Re: Marx's Value Theory--a potential critique

[boddhisatva <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

                Mr. Lin (or is it Mr. Wei?)



        When I, as an unalienated worker, make a good for the market, I have
no way of knowing whether others will find it useful or no.  Regardless of
how many hours I put in, the making and the buying are independent events,
and cannot effect one another.


        The labor theory of value is unnecessary to prove exploitation.
The capitalist simply pays the desperate worker *now* much less than the
capitalist surmises his work will sell for.  The labor "market" under
capitalism is largely a social function, meant to be as independent as
possible from the actual process by which the capitalist seller makes his
production decisions.



        It's not true that "Without Labor there *is* no Product. (emphasis
mine)"  Without labor there *would be* no product.  If everyone at
Chrysler quit, the cars on the lots would not instantly disappear. This is
important because capitalists make their money in that time period between
worker pay and goods sale.  The labor theory of value has become a very
confusing way to understand this relationship because the metaphor of
embodied labor has been taken as reality in some cases.



        Any given hour of labor may or may not create real use/exchange
value.  Wages are an artificial "price", because nothing of value has been
exchanged.  Wages are an arbitrarily determined distribution of money made
by the owners of goods.  The only reason to think of them as labor value
is to analyze whether capitalists are creating bottlenecks and imbalances
as they receive and distribute workers' money (thereby distorting buying
decisions by distorting the supply of money available to consumers).



         One needs an "organic" or impartial standard of some kind (for
goods and work) against which to compare the money flow, and a benchmark
on which to base predictions.  Labor valuation of an economy is like
"fundamental" valuation of a stock.  It serves to compare the actual value
of a stock to some future predicted value, or to judge some "technically"
assessed value.  By that token "technical" stock valuation is similar
to analysis of an economy by money flow.  However, the only true valuation
of anything comes when somebody pays for it.


        I believe Marx's language and thinking was affected by the fact
that, in his day, a large percentage of the population lived (literally)
hand to mouth, as peasants.  They payed with labor where we pay with
money.  A capitalist economy only produces goods for market.  A socialist
economy defeats alienation by capitalist ownership, not