> I haven't heard it advanced here yet that value theory arose as a
> secular substitute for the theological doctrine of predestination. I'm
> assuming the naive question is "why are some people rich and some people
> poor?" So I wonder, if we "move on" from value theory does that mean we
> get back to predestination (no thanks) or is there something else that
> more adequately addresses the sociological and psychological issues that
> give rise to those kinds of questions? I'm sure that a lot of people
> would be more than happy to move on if they had any idea of what that
> something else was to move on to.
>
> The Sandwichman
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I think the something else is precisely what mainstream economists, ceo's etc. *don't* want to talk about when discussing capitalism: coercion, power, domination and that entire constellation of concepts that are taboo. Surely we can talk cogently about these issues as they relate to our predicament without the rhetorical baggage of the ltv and it's relation to the microdynamics of price formation and various accounting identities at the firm and macroeconomic levels of analysis? If it's the case that the origin of profit in production is the unpaid labor of workers, that truth would be invariant under numerous algebraic and accounting models. Even v. Bortkeiwicz agreed with the claim [see Kurz and Salvadori, 1995], he just thought the math that attempted to explicate how it was so was wrong.