/liberty/ - Liberty

It upsets me so it must be wrong.

>>80698

ltv is immoral

>>80704

"private property is immoral"

do you see why what you said is not an argument? I'm asking for its economic factor, why is it objectively wrong?

>>80698

The labor theory of value is flawed fundamentally in the sense that the number of man-hours that go into a product has nothing to do with what's it's worth to them, and thus what they're willing to pay; supply and demand govern those factors. Let's assume for instance a beef farm, that sells its product to vendors in San Francisco and Chicago (assume for simplicity's sake that shipping costs are the same and neither area has laws or regulations that alter the price of beef). Despite the same number of man-hours going into production, they have to sell their product at a lower price in San Francisco, because there's less demand for beef there. Conversely, a firm selling free-range, grass-fed dildos lubricated in conflict-free soy extract can charge much higher prices in San Francisco than other places, because that kind of product is valued far more there. Further, the LVT assumes that any price greater than production cost amounts to "exploitation," because that excess revenue is going to the firm owner as profit. This is fallacious because it rather arbitrarily assumes that the firm owner isn't entitled to profit while the workers are, despite the firm owner organizing the operation and putting his personal wealth at risk by starting the company (it may fail), while the workers get their wage whether or not the venture succeeds in the long run. Because value is inherently subjective, tying it to any arbitrary statistic, be it labor or something else, is going to cause errors, because consumer preference is governed by a multitude of factors that are subjective to each consumer.

>>80706

it is against will of participants of economy

The mudpie argument is a good start.

>I spent all day doing [thing], so it must be valuable

>>80707

>Despite the same number of man-hours going into production, they have to sell their product at a lower price in San Francisco, because there's less demand for beef there.

Do you have anything to back up this assertion? I'm faily confident that the price of beef is more or less the same but will just be sold in less volume.

>Conversely, a firm selling free-range, grass-fed dildos lubricated in conflict-free soy extract can charge much higher prices in San Francisco than other places, because that kind of product is valued far more there.

Maybe for a short while, but the way capital accumulation works, instead you will have more free-range, grass-fed dildos lubricated in conflict-free soy extract producers on the market, often oversaturating the market for a while and pushing prices below average.

>Further, the LVT assumes that any price greater than production cost amounts to "exploitation,"

Yes, labour is exploited for capital accumulation. Whether it is just or unjust is not a factor.

>Because value is inherently subjective, tying it to any arbitrary statistic, be it labor or something else, is going to cause errors, because consumer preference is governed by a multitude of factors that are subjective to each consumer.

This is just circular logic. "Because value is subjective, thinking it's objective is wronk"

>>80748

Marx specifically states that for a commodity to have an exchange value it must have a use value.

>>80756

"Use value," as Marx uses it, is fundamentally subjective and not separate from "exchange value." His concept of value is a poor rationalization of previous economic theory.

>>80756

>Marx specifically states that for a commodity to have an exchange value it must have a use value

And different things have different values of utility for different people. There are eccentrics out there that will pay top dollar for designer mud pies because for whatever reason they like the way they look. Some will pay a lesser amount, not because they actually like them but because buying useless things is trendy in their locale and they want to put their mud pies on display to show how chic they are. A lot of people won't pay a cent because they don't have a use for them. All these different people have a different price they're willing to pay for this item. Almost like the value is dependent on the person making the appraisal.

>>80757

>>80758

>"Use value," as Marx uses it, is fundamentally subjective

Yes. Or in Marx's own words; it is a historical process to figure out the various use values of commodities.

>and not separate from "exchange value.

Wrong, exchange value is presupposed by use value. If no one is willing to buy a product it will not be produced.

Use value is basically just a yes/no for whether or not the the labour put into a product is valueable.

The LTV is not an attempt to create a rigid definitions for what has or doesn't have a use value nor minor deviations in exchange value resulting from supply/demand. It is an attempt to understand the laws of motion of capital on a grand scale.

While some people might buy designer mudpies (which then probably was designed by someone who has spent time in mudpie designer school, thus labour has gone into both studying and teaching), this doesn't really affect the LTV.

>>80756

And how do you determine use value? Is it objective or subjective? What makes the more complex theory that requires multiple types of value better than the one that simply states "people value things based on their subjective preferences"?

>what are some basic arguments against it, if it's so flawed and easily contradicted according to you?

IMO the LTV is not even the weakest part of Marxist theory. It's fairly coherent and adequately explains economic value and its production. The big problem in Marxist theory is the almost non-existent definition of economic class which Marx only even mentioned (as far as i remember) in some handwritten notes which remained unfinished at the time of his death. It's a pretty glaring omission for someone who wrote a manifesto declaring that class struggle was the basis of history. It also left future Marxists kind of unsure of how exactly to analyze the rise of bureaucratic states like the USSR. Is it socialism? Is it state-capitalist? Is it a "deformed workers state?" These arguments go unresolved because the foundations of Marxist thought were unfinished at the time of Marx's death.

