My bolding. Okay, so how DOES it attempt to explain prices?! I’m not getting it…and it’s not “values,” and it’s not a subjective preference but a logical deduction.
But, personally, I’d be willing to go with the last bit. It’s a theory that goes far beyond the epistemological capacity of (what today almost inevitable is neoclassical or its successors) economics, in fact is willing to say to economics: yikes, you’re so bloody damned wrong about all of this, and so limited in what you are willing to think about, that it’s catastrophic enough that people are willing to grant you status as a science. Or so Marx might say, if he’d had the misfortune to witness the ascendancy of neoclassical economics (he did have choice things to say to some of the early ones).
Why the hell would I give you a burger for five dollars if I literally know you valued it more than five dollars?! I’m not satisfied with that trade! I want what money you’re willing to give for the burger! Give me my money!
Socially necessary is the circular definition in the debate. And the real world markets demonstrate supply and demand and the concept that goods and services don’t have intrinsic currency or labor value. So we aren’t arguing from faith or inarguable and unfounded beliefs. Every time you are asked for any form of evidence of the utility of the the Labor Theory of Value you either attack, ridicule, or ignore. What you don’t do is provide one cite that the Labor Theory of Value has ever been utilized or has ever done anything in the realm of economics.
Don’t you think if I advocated the aether or some alternative theory to entropy or something that at the very least I’d have some math or experiments that could be tested or verified? Can you even model anything with this labor theory of value that approximated the real world and provide any useful result?
You don’t even get that claiming labor is the source of value yet only labor that is socially necessary, aka valuable, has value is tautological. I do appreciate the time of anyone who engages with me. But don’t assert I’m arguing from a position of faith or that I am not open minded. If evidence is conclusive or even very strong I adapt.
You’re conflating “economic utility” and “economic value”.
At this particular time, your hunger means a burger has a greater utility to you than $5. Dave is just interested in the cash.
The market for the burger, however, is set by more than just you and Dave. Assuming a perfectly competitive market, that is the price that Dave determined will provide the maximum profitability. It’s economic value is independent of your personal utility.
This part is just bluster because you can’t explain why a meaningless complication to a theory is really the key part of it.
This part is a little better - it’s only wrong.
There is no useful distinction to be made between the use value of my home, and its exchange value. You determine the exchange value, and you know the use value automatically.
Someone comes up to me and offers to buy my house for $400,000. I say No. He offers $400,001. I still say No. He keeps going - $400,002, $400,003, $400,004. I keep saying No.
Then he offers $750,000. I say, “Sold”. We have now established the value of my home - it is $750K. And whether it took 50 men three months to build it, or 100 men six months, is a completely irrelevant piece of trivia. Knowing how much labor went into it establishes nothing, and changes nothing, and explains nothing.
Sure, you get to decide that! You get to decide everything around here! What you don’t understand is bluster, what you disagree with is wrong, you determine what is an argument and what is just propaganda. It must be great, being you.
Hey, could it be that you disagree with Marx’s argument, but aren’t capable of intellectually framing a reasoning for the tautologies you claim are correct interpretations of the world? Because the above suggests “yes”.
So that value, is that it’s use value to you, or to the buyer?
Rothbard:
“Value scales of each individual are purely ordinal, and there is no way whatever of measuring the distance between the rankings; indeed, any concept of such distance is a fallacious one.”
Can you explain to me how this is not a) an appeal to faith and b) a circular argument that says: we exchange our respective goods because we each value the other more, and we know we each value the other more because we exchange them? And c), isn’t this more likely about rankings of utility of various individual choices, rather than exchange values?
And none of this answers my question: why should I sell you a burger that is worth more than $5 to you for $5?
Yeah, you’re not arguing anything, you just claim that your truths must be everybody truths. So: Read the threat. It’s all in threre. You got concrete questions that have not been answered, let me know.
Well we also have time. As in its not worth my time to haggle for a nickel. But this tangent obfuscates the point that things have 0 intrinsic value expressed in terms of arbitrary or dissimilar units. People searching for a perfect, analytical answer are missing the point entirely. There is no analytical answer for pricing or value.
That’s ironic. And claiming others are employing tautological reasoning is also ironic. Instead of obfuscation perhaps you can spend a few minutes employing some Google-fu to cite some evidence on the effectiveness of Labor Theory of Value.
So with apologies, I gotta bow out of this discussion for two weeks or so, what with a vacation coming up. Sorry about that, but if there’s still interest in this then, I’ll come back to it.