Bryan wrote:
>
>
>
> This doesn't sound right at all to me.
>
> The wages of the workers in the service industry and in the automotive
> manufacturing are very different and the profit rates per auto or
> hamburger are most likely much different.
>
> Therefore, one cannot surmise at all that the difference in cost between
> a hamburger and an auto stems from the amount of labour that went into
> their creation.
A fair number of highly intelligent _and_ politically committed Marxists have debated with each other at length over the relation (if any) between value and price is. Some have argued (and for what it's worth I more or less agree with this particular position) that (a) there is no particular relation but (b) this does not undercut the LTOV. The prices in Vol. 3 of Capital are the prices in an "ideal" capitalism, not an attempt to answer neoclassical questions about price and allocation of resources. There are also good Marxists who simply deny the correctness of value theory. I think they are wrong, but throwing them out as idiots would make hash of a lot of political comradeship.
Carrol