Reminder that while the labour theory of value can be practical to understand certain aspects of society, it is still culturally biased and not “objectively” true.
What creates value can only be answered in a cultural framework.
I was talking about the theory, not value. Sorry if that didn’t come across.
Now that I think about it: isn’t value culturally determined in many things? Why are apple products more expensive than other computers with the same specs? Why is a ticket to a Billie Eilish concert more valuable than one to my neighbor’s indie rock band?
Sorry, I interpreted it as aggressive. Figuring out tone in text form is hard and all that. Sorry that I wrongly accused you.
Things I didn’t get:
A reminder that the labour theory of value is not a marxist concept.
Marx hasn’t been explicity brought up yet (at least not in my comment). Only implicitly in the original post. Again: thought you were attacking me and was like “umm… So what?”
When people wave their hands around and say “labor theory of value isn’t objectively true!!”, they’re shadowboxing a ghost.
I thought you meant me, since that was what I was basically saying. 😅
Value != price
Now, that one wasn’t even implicitly mentioned.
I hope you don’t hold my misunderstanding against me.
Well now i’m confused. If ‘labor theory of value isn’t objectively true’ isn’t making an argument about the price of a commodity not being equal to the labor it embodies, I am not sure what you’re trying to say by it.
A theory o value doesn’t necessarily say anything about price. As you said: “value != price”.
There’s not even academical consensus what value actually is, AFAIK. Do preasts add value to anything with their labour? If not: Do social counsellors? What if a priest acts as a counsellor? Ask different economists with their theories of value and you’ll get several answers.
Economic theories aren’t as rigid as theories from the natural sciences or mathematics. They are dependent on the culture in which they are perceived. A non-capitalist society would have different theories or value (or none at all) than we do.
As far as I understand: Price tries to measure value. Therefore: A price needs a value, but value doesn’t need price. They correlate but are not the same.
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.
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.
Know your enemy (lemmy.ml)
Surface Go 2 with 4GB Ram and 4425Y worth it?
Hi! There’s no Surface on Linux Lemmy community (yet), but I didn’t feel like asking on reddit, so I thought that this community is my best bet....