>>80767

>And how do you determine use value?

I think this was pretty clearly explained, use value is not a number, it is simply a matter of whether there is a market for the commodity or not.

>What makes the more complex theory that requires multiple types of value better than the one that simply states "people value things based on their subjective preferences"?

Scientific accuracy?

>>80769

>use value is not a number, it is simply a matter of whether there is a market for the commodity or not.

That's the Subjective Theory of Value in all but name, all you need to add is prices.

>Scientific accuracy?

What, specifically, is inaccurate about the STV's ability to predict human behavior?

>>80768

>The big problem in Marxist theory is the almost non-existent definition of economic class

What?

>>80770

>That's the Subjective Theory of Value in all but name, all you need to add is prices.

Maybe, but use value is the least interesting/informative part of the theory. What creates value is far more interesting.

>What, specifically, is inaccurate about the STV's ability to predict human behavior?

Well that it ignores the cost of production of the commodity, thus ignores the capitalist incentive to further exploit the workers both on the individual business scale and on government scale. This STV is the reason you will not understand the world on a larger scale. You wont understand how imperialism connects to the wealthy businessmen, why a large section of the population needs to be unemployed for the capitalist to push down workers' power to compete in the labour market.

The STV is a way for capitalist economists, the modern clergy, to give a sense of mystery to the commodity to sell a shitty product like iPhones to dumb consumerist westerners way above its value.

>>80760

>If no one is willing to buy a product it will not be produced. Use value is basically just a yes/no for whether or not the the labour put into a product is valueable.

Is that so? I thought Marx defined use value as being socially determined in order to explain differences in value. Otherwise, you could define something like well-made or poorly-made hammers as having equal use-values, as both satisfy the "yes" condition of valuability.

>>80772

This entire post reeks of condescension. If the LTV is demonstrably false, then so is any "understanding" gleaned from it. The observations which you mentioned may very well be true in some form, but employing the LTV establishes no usable understanding of causality. As with all Marxist theory, it is an ad-hoc rationalization of the "observations" which you mentioned. Marx did not discover things through his methodology, he created his methodology to accomodate his observations.

>>80776

> I thought Marx defined use value as being socially determined

Not directly.

Use-value is pretty universally determined by… getting up and using it. Well or shoddy, that's what it does.

Marx's contribution to the Labor Theory of Cost (normally called the Labor Theory of Value) was to use darwinian free-market selection to narrow the sample selected to measure labor inputs in the current market. Since the market can be construed as a social activity, labor inputs can be construed as from a socially-determined set.

This is why it's hilarious to see libertarians bitching about LTV and mentioning Marx - his ONLY contribution was to tie it to free-market viability.

Wew, too many responses. I'll reply tonight.

>>80707

The labour theory of value is not a theory of price.

>>80748

Marx was talking about “socially necessary” labour time. He obviously didn’t believe that somebody who makes something slowly will contribute more value than somebody who makes the same thing, but faster.

As John Roemer has shown, we don’t need the LTV to prove that workers are exploited by the capitalists. We can do it by simply using rational choice and game theory: http://ekonhu.korea.ac.kr/~woojin/Roemer,%20Exploitation,%20alternatives%20and%20socialism.pdf

>>80786

>>80799

So many people try to "debunk" it without even knowing what it is, it would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Libertarianism is truly an example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

>>80806

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/society

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/necessity

>>80808

Imaginary things have definitions, yes.

>>80806

Socially necessary labour time is the amount of labour time performed by a worker of average skill and productivity, working with tools of the average productive potential, to produce a given commodity.

lolbert's "arguments" on marxism are always embarrassing strawmen of Marx and Engel's writings.

>>80829

>>80831

The implication that the things made are useful is still there, without any reference to whoever will use them.

>>80833

I think you are confusing the labour time socially necessary to produce a given commodity with the use value of this commodity.

>>80698

TBH I don't really know much about Marx other than reading the Communist Manifesto in High School and being explained the LTV and other sort of Marxian thoughts by proselytizing Marxians. Value seems to be predicated on like how much time is "necessary" to produce it. This changes from each person who explains it to me but it seems that it's sort of the mean time for a skilled person to create something given technology and capital available. While Austrians reject value being predicated on historical events, every object is considered independent of historical facts of its productions and is entirely based on a subjective evaluation by each individual.

I don't think Austrians really discuss technological advancement during war because war tends to be the exclusive realm of the state and most Austrians are totally against state-to-state war as immoral and contrary to the improvement of material well-being of humanity. A lot of military technology is also designed for offensive capability which usually requires more resources and time to develop. For instance, the development of nuclear submarines and sea-faring vessels that can be underway for months without needing to head into port wouldn't really make sense if it was a war of pure defense. In general the defensive force doesn't require the same kind of technological superiority as their attackers to achieve victory or just hold their own against a vastly superior fighting force. So, I guess Austrians do acknowledge the rapid technological increase of war weapons during war by states but also views it as superfluous to a free society because a free society would be much wealthier and need not waste resources on expensive instruments of attack.

