tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post6889507704146516198..comments2024-03-28T17:08:15.784-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: The Myth of the Labour Theory of ValueLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-1197240956596344512014-01-14T20:22:58.915-08:002014-01-14T20:22:58.915-08:00Money is only worth the labor it can buy. That is,...Money is only worth the labor it can buy. That is, it can only buy from other people action (or inaction).Talberthttp://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-30807249523457552662011-08-20T08:29:45.820-07:002011-08-20T08:29:45.820-07:00Also for a debunking of Steve Keen's Marxism s...Also for a debunking of Steve Keen's Marxism see here - http://wrongarithmetic.wordpress.com/2010/08/22/keen-i/<br /><br />BPAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-68944544300291479692011-08-20T08:24:35.747-07:002011-08-20T08:24:35.747-07:00I enjoyed reading many of your posts, but on this ...I enjoyed reading many of your posts, but on this topic you have not engaged with the subject.<br /><br />In the first example, the climate of Bordeaux distinguishes Bordeaux wine as superior to others. Nature in other words is equally constitutive of value, therefore you are comparing apples and pears.<br /><br />In the second example 'socially necessary labour time' governs the value of diamonds so that if - by chance - I stumble across a diamond, I can sell it in the market for the same value as those that require mining, mines, transportation etc to produce.<br /><br />This paper by Alan Freeman lays out a Marxist approach to LTV vis a vis subjective value - http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftime.dufe.edu.cn%2Fwencong%2Ffreeman%2F5.rtf&ei=_8ZPTuv7Kcy6hAfvsMTIBg&usg=AFQjCNFchNOLEZhiueZtkXc8xh-Rvhf3pw<br /><br />BPAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-17472544432739361242011-07-21T16:17:24.235-07:002011-07-21T16:17:24.235-07:00I`m the previous anonymous, my name is Ezequiel.
S...I`m the previous anonymous, my name is Ezequiel.<br />Shaun, your simple example is wrong, for two basic reasons at least:<br />It assumes that the worker and the capitalist "share" a resource. Actually, i don´t believe it would be a controversial thing to say that the means of production are exclusively in the hands of the capitalist class, and that the workers have only their workforce to offer.<br />Given this basic inequality, it would be naive to be surprised before the presence of exploitation.<br />Besides, the capitalists don`t necessarily function as a provider of "good ideas", the owner of capital may simply lie down on his riches and do nothing, because his main characteristic is to be the owner. Other functions are optional, and can be delegated.<br />On the other hand, your example falls into the perspective of methodological individualism (sorry if this is not the exact terminology, my English is limited), which imagines the functioning of an atom, and then extends such functioning to the whole.<br />Instead, it would be more prudent to study the whole, in order to bear in mind such holistic features when we study more specific situations.<br />For example, we must be aware of the fact that capitalism is an economy of isolated producers of commodities. Such obvious statement has consequences that many, if not all, bourgeois economists have ignored, because they have begun their analysis from simple examples such as the one you have presented here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-67746143709939866512011-07-21T01:19:21.576-07:002011-07-21T01:19:21.576-07:00Its simple.
Take two people who share a resource...Its simple. <br /><br />Take two people who share a resource. One has an idea of how to use the resource to create a benefit. <br /><br />But the ideas person gets more of the profit than the other, resulting in Marx's defined exploitation. <br /><br />But what should the proportion be ? If it is to low than the non-ideas person has 'exploited' the ideas person. Somewhere in between lies the 'perfect labour price'. <br /><br />But to define such price implies the knowing the future outcome of such a price. Which is impossible. Therefore whenever the labour price is something other than the 'perfect labour price' then one party is 'exploited' by the other.Shaunnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-14782391743398940162011-07-06T19:12:04.624-07:002011-07-06T19:12:04.624-07:00I must agree with Llindavies, if you read the firs...I must agree with Llindavies, if you read the first three chapters of Capital you would understand that your idea of labor theory isn´t Marx´s idea at all. Marx is very conscious of the possibility of misunderstandings such as the ones presented here, so he explains the concept of social-abstract-average labor.<br />And if you read the next three chapters you would find a refutation of the "vulgar" economic theories, along with the simple but powerful idea that goods have no use value whatsoever for their owners-sellers, except for the fact that they have an exchange value. Goods have specific use values only for the buyers, in a capitalist economy of isolated goods producers. This is linked to the fact that exchange is not generalized barter.<br />Another point i recommend you to study is the assumption that the value of an economy can be created in the world of circulation, instead of being created in the world of production, as if the gains-profit of one individual weren´t balanced by the loss of another, in trade.<br /><br />I got here interested in anti-austrian posts, so in spite of this disagreement, i´ll be reading those.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-4872323151424163162011-04-24T15:48:09.155-07:002011-04-24T15:48:09.155-07:00Isn't the idea of the labor theory of value th...Isn't the idea of the labor theory of value that value is the subjective benefit to someone else of not having to do the work themselves? Marx never puts it that way, because he sees work as developing human potential, but I think that's what Smith at least was getting at. Joan Robinson describes it as the "disutility of labor" -- the assessment of whether or not you want to spend another hour plowing the field.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-25498454267365727062009-08-04T20:40:14.687-07:002009-08-04T20:40:14.687-07:00Reply to Llindavies
Thanks for your comments.
