What do you think about the labor theory of value?

Oh, this is going to get a lot of orthodox Marxists mad at me...

Contrary to Marx's whole thing about socialism being a scientific, materialist analysis rather than an ideology mom, I think the labor theory of value only makes sense as a normative claim, rather than an empirical one. Labor has an inarguable moral claim to the wealth it creates, certainly one that is superior to the claims of capital, although one could quibble in a Georgist sort of way about the role that the community at large (as opposed to the direct producers) play in creating value.

But as a matter of empirical fact, labor is merely one source of value, arguably the largest source of value, but it is not the only source of value and it takes very little legal pad brainstorming to come up with a bunch of sources of value that have nothing to do with labor. Many of the best minds of Marxist economists of many generations were driven mad by futile attempts to square this circle, to no avail.

This is why I am so ardently a believer in revisionism in the spirit of Eduard Bernstein. If socialism is to be "scientific," a big part of that has to come from treating the sacred texts as something that has to be constantly questioned and put through rigorous experimental tests, rather than holy writ. Marx and Engels were not saints nor prophets - they were two 19th century dudes trying their best with the ideas they had to hand, and they made tons of mistakes and got stuff wrong all the time, and socialism will only prosper from admitting that.

Labour theo(r)y of va(lue)

Y’all remember that one episode of Game Theory where he tries to calculate how much an emerald is worth in Minecraft and he kind of inadvertently reinvents Labor Theory of Value

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This shit's happening really fast, and it's happening in a way that seems a lot more meaningful and infrastructural than something like blockchain or crypto. And why? Because I think it ultimately it gets down to the fundamental conflict of capitalism which is the struggle between capital and labor, but specifically the struggle between the fact that labor is what produces surplus value, and capital is a vampire with an unquenchable thirst for the surplus value. 

Labor doesn’t need capital, but it has to deal with capital because capital owns everything. But capital needs labor because it needs the value that labor produces, which has motivated a lot of ‘innovation’ for hundreds of years now either around managing labor (how do we control labor), extracting value from labor (how do we get more for less out of workers), or trying to do the Sisyphean task of replacing living labor with dead labor (i.e.: machinery). I think that these AI systems are in a very long line of trying to create the perpetual value machine that capital always dreams of, which is something that can produce value without being alive - without being workers, without being people.

For them, AI seems like not only the latest experiment in this quixotic task of creating a perpetual value machine, but for I think a lot of them it seems like we’ve finally cracked the nut. They see AI as finally fitting that piece in the puzzle of eliminating labor as the only true source of value in the economy.

And they’re wrong -- of course they’re wrong -- but that’s not going to stop them from trying their damnedest to force that piece into the puzzle.

-- Jathan Sadowski, This Machine Kills podcast (18 Apr 2023)

The expression ya get when ya finally realize th' implications of th' labor theory of value!

Sometimes when work gets hard, I close my laptop, take a deep breath, and repeat the mantra *they're not paying me for efficiency; they're paying me for compliance*.

And honestly it makes me feel better.

Karl Marx once said,

"A sugar-loaf being a body, is heavy, and therefore has weight: but we can neither see nor touch this weight. We can then take various pieces of iron, whose weight has been determined beforehand. The iron, as iron, is no more the form of manifestation of weight, than is the sugar-loaf. Nevertheless, in order to express the sugar-loaf as so much weight, we put it into a weight-relation with the iron. In this relation, the iron officiates as a body representing nothing but weight. A certain quantity of iron therefore serves as the measure of the sugar, and represents, in relation to the sugar-loaf, weight embodied, the form of manifestation of weight. This part is played by iron only within this relation, into which the sugar or any other body, whose weight has to be determined, enters with the iron. Were they not both heavy, they could not enter into this relation, and the one could therefore not serve as the expression of the weight of the other. When we throw both into the scales, we see in reality, that as weight they are the same, and that, therefore, when taken in proper proportions, they have the same weight."

To which Limmy replied,

"Bu' iron's hééviah than sugar..."

The labor theory of value is a joke. It is the flat-earth theory of valuation, entirely made void by actual market forces, and economic principles.

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"In the course of a century or two, it is possible that new mines may be discovered more fertile than any that have ever yet been known; and it is just equally possible that the most fertile mine then known may be more barren than any that was wrought before the discovery of the mines of America. Whether the one or the other of those two events may happen to take place, is of very little importance to the real wealth and prosperity of the world, to the real value of the annual produce of the land and labor of mankind. Its nominal value, the quantity of gold and silver by which this annual produce could be expressed or represented, would, no doubt, be very different; but its real value, the real quantity of labor which it could purchase or command, would be precisely the same. A shilling might in the one case represent no more labor than a penny does at present; and a penny in the other might represent as much as a shilling does now. But in the one case he who had a shilling in his pocket would be no richer than he who has a penny at present; and in the other he who had a penny would be just as rich as he who has a shilling now." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1

I just had a riveting discussion with a self proclaimed anarcho-capitalist at work, whose opinions included:

Tipping is bad because 'contracts with your employer are voluntary and they can leave if they're not paid enough.' He will still tip if he thinks his wife is watching

If you're stuck inside a torture chamber with an apple you can bite every ten seconds that sends you to paradise for a year, it is illogical to bite the apple and humanity is broken for thinking so

The ending to the good place was bad because the characters weren't being logical and there was so much shit you can do with the afterlife.