>>80786

They are worth the same, but you will probably be fired soon.

>>80855

The point is that he does exactly that, or rather, if he sells above value (socially necessary labour time) some other capitalist will set up shop and exploit that market. The LTV isn't a moral system, it's an attempt to understand capitalism.

>>80835

The use of necessary labour time is to explain value. If it were just an average of the time taken in a production process, it would have been described as such. The book in the OP gives the example the coaches and says that because they were coaches which weren't sold, there was too much labor expended. Just as well, it could as concluded that cheaper coaches are fine. Or that there was too little labor used in the process and they should have been even cheaper. Because needs are substituted for personal choices, one can describe the ideal situation in any way.

>>80833

The LTV only applies to commodities, i.e., things that are exchanged. If something is useless, it won't be exchanged and thus won't have value either.

>>80856

So is the argument then that workers are not getting a fair share of wages for their input?

>>80829

>Labor should be treated as a unit

>All labor is valued equally

what a retarded idea

>>80885

I would say that is just something anything with half a brain that isn't knee deep in capitalist ideology will figure out themselves after a few years of work.

>>80786

If you are paying someone to cut down a tree, you will probably have to pay them more, commensurate with the work required, if you also want to specify that they have to do it with a spool of dental floss.

Wierd concept, I know.

>>80778

>Marx did not discover things through his methodology, he created his methodology to accomodate his observations.

As with all science, the question goes: "What can we discover if we posit this as a truth."

This is what Marx did with SNLT (though he was not the first), and it produced a more sound theory than any other economists at his time.

>>80786

All else being equal their value would be the same to a single individual.

>>80896

>If you are paying someone to cut down a tree, you will probably have to pay them more, commensurate with the work required, if you also want to specify that they have to do it with a spool of dental floss.

Sure, that's true, but it doesn't affect the value of the logs once labor is completed given the tree that took four hours to fell and the one that only took fifteen minutes have the same physical characteristics and therefor are interchangeable.

>>80909

>All else being equal their value would be the same to a single individual.

Even throwing the matter of skill out of the picture, one hour of coal mining is absolutely not the same as one hour of basket weaving. I would much rather work on a basket above ground than having a shitty time breathing under 1000 tons of rock.

>>80909

>Sure, that's true,

Okay, so we agree that labor is the primary cost…

>but it doesn't affect the value of the logs once labor is completed

It could, if there is a sudden fetish for dental-floss sawn wood. Quit whining, you had it WAY easier than the millworker!

…but more to the point, we agree that without such a fetish, said labor is unlikely to find its costs born by the market, that is, it is not included as a function of socially-necessary labor time.

Congratulations, all your assertions suggest you are a marxist LTV believer.

>>80916

>Congratulations, all your assertions suggest you are a marxist LTV believer.

Yes, thats because he is. Could you not tell?

>80916

>you are a marxist LTV believer.

The LTV is not Marxist, it was first introduced by classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo.

“As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials… The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves itself in this case into two parts, of which one pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced. He could have no interest to employ them, unless he expected from the sale of their work something more than what was sufficient to replace his stock to him." (Adam Smith,,The Wealth of Nations, p. 42)

>>80918

>The value which the materials add to the workmen, therefore, resolves itself in this case into two parts, of which one pays the workmens wages, the other the profits of the owner.

>>80919

> In that original state of things which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer.

>…

>Had this state continued, the wages of labour would have augmented with all those improvements in its productive powers, to which the division of labour gives occasion. All things would gradually have become cheaper.

>…

>But this original state of things, in which the labourer enjoyed the whole produce of his own labour, could not last beyond the first introduction of the appropriation of land

- Adam Smith, Book I, Chapter 8, 'the wealth of nations.' ;)

Actual, historical liberalism is HELLA more anticapitalist than nu-socialism. :)

>>80918

Yup.

Marx's contribution was the free-market bits which kill off the 'mud pies' and 'logging with dental floss' bits - not that this is an issue with Smith's version, either, since he discusses trading similar labor, just that it's more centrally explicit.

>>80920

>Actual, historical liberalism is HELLA more anticapitalist

(Which is a bad thing)

>Marx's contribution was the free-market bits

Marx actually dedicates a large portion of the manifesto explaining how amazing capitalism is. How it creates innovation. He then explained that the exploitation would grow so great that the workers would be forced to rebel creating a communist society. Of course the innovation has continued, and the revolutions failed.