Ye...<b>Reply to Llindavies</b><br /><br />Thanks for your comments.<br /><br />Yes, there certainly are problems with the neo-classical subjective theory of value.<br /><br />I am happy to read Mandel’s Introduction To Marxist Economic Theory, and rethink my theories.<br /><br />However, there <i>are</i> Marxists who have rejected the labour theory of value.<br /><br />See A. Bose, 1980. Marx on Exploitation and Inequality: An Essay in Marxian Analytical Economics, Oxford University Press, Delhi.<br /><br />My starting point is Steve Keen, 2001. Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences, Zed Books, New York. pp. 288–289, who in my view shows how the Marxist labour theory of value does not work.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-70268954613542126582009-08-03T03:11:21.220-07:002009-08-03T03:11:21.220-07:00I came to your blog following the link you gave in...I came to your blog following the link you gave in your comment on <a href="http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/historical-proofs-and-origins-of-value.html" rel="nofollow">Boffy’s Blog </a>. Given your confident assertions about having “disproved” the Labour Theory of Value, I thought it worth a look, despite having heard plenty such assertions in the past. In fact, I found your attempt worse than most. <br /><br />In fact, your “proof” amounts to little more than a series of schoolboy howlers, which demonstrate that you have not even read let alone understood the Labour Theory of Value, which one would have thought was a pre-requisite for anyone wanting to “disprove” it. The examples you give were raised over 100 years ago, and the answers to those objections provided many times since. You confuse Value with price, you fail to recognise that the theory is about the production of commodities, you fail to understand that it speaks about general abstract labour as determining exchange value not specific labour and so on. I’d suggest reading Marx first before you criticise him. Else read <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1967/intromet/index.htm" rel="nofollow"> Mandel’s Introduction To Marxist Economic Theory </a>, or even read Boffy’s own series on economics and Value Theory.<br /><br />You advocate the theory of Neo-Classical Subjective Value, yet proclaim yourself a post-Keynesian. In fact, the Neo-Classical theory met its nemesis in the form of the Great Depression, which according to the subjectivist theory of value should never have occurred because all those individuals should have arrived at a set of subjective values which would have cleared markets! That didn’t happen, just as Marxists had correctly predicted it wouldn’t, hence the Keynesian Revolution, which was just one more nail in the subjectivist theory. Yet, Keynesianism showed that it could only work under specific conditions too. In the 1980’s, when the second slump occurred, a period in which you would have thought Keynesianism should have been rampant, its use led first to high levels of inflation –again as Marxist theory predicted – and consequently to its abandonment, not least by Social Democracy!!!!<br /><br />You say in your comment to Boffy that Marxists should abandon the Labour Theory of Value. Given that from that time onwards what was left of Social Democratic ideology, as something different from traditional Liberalism, completely collapsed into Neo-Liberalism, as worldwide Social Democratic parties’ leaderships aligned themselves with the bosses interests against the workers, I would have thought that its supporters were the last people to be giving advice to Marxists on what ideas to abandon or retain! On the contrary, it has been the acceptance of bourgeois ideology in the realm of that most basic arena of economic theory that has led large sections of them to collapse into bourgeois ideology, and the defence of Capitalism in general, however, noble, and well-meaning their intentions.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04965089290530474877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-11267886019733282902009-07-29T09:36:30.715-07:002009-07-29T09:36:30.715-07:00A suggestion:
Because the topic was currency/mone...<b>A suggestion:</b><br /><br />Because the topic was currency/money I didn't read it dwelling on the philosophical intricacies of each word. for example, if "<i><b>human activity</b></i>" were swapped for "<i><b>labour</b></i>" and "<i><b>can be sold/exchanged</b></i>" were swapped for "<i><b>has value</b></i> then I wouldn't have read it any differently . . .<br /><br />"The first point to make is that all economic activity is rooted in <i><b>human activity</b></i>. A commodity such as gold only <i><b>can be sold/exchanged</b></i> once <i><b>human activity</b></i> has dug it from the ground, and <i><b>human activity</b></i> has moved it to the surface. Once it arrives at the surface it will be some form of <i><b>human activity</b></i> that is utilised to move it to where it is next utilised."<br /><br />I can appreciate your comments on the meaning of "value" but in the context of this topic (money/currency) then I simply only considered the "exchange value" meaning. I just don't see how anything can be exchanged for other stuff without any human activity - even if it's only opening the gate and taking their money for the berries :o)John Brayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09329332900615239274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-64500514609039666662009-07-29T06:02:00.698-07:002009-07-29T06:02:00.698-07:00Lord Keynes, I may have misunderstood your argumen...Lord Keynes, I may have misunderstood your argument but surely your statement that <b>"The necessary condition is that the mushroom has subjective value for consumers who are willing to pay money for it or exchange other commodities for it."</b> means that the consumer must have utilised their own labour in order to obtain the money or commodities that are to be exchanged?<br /><br />I also feel that your arguments appear to be tied to the current prevalent economic models and do not consider the fact that the value of labour (with a weighting factor based upon rarity of said labour) could work in a future societal model where vanity and potential investment purchases are less prominent. Personally I couldn't care less how old a book is or whether it is a first edition, I want to read the words, not hide it away in the hope that some poor sucker will decide that his X units of labour are worth swapping for a few bits of paper where I only swapped Y units. If this was the prevalent culture of the society as a whole then a (weighted) value of labour money economic model could work. As the current recession bites we are beginning to see that people are not as willing to pay a premium for a brand (eg Primark sales figures Vs. Marks & Spencer) because that premium does not reflect the labour involved in the costs of bringing the product to market (ie including marketing costs etc).ginger tosserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14954116470256007245noreply@blogger.com