labor

[James Miller <jamiller@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

THE LABOR THEORY OF VALUE

   In a recent post by John Ernst, I ran across the
following comment: "why then do we would-be followers
of Marx react all to often with such sound and fury
as you attribute to the power of value creation to
machinery?"
   The phrase "would-be followers of Marx" may well
apply to John and some of his colleagues, but we
should keep in mind that, in addition to those who
would only like to be followers of Marx, there are
others who actually are followers of Marx.
   A few sentences after that, John indicates that
the prospect of being a "follower of Marx" may not
be so desirable after all. He states: "yet often not
knowing the pitfalls, we cling to the notion that
labor and only labor creates value. At this level,
it seems to me that the notion that labor is the sole
creator of value is more than a little like a religious
belief."
   "More than a little like a religious belief" is a
phrase which establishes a strong similarity between
the labor theory of value and religion. Here, of
course, John is only characterizing his own attitude,
which seems to me to be "more than a little" negative
towards the theoretical foundations of Marxism.
It should be kept in mind that other Marxists are
willing to defend the thesis that the labor theory
of value is scientific, not religious.
   The striking thing about John's admission here is
how casually he then passes on the the next topic.
If Marxism is founded on something akin to religious
belief, one would think that a person who takes
Marxism seriously would want to examine the problem
a bit more closely. Is Marxism scientific or is it
religious? I wonder whether John really wants to try
to get to the bottom of this.

   Regarding Steve Keen's answer to my previous post:
Steve says, "I'm not taking umbrage at your portrayal
of my views. Yet. But I will take umbrage if you do
not now take a look at 2 things:" He then points to
his thesis and some academic assessments of it. He
says later: "I will consider your opinions of my work
*after* you've also taken a look at them. There's no
point in doing so beforehand."
   I think this is a good suggestion. I downloaded
Steve's thesis from the internet, and am now in the
process of studying it. I think it warrants a careful
criticism. I will try to provide such criticism in
subsequent posts. Those interested in this controversy
might wish to follow my comments. I would urge anyone
who wants to keep on top of the discussion to also
download Steve's thesis. Ftp or gopher to:
csf.colorado.edu
Then choose econ, then authors, then Keen. The name of
the paper is "The Demise of the Labor Theory of
Value." The file length is around 370,000 bytes.

Jim Miller
Seattle


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