I’m glad that you get my point. Yet, I don’t want to be too gatekeep-y with the status of a “meme” (I really like the original concept, since it is a very useful… meme).
I really want to focus on the message to be brought across. And in most AI generated images I perceive a very lazy thought process behind the idea.
My tone is reflective of my mistrust of your intention
How have I earned that mistrust? Do you think it’s fair to continue that mistrust after my efforts to elaborate my point?
I am sorry if that is uncomfortable.
Pardon my tone, but: That’s a nonpology. I can do without those.
On the contrary, I think applying theoretical models to current real-world economics is the only way to make sense of where theory and reality deviate.
I agree. My original “reminder” was to point out that deviations occur. The mental shortcut that I meant was to only take LTV into account when discussing economics.
I would have found it more interesting if you had been more specific in how you think LTV was being misused.
I don’t know if “misused” is the right term, but one example where LTV falls flat is that it doesn’t model the destruction of value due to environmental pollution.
Are you trying to say 'all economic theories and models are not objectively true"?
Not explicitally, but yeah: models aren’t used for “objective truth”. They’re used to model (i.e. simplify) reality to make observations and guesses for the future.
Why would that be worth saying in response to the OP?
I feel like a lot of leftists think that understanding economics starts and ends with “capitalists exploit the labouring class”, while not actually engaging with the subject matter. I guess most can’t even explain LTV properly before getting mad at capitalists.
As I’ve written before: I agree with most conclusions of marxist analysis that I know and I probably don’t even know half of them. But I think that political analysis should use LTV as a tool to understand the world and not the end of socio-economical disgussion (because that would ignore important parts of today’s economy).
It really just seems like you disagree with the ‘your stolen labor value’ claim in the OP, and are attributing it to the ‘labor theory of value’
I don’t. I wanted to remind people as to make political analysis not too easy by taking the mental shortcut of reducing current capitalism on the problems pointed out by Marx rendition of LTV.
(as opposed to dismissing it because you disagree with some portion of the theory you’ve neglected to mention)
I don’t disagree. I also don’t disagree with the atomic model of Niels Bohr when it comes to calculating electron potential. When it comes to observing e.g. electron spin, that particular model will probably fall flat. That doesn’t mean I “disagree” with the model, though.
My hunch is that you don’t feel confident enough in your understanding to make any kind of firm claim and are just dancing around making vague gestures toward ‘labor’ and ‘value’ definitions as a way of avoiding it.
I’m not too confident in my economic knowledge, true. But I am quite confident in how models should be used in soft sciences.
Addendum: I’d like to kindly ask you to give me a little bit of benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, I’ll just disengage due to that accusatory tone I’m getting from you being a bit exhausting.
It’s an economic theory and therefore more to be understood as a model on how economics work.
The natural sciences have a hard core. The theory of gravity depends on how matter interacts in an objective, physical framework. Economic theories basically describe human interaction which are based on psychology and sociology. Therefore they depend on the societal context they are made in.
If you understand them as models that are tools on how to understand the world, they become more useful in political analysis (I know we are in a meme community here, but everything is politics and so on and so on…).
I do subscribe to many conclusions the labour theory of value and especially Marx came to. But I want y’all to remember that the theory is a mere tool for understanding and not a sacred, holy theory.