation, the Capitalists profit is derived from extracting excess value from labor, along with other implications. However for other economists its implications are different, such as propertarians arguing that the value created from labor insinuates ownership of land for example.

[FONT=Calibri]The only relevant aspect of the labor theory of value is the one showing that capital is dead labor.[/FONT]