The marxist labor theory of value 'isn't true' because paintings have arbitrary value

Heidegger was an idiot

Kant was an idiot

Nietzche was an idiot

He is an anarcho-capitalist

If I don't have 100% certainty for something than I can't truly say that I know something is true, and isn't it illogical that people do that?

I have to see this man every Monday from now until I quit. We work one on one.

oksies hi starting a new thread of get to know you

haii I'm moth and also thea you may call me any nickname as well <3

I love musicals so so much (niche and popular!! basic-shaming is lame)

I am superhero obsessed (augh pied piper)

doctor who is my autism (yay river sonf!!!!)

good omens heoughhhhhhhh

super excited to meet you <3333333

Hi moth!! You can call me tetra. Don't worry that's not my real name or anything tho. I took it from the concept of tetrachords in music.

If we're generous about what we call superheroes, then maybe most of the things I like are superhero based. I mean obviously there's marvel and dc, but then there's stuff like dpxdc, sonic the hedgehog (idk if I've ever heard him called a superhero but he kinda is), if we count magical girls then like. Sailor moon and madoka magica

I haven't seen any episodes of good omens, but I read a really good fanfic of Crowley going to therapy a while back, and a couple funny ones with like yelp reviews of Aziraphale's bookstore. Plus I love the good omens analysis posts on here. I feel like maybe I half know some of what's happened in the show but also probably haven't scratched the surface. I'm kinda bad at watching TV shows, so there's a lot of stuff that I know from fandom but haven't seen. For another example of that, I've only watched one or two episodes of Sonic Prime. I reblog posts for it and it sounds good but idk. Just bad at it.

I'm a much more casual fan of musicals, I think for the same thing as above where I just struggle to sit and watch something on purpose. But I listen to the music from them sometimes, I've read transcripts online of a couple, and i swoon whenever I see a post analyzing the meaning of a musical song, especially when they go beyond lyrics and start going into the music theory in the tune. I don't have the skills or knowledge to do that myself but I love it so much

(when the singer changes their technique to enhance the meaning,, when this or that chord is a step outside the key to symbolize change or isolation or anything,,, using instruments as symbols for this or that character,,, tbh it doesn't have to be a musical even shout out to that youtube video by Scruffy on how fnaf's audio and sound effects make it scarier)

Lately I've been bouncing back and forth between Sonic and DPxDC. With hints of Slay The Princess in there bc I saw part of a playthrough of that awhile ago and loved the concept. I reblog madoka magica stuff whenever I see it (except magia record bc I know next to nothing about it) because that stuff makes me lose my mind. The love the pain the hope the despair!! Homura is probably like my ultimate blorbo but I love all the five girls they're so cool. I actually read the manga instead of watching the show though so I'm not as familiar with all the music. Plus I think the show had some extra scenes. Although it's a little confusing bc I think some of the extra scenes I see are magia record so idk.

Also I'm a fan of arts and crafts and will reblog that kind of thing once in a while, along with cute cat stuff.

Super excited to meet you too!

Genuinely laughable abd absurd when some bozo is like "look at all the money i saved (smug) from the guy who said this 1 hr job would cost 1000 dolares" while completely ignoring the years of experience, time, and etc. that they "saved" themselves.

cant stop thinking about this like whats wrong with his brain. i need him so bad its clinical

Labour Value

The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it and who wants to dispose of it, or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money, or with goods, is purchased by labour, as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money, or those goods, indeed, save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labour, which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command. - Karl Marx... right? Except no, this is Adam Smith at the start of Chapter 5 of his magnum opus “The Wealth of Nations,” a book many many capitalists and their sycophants swear by, and which most have never read even a cliff notes version of.

Within the sphere of circulation, valorization would only be possible if commodity C is purchased above or below its value. In this case, the sum of value advanced can be increased, but one capitalist’s gain is only possible if another capitalist takes a loss of the same amount. At the level of society as a whole, the sum of value has not changed; it has simply been redistributed, just as if a simple act of theft had occurred. Capitalist profit would therefore be explained as a violation of the laws of commodity production. If we assume the normal conditions of commodity production and circulation, then the “exchange of equivalents” applies: the commodities that are exchanged for one another have the same magnitude of value, the price paid is an adequate expression of the magnitude of the value of the commodity and does not express a coincidentally greater or lesser magnitude; the commodities are exchanged “at their true values”. If surplus value is a normal phenomenon of capitalist commodity production and not just an exception, then its existence must be explained under the presupposition of an “exchange of equivalents”, and this is exactly the question that Marx poses. Marx’s deliberations can be summarized as follows: if equivalent exchange is assumed, then surplus value cannot be constituted in circulation, not in the first act of circulation, M-C, nor in the second act, C-M’. A change must take place between both acts. But outside of the sphere of circulation, the use value of the commodity purchased is merely consumed. Thus the owner of money must find a commodity on the market whose use value possesses the quality of being a source of value, so that the use of this commodity creates value, and more value than the commodity itself costs.

Michael Heinrich, “An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital”, trans. Alexander Locascio, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012, pp. 90-91.