Outside that polemical framework, the ltov seems quite useless as it does not explain anything - from prices to the organization of the economy. It is quite possible to have a production process carried out mostly by machines i.e. capital investment with minimal involvement of "living labor" and the product still being priced at the value that the "market can bear." Furthermore, the involvement - or lack of it - in that production process has no bearing on the form of ownership of the process or its product 9which is determined by instituional arrangements.)
Wojtek
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Lakshmi Rhone <lakshmirhone at gmail.com>wrote:
> Hi
> I don't get this talk of revolution and the relation to the labor theory of
> value. Sure, I get it that it is a theory of how I value goods, i.e. I on
> my
> own or I, following the herd, tend to give goods relative value in terms of
> how much labor I guess went into producing them. I agree that's something I
> do consider. For example, I haggled with my plumber the other day because I
> thought he was charging me for too many hours. But I also know that because
> Chinese labor is so cheap I don't have to pay for how much labor actually
> went into producing those goods, and I don't offer to pay a price that
> would
> reflect full labor value! But even on the assumption that there is some
> truth to a labor theory of valuation, I don't see what this has to do with
> transforming the economy, peacefully or not.
> First time poster, and I don't understand the leftist economic point of
> view, though I am very concerned about social justice.
> LR
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