"The average labor time required to produce per product is a (or the) measure of value created in the product. Hand-made clothes contain more labor time and should have higher quality measured in terms of value created. The caveat, however, is "provided the laborer in question is an above-average skilled and the textile material employed is above-average in quality.""
I'm not talking abstract formulas; I'm talking about an actual real difference in quality that you can feel, smell, taste. Products made on an assembly line assume the shape, taste, feel they get because they are easier to make on the assembly line. It's a sort of medium is the message....or means of production is the content.
"If, by efficiency, you mean savings per product in energy (both physical and natural energy resources) and money (or capital) invested in the production process, compared with large scale production, then it remains an open question."
Not really. There are high costs to industrialized, specialized production...a lot of transportation costs for example, a lot of turnonver costs. And again, if something hand made lasts five times longer than something machine made do you compare the costs of one instance of each? Or do you compare the cost of one instance (hand made) versus five instances (mass produced)?
"Capitalist mode of production, generally speaking, is superior to guild mode."
Superior in what way? And let's not confuse "capitalist" with "industrial" -- they're not necessarily the same. Guilds, of course, used assembly line methods -- I know the painters did for sure. I mean Raphael, etc.
Joanna