>>80921

>(which is a bad thing)

>I actually like being impoverished by a shitty, rent-seeking neofeudal taxation system

k, then. Can you get the rest of us the massive economic losses back?

>Marx actually dedicates a large portion of the manifesto explaining how amazing capitalism is.

This is not, however, the ONLY reason the Left hates him.

>>80923

>k, then. Can you get the rest of us the massive economic losses back?

BUT IT WAS NOT REAL COMMUNISM

>>80924

There can be no state and money under communism

>>80926

And no bread either

>>80928

>is completely unfamiliar with the bread book

>>80930

>A book written before nearly every major communist revolution

Yea the bread thing did not turn out so well

>>80912

Sorry I don't think I made myself clear. I meant that an interchangeable good would have the same value to a given individual regardless of the labor, resources, and capital used to create it. This isn't to mean that that a more efficient production process and a less efficient one have the same amount of disutility. I didn't mean to suggest all labor has the same amount of disutility for each person but that interchangeable (I.E. identical) goods will have the same utility to a give individual regardless of the production process.

>>80931

>Marx was kicked out of St. Imiers and Lenin was an avowed capitalist who ran the soviet union on the truck system.

That's seriously your argument? Point to yourself and say "I suck," and hope it somehow impugns people who have never, ever liked you?

>>80933

>It was not real communism

every time

>>80890

It's about labour time, not labour.

>>80934

Including the first time, dumbass.

>>80939

>b-b-but it was not real!

>>80937

>It's about lab, not labour.

Yes, which is one of the reasons why its retarded. One hour of coal mining under 1000 tons of rock is not equivalent to one hour of basket weaving.

I would much rather be in a nice above ground area where I can breath for compared to an equal amount of time coal mining where I can can barely breath, and am in a confined space.

>>80942

*>It's about labor time, not labour.

copy past got fucked up for some reason

>>80942

You just need to coal-mine more lazily.

>>80953

>while you are underground, why don't you be lazy while you are at it

>>80942

>One hour of coal mining under 1000 tons of rock is not equivalent to one hour of basket weaving.

Exactly, but that doesn’t in any way contradict the labour theory of value. Marx believed that the value of a commodity is determined by socially necessary labour time spent on producing it. That doesn’t mean that people who work the same amount of time contribute the same amount value to the economy.

>>80984

>That doesn’t mean that people who work the same amount of time contribute the same amount value to the economy.

I'm not talking about the value to the economy. I'm saying that one hour of coal mining is not the same labor as one hour of basket weaving. Its not about the product value. The labor itself is not equal. The coal mining is a far worse experience and than making baskets for equal time.

>>80985

Yes, and? Again, this does not in any way contradict the LTV.

>>80991

>Yes, and? Again

>That doesn’t mean that people who work the same amount of time contribute the same amount value to the economy.

THE COMMENT HAS NOTHING TO DO ABOUT WHAT IS CONTRIBUTED TO SOCIETY. ITS NOT ABOUT THE VALUE OF THE RESULT OF THEIR LABOR. ITS NOT "AGAIN".

The labor of oil rig worker, coal miner, whatever, is much more difficult, dangerous, uncomfortable, and is absolutely not equivalent to the labor of making baskets. Even if making baskets was 100x more valuable to society than drilling for oil.

If you are basing your value off of labor time, you are exploiting the hard work being put in by everyone that does the shitty jobs, while the basket weavers get to keep their hands clean.

>>80858

I cited the example from the book in the post above, >>80857 , and it said that making too many carriages from society's point of view, by which the book really meant that the owners had to lower their prices to sell, is not socially necessary. But obviously they either lowered the prices to cut losses or used the carriages for some other purpose.

Either lowering the price causes something useless to become useful, or the amount of labor is unrelated to the price.

>>80900

Just because it attempted to explain more does not mean that Marx's theory was more sound than his contemporaries, and it really began to show its improprieties over the following decades. And sciences attempt to explain things through testability, which Marx's theory could not do. This is more an issue of economics not being an actual science, but it makes assertions of Marxian economics being "scientific" seem doubly retarded.

>>80772

>cost of production of the commodity

This is covered by supply and demand.

>imperialism connects to the wealthy businessmen,

That is mercantilistism. I thought Capital was a critique on capitalism?

>why a large section of the population needs to be unemployed

This is not true with capitalism. Just to get the amount of unemployed we have today requires social safety nets.

>the capitalist to push down workers' power to compete in the labour market.

The labor market is like any other market. Consumers do not have any less power over their suppliers unless there are artificially limited suppliers, wage floors/ceilings, quotas/tariffs, etc.

>>80782

No, Smith/Ricardo definition of LTV is different from Marx's LTV.

>>80829

>It has nothing to do with society's needs.

Why did Marx have poor word usage?

>>81005

>cost of production of the commodity

>This is covered by supply and demand.

