On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 1:46 PM, Lakshmi Rhone <lakshmirhone at gmail.com>wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 10:26 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Lakshmi:
> > My feeling is that your understanding of the labor theory of value is not
> > engaged with Marx's.
> > Marx's labor theory of value is not subjective, nor an aggregation of
> > subjective estimations.
> >
>
> I don't understand that. If people are not valuing goods comparatively in
> terms of their labor costs,
> then how can the labor theory of value have any truth? The labor value of
> the good does not reside in it apart
> from the meaning that we give to it through our valuations, resulting in
> the
> wisdom of the crowd as to the relative objective
> labor costs of goods. So there is a dialectic between subjective and
> objective factors.
>
>
>
> > Your approach appears to be based on an analysis that stops with exchange
> > value, where the exchange value of any commodity is determined by the
> > inter-subjective nature of barter or barter-like exchange.
>
>
> Well in exchange we look to production. If you can't deceive me and I have
> good information, I know that it took you about two days to get that deer
> (not four or five) and me only one day to get the beaver, so we understand
> that I must give you two beavers for a deer. But the whole exchange is
> mediated through subjective valuations even if it based on objective costs.
>
>
> > Marx uses this
> > approach to describe exchange under pre-capitalist systems but, quite
> > properly, sees the alienation of producers from the means of production,
> > from control of the relations of production, from other laborers, from
> > their
> > prior communities and extended families and from the product radically
> > transforms the nature of production and exchange such that an
> abstraction,
> > Value - not use-value and not exchange-value - determines the value (if
> not
> > the exact price) of any particular good.
>
>
> Value determines value--did you mean to say that?
>
> LR
>
>
> > This took Marx most all of Volume
> > I of Capital to lay out and was subsequently extended in Volume II and
> the
> > incomplete Volume III and the never initiated other two or three intended
> > volumes.
> > If you are interested in this stuff, that's where I'd start... doing so
> > will
> > change your understanding of the labor theory of value (but still not
> > provide you completeness, as Marx didn't intend it to given the ongoing
> > acceleration of the expanded reproduction of capital and the attendant
> > changes in ecological, personal, communal, political and economic
> > conditions.
> > Alan
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Lakshmi Rhone <lakshmirhone at gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > Alan
> > > You're right that there is all this work on behavioral economics. I
> don't
> > > know what to make of it. I was only making the simple point that I
> > > understand the labor theory of value
> > > as a theory of how people value goods or give meaning to goods in the
> > > marketplace. So I think it's a subjective theory--or at least a theory
> of
> > > aggregated subjective estimations of objective costs-- and I think
> people
> > > can't but value judgments without relative judgments or comparisons.
> That
> > > is, I figure out how much a hand woven sweater is worth by guessing how
> > > much
> > > more time went into it as compared to a machine produced one. If I
> didn't
> > > ask that question, I don't know how I would make my own value
> judgments.
> > > That people are making such valuations seems beyond obvious but that
> > seems
> > > to be hugely controversial among economists. So I am willing to say
> that
> > > there is some truth to the labor theory of value for a lot of goods,
> but
> > > it's obviously not a complete theory. And even if it's approximately
> > > correct, I don't see what it has to do with making society socially
> just.
> > > Do
> > > we need economics? I think most people have already figured out that we
> > > don't need economists!
> > > LR
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > *********************************************************
> > Alan P. Rudy
> > Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
> > Central Michigan University
> > 124 Anspach Hall
> > Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
> > 517-881-6319
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319