Congratulations, you have just retyped (and reaffirmed) Marx's entire theory.

>>81009

Not really. LTV determines labor value not price.

>>81011

Nope. All costs are someone else's labor, bluntly. You don't have to pay until you're asking someone to get off their ass (or for the fruits of someone getting off their ass)

>muh LVT

>>81015

And all labor is stems from supply and demand. What's your point?

>>81015

This reminds me of the diamond argument and how diamonds became moper expensive compared to other gemstones despite similar labor time to extract and cut by manipulating supply and demand.

>>81065

>the workers. they stare at shelves.

>#notruecommunism

And instead of eating, the fagsoy would break into discussion of "while managed wholly by the anyworker, are.. are shelves a means of production?"

dey ded nao

>>81070

>tfw sanitation in communism is a variation of the 'littering' argument.

>>81045

So Freedom Toons works for FEE now? Seems like he's going places.

>>81105

So let's take this cartoon for example.

>>81045

First, the art gallery. The reason art appears as an "exception" to the LTV is because of the uniqueness of the product. But it is in fact as any other commodity, which if mass produced in quality (not necessarily the same exact brush placements on the canvas, but to be almost indistinguishable in appearance), then it too will drop in value from speculative pricing to a somewhat more conceivable expense. For example, if all of us had some innate ability to make a specific form of art in its most skilled form, like painting, then obviously no one would attach such significance to masterful painting (they would be average then, after all) and the only expense for a painting would be the time invested and the cost of equipment (which are reducible to labor). Or if artistic education was so widespread and it was immensely easy to find an artist to do a certain painting or drawing, then it will again be reducible to the average amount of time, relative level of skill and equipment to produce a painting. You may say that this is just another way to express supply and demand - and it is - but this is precisely the structure around it; average labor, a comparison of availability and skill. Think about it, if value really doesn't function in this way, then how could we possibly evaluate if someone overpaid for something, or that someone made a profit? Because obviously there is a comparison at hand between the desired object and other objects/ways to acquire said object or something similar, and even if the rich guy in the cartoon believes he paid on the dollar for something, we can all rationally tell he didn't. Why is that?

Secondly, the island and diamonds. Of course the valuation is subjective in regards to the individual's situation, but it is precisely on the context that we make this evaluation, and this evaluation happens socially. Both the castaway and the sailor know that diamonds worth a lot, but the castaway isn't offered to get off the island, and if she refuses to exchange the diamonds then the sailor will just wait until she dies. So this is a situation that even if she has to mine the diamonds, and put labor into them, she can only exchange for one bottle of water. This is a case of the material conditions of the castaway, of the fact she has no resources to survives except those that the sailor brings. This is a case of monopoly, as mentioned above. If, on the other hand, there were plenty of sailors brings water, and each competing over the diamonds she mines, then she would be hesitant to give them away for less than her labor. Unless of course the price of diamonds for the sailors, on the mainland, would be less, i.e. the socially necessary labor for diamonds, and thus their price and availability, would be less in different trajectories for the sailors.

This is my take on the issue. So why exactly do the Libertarians disagree with it? It is perfectly consistent. And you need to understand, I come from a libertarian perspective as well, I began my economic education by reading libertarian books. Do you have a better explanation on the origin of prices that labor?

As for the commies ITT, what exactly then is the controversy over and within Marxism? I am pretty new to economics but it seems to me to be completely encompassing economics.

2/2

>>81105

>Comparative

Comparative to what though? Capitalists don't shit on LTV for comparing, we shit on it because it wouldn't know how to begin comparing costs if it didn't have a monetary basis/formal monetary data to stand on. When we shit on worker's ownership, it's because the socialist assumes the capitalist contract model doesn't account for all costs/is arbitrary, but then proceeds to draw an arbitrary line when it comes to the construction company or the loggers who provided wood for the construction company, etc. That were all contracted and for which the workers would not have a factory if not for their contributions.

>>81112

>To other commodities

I mean the average labor time to make a commodity in a society*, this value between them is what makes them comparable.

>>80786

Average

Labor

Time

>>81118

>every time a quadriplegic is born, the price of wood goes up because hit takes him 6 weeks to cut down a tree and he raised the average labor time

>>81119

The average isn't some magical number you get that gets updated after every microscopic movement, it's the average of labor time you get from people who participate in a market and put forward commodities.

>>81121

It's still a retarded argument because the how many hours went into chopping down a tree doesn't change what the resultant piece of wood is worth to me. There's still a maximum that I personally am willing to pay for a given quantity of wood, and that value won't change based on "average labor time."

>>81122

>how many hours went into chopping down a tree doesn't change what the resultant piece of wood is worth to me

And how do you asses how much it's worth to you?

>>81123

assessit's late, goodnight

>>81123

>>81124

A fuckton of factors, that differ from person to person (i.e. subjective factors). How much income do I expect to take in this year compared to my existing expense, to what degree I need the wood and how much of it, to what degree I need the wood NOW instead of later which isn't always relevant but it is if I'm expecting the price to drop and/or my income to rise at some lator point.

Now, you could argue that in some convoluted roundabout way some of these factors are related to how much labor went into the wood–you could say, for instance, that there's a weak correlation between my disposable income and the man-hours that went into the wood, because real wages tend to increase with change in technology. But that weak correlation isn't affecting my decision-making to any detectable degree, and so it's irrelevant. At the end of the day, I have, for my own subjective reasons, a maximum price I'm willing to pay for a hunk of wood. The seller has, for his own subjective reasons, a minimum price at which he's willing to sell the wood. Trade will happen whenever the price is somewhere between those two values, because that's the area in which trade is mutually beneficial. Multiply this by all of the buyers in the market, who each have their own valuations of what they're willing to pay for wood. Some prices are higher than mine, some are lower, and the internal subjective reasoning for each will overlap with mine in some areas and differ in others. The same principle applies for all the potential sellers in the market. Combined, all these valuations represent the demand and the supply for wood in the market, and the market price will settle at equilibrium, where supply meets demand and the market clears. Roughly speaking, equilibrium is when the sell rate of wood equals the buy rate–there are no surpluses from the price being too high and not enough people willing to buy at that price, and there are no shortages from prices being too low and sellers being unwilling to produce at that price.

The LTV is not about how much you value things, it's about how society allocates labour. For Marx, and classic economics in general, value is a relation between commodities, not commodities and people like in today's wealthsplaining.

>>81106

Marx made a somewhat accurate model of economics in the bourgeoise state in that book you are reading he had taken inspiration from many classical economics theorists. His work was improved upon with Alan Cottrell and Emmanuel Farjoun. The lolbertarians have a problem with the implications of explaining the system with this epistmology as it nessitates prices being a model of labor. They then just make up the problems like the transformation problem and the calculation problem in order to try and to discredit the theories. It just makes them uncomfortable.

>>81129

What's the comversion ratio of iron bars to dragon dildos using labor?

>>81142

On average, I would estimate it takes my child prostitute sweatshops about sixty-four man-hours to forge a standard iron ingot into a dragon dildo.

>>81129

>they just make up problems

I could say the same about commies just "making up" problems with capitalism

>>81129

You cannot make up the lack of fungibility of subjective values among individuals.

>>81146

You have to take that up to classical economists because they are the one's who came up with ltv. Can't really deny it when it is a core part of the theory of captitalism to begin with.

>>81150

This is why you are still stuck on a imageboard.

>>81162

Exactly. Unlike the socialists stubbornly clinging to an ideology that's been shown to be a failure time and time again, when Austrian market theory is proven inaccurate or incomplete in some area, its proponents work to improve the theory. This is because praxeology is fundamentally a discipline about predicting and explaining human action, and as such must reflect how the world functions. The socialists in contrast insist that instead of their theory being wrong, the world is wrong for not obeying their theory, and think the optimal solution is to socially engineer the entire species until they think socialism is correct instead of just acknowledging that they were wrong.

>>81165

>None of this contradicts LTV and you've kind of missed the point

Well then, what's the point of the LTV? What does it do that the STV doesn't, besides needlessly shoehorn man-hours into every little explanation? Moreover, how does it deal with interest rates and time-preference? You can't use man-hours to explain why people will pay more to get something sooner rather than later, or why taking out a loan necessitates paying interest.

>Good thing Marx refuted the utopian socialists.

What? Marx was the goddamn progenitor of these people. He made a bunch of rather arbitrary declarations on human behavior and the economy. After a century of bloodshed and history proved him wrong, the Marxists and misanthropes in universities, as well as those currently fucking Europe in the ass, continue to insist that he was right and human nature was wrong. They either try to use propaganda to "fix" people into believing their shit, or they make declarations about how humanity is deadly to the planet and deserves to go extinct. Others hybridize these approaches and do their best to drive out or eliminate the "bourgeois" (in the case of modern cultural marxists, these are FUCKING WHITE MALES), and indoctrinate the rest.

>>81169

Marxists think of themselves as "scientific".

>>81188

How can you hope to improve something if you don't understand it? That's like saying…

>Science is about explaining how the physical world works instead of building cool shit like warp drives

Just as scientists have engineers to make their theories into practical entities and technicians to build them, economics business/finance to actualize itself and accounting/entrepreneurship to "build it."

>>80984

>Exactly, but that doesn’t in any way contradict the labour theory of value

It contradicts its legitimacy as a logical and applicable theory to humanity.

>>81192

Modern economics doesn't even try to understand the world, though.

>>81007

Because he wrote 150 years ago and in German.

>>81199

>I know nothing about economics, the post

>>81212

>*I know nothing about economics, but I need to say something about it anyway

>>81219

Keynes is modern, mainstream economics.

>>81196

truly ebin btfo

Can you point to the posts you've made in this thread about the LTV? Or are you just the board designated dank memester?

>>81230

>Or are you just the board designated dank memester?

This is coming from the D E S I G N A T E D lefty shitposter. Pot, meet kettle.

>>81230

Did the tranny ban you from leftypol?

>>81230

>push biased, contrarian "science" just because reality doesn't coincide with our delusions? we'd never do that!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

>>80992

I still want an answer to this commies

>>81247

truly ebin btfo

Can you point to the posts you've made in this thread about the Lysenkoism? Or are you just the board designated dank memester?

>>81222

Not all modern economics are mainstream though. Mainstream economics are those theories chosen by those in power to try and run the world when the world doesn't need them to run it, and just because they choose to fool themselves doesn't mean that economics as a field is entirely worthless.

>>81105

>Every commodity's value is reducible to labor in relation to the time it takes to make other commodities in society.

I hate to refer to another source, but Eugen Bohm Bawerk refuted this not long after Das Kapital was published.

>>81262

xD

>>81260

This. There's only so much time in the world, and you can't waste it reading every single piece of trash that an idiot with an opinion published.

>>81267

The Communist Manifesto is very short compared to the huge impact it left on history. There's really no excuse not to read it, even if you already know that you are going to disagree with everything it says, it's just basic historical literacy.

>>81268

I did read it, I guess sometimes pamphlets like that are okay, but there's really no reason to listen to every single leftard or radical centrist that says "how can you judge X if you've never read it? Go read 1000 pages of this book now".

In the information age, there's propaganda blaring from all sides so people just stop thinking because of the information overload, compare this to when the printing press was first invented and information was more limited, everyone was starting a revolution. Right now being able to filter out white noise is just as important as getting useful information.

>>81268

Except it's never just the manifesto. If you tell them you've read that, then you have to go and read all of Das Kapital too, so you can know what Marx really thinks. And if you did that, they'd probably point you towards some other, longer book.

>>81262

well meme'd, sir

>>81162

Please explain.

>>81045

The LTV is not a theory of price

>>81723

Then it's functionally useless. It doesn't denote anything meaningful, it's just a bunch of circlejerking over man-hours and "exploitation."

>>81728

I see you haven’t read Smith and Ricardo

>>81729

…Who both used it as a theory of price, and their intellectual successors stopped using it as such once the STV was introduced.

>>81728

The STV, by that logic, is also functionally useless, since writers like von Mises claimed value and price were separate concepts and that price did not account for the forms of value which could not be measured in monetary terms.

Monetary calculation has its limits. Money is no yardstick of value, nor yet of price. Value is not indeed measured in money, nor is price.

Ludwig von Mises, Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth

Me and a team of 100 people decide to dig an extremely massive hole. We do this with no expectation of making a profit (we have not optimized the hole's location for mining operations, or any other particular money making endeavor), we have simply decided to use all of our effort and modern tools to dig this hole. We spend years of our life on the project.

What is the value of this hole under the labor theory of value?

>>81787

"how would i use a theory of value, as applied to commodities in a market economy, to describe something which has no relevance?"

>>80909

>All else being equal their value would be the same to a single individual

I dunno, if I were a furniture manufacturer, and those were my options, I'd probably prefer to get lumber as fast as possible.

>>81786

He meant value in general. Prices are exchange value.

>>81791

Then amend the example; at the end of digging the hole, the workers have a change of heart and decide to sell it. Would the labor theory value ascribe a large value to the hole or not?

>>81787

It's worth nothing.

Mudpie arguments are retarded

>>81810

Exactly, its worth almost nothing in practical terms. But it had boatloads of labor placed into it. It demonstrates that the labor theory of value is immediately inconsistent with run-of-the-mill common sense, because it would place a massive value on products which serve no useful purpose. If this isn't a valid refutation of the LTV, then explain why it is unfair to apply it to this example.

>>81797

>>81816

There are two ways of answering this.

First,

If a group of people decided to spend years of their lives and massive resources achieving some goal or producing something then to them it would obviously hold value and this would be realized in whatever payments or costs they accrued in obtaining the final product. From this perspective we look at the hole as being like a consumer good in which a product is being consumed rather than produced for sale.

Second,

Like I said before, the LTV is primarily a means of explaining and analyzing the underlying value (i.e. abstract value) of commodities and how these relate to each other. The hole isn't being produced for sale therefore it isn't a commodity. And if you change the example so that the people dig a massive hole for years only to later attempt to sell it as a commodity, it doesn't even make sense. No one will invest years of time and massive resources producing something that clearly wouldn't have market value UNLESS they were producing it for their own use, which means it isn't a commodity in the first place.

>If this isn't a valid refutation of the LTV, then explain why it is unfair to apply it to this example.

Context is important. The LTV is a theory that attempts to explain the abstract value of economic goods, i.e. commodities produced and sold on a market. The basic idea is that the amount of labor (i.e. time) spent on producing or acquiring an object determines its relative value in a (specific) market. Non-economic goods, goods produced for one's own use, and "mudpie" commodities with no real world counterpart are not meant to be explained by the LTV since they don't fall within the context of goods produced and sold in a market.

>It demonstrates that the labor theory of value is immediately inconsistent with run-of-the-mill common sense, because it would place a massive value on products which serve no useful purpose.

In the real world people don't waste years of their life doing something without gaining some utility from it either in direct use or exchange.

>>81817

>In the real world people don't waste years of their life doing something without gaining some utility from it either in direct use or exchange.

so what you are saying is human beings place some sort of value on things and wont do them if the value is negative in their eyes?

>>81817

>abstract value

Why do goods have abstract value? Different people are willing to pay different amounts for identical goods based on their own personal needs. A man that already has a large stockpile of sugar will be willing to pay less for an additional pound of it compared to man that does not have a stockpile of sugar, especially if the latter man has an urgent need of sugar. The same good is being sold, made with the same quantity and quality of man-hours. Yet despite all that "abstract value" it ends up being sold for varying prices on the market.

>>81817

>First,

>If a group of people decided to spend years of their lives and massive resources achieving some goal or producing something then to them it would obviously hold value and this would be realized in whatever payments or costs they accrued in obtaining the final product.

That's a circular argument in the framework of the LTV. If putting effort and time into an object necessarily means that it must have an equal amount of value (as that of the input work/effort), then you could put effort into _anything_ it would come out as equally valuable. Essentially, in this way, the LTV is ignoring that people can in fact behave inefficiently and plan badly, and therefore can not properly handle the concept of waste.

>No one will invest years of time and massive resources producing something that clearly wouldn't have market value UNLESS they were producing it for their own use, which means it isn't a commodity in the first place.

The example is an exaggeration of something that happens all the time in real-life: people putting work into something unfruitful economically. Of course, it is almost never an intentional human action, but does that stop it from occurring?

>>81820

>If putting effort and time into an object necessarily means that it must have an equal amount of value (as that of the input work/effort), then you could put effort into _anything_ it would come out as equally valuable.

…of course, Marx's LTV was an analysis of goods which had already cleared the market, while pre-marxist LTV referred to goods already commissioned in the trade, making this (and the 20 billion other 'mud pie' arguments in this thread) a complete persun-of-straw.

…but hey. If persun-of-straw is what you've got, might as well put work into it and pretend it has some value. Of course, since your persun-of-straw argumentation was neither commissioned in trade nor sampled from market clearance, it actually has no value, but… keep trying! The harder you wor- oh, wait, that's not even part of the theory.

Going back to a previous point,

The weak link in Marxist theory is the social/political aspect.

1) If history is largely driven by economic classes then how would a Marxist define class?

2) If class is simply one's relationship to the means of production then could not new classes emerge as production changes form?

3) If the means of production in the USSR were not owned or controlled by capitalists then was it socialism or something else?

4) If it's possible for a system to be controlled by a class of bureaucrats then does this not mean that some kind of third-way economics is technically feasible?

Another problem.

If the USSR was neither capitalism nor socialism but rather a society dominated largely by bureaucrats, then what is to prevent any attempt at socialism from turning into simply another bureaucratic state? Even relatively "benevolent" socialist regimes typically suffer from bureaucracy and political centralization.

>>81822

>Marx's LTV was an analysis of goods which had already cleared the market, while pre-marxist LTV referred to goods already commissioned in the trade

How does already being purchased make it impervious to misvaluation ? While you could argue that it must necessarily be that valuable to person who purchased it, that's simply shifting the perfectly-rational-actor-with-perfect-information from the production side to the buyer side. I.e. You have to pretend it is impossible for a purchaser to change their minds on how valuable something actually is. If the same party values the same object at two different measures, then that necessarily implies that you can not calculate an object's value as a function of its requisite labor alone.

>>81834

>The LTV isn't a theory of price.

The market rate of an item is an approximation of its value (to the members of the marketplace).

>>80992

i'm still waiting

As the clock struck midnight, the Libertarian Workers Party quietly went house to house and physically removed(TM) all capitalists and basket weavers from their bourgeois hiding places. Their children would be auctioned on eRothbard.com to buyers with appropriate credit scores. Privatized death squads paid for by gold-backed cryptocurrency performed the necessary mopping up action, repeating the words of von Mises, "what counts is a man's total behavior, and not his talk about planned but not realized acts." The time to act had come.

>>81870

Great so the amount of labor does not actually matter and we get a new class system between Janitors and petroleum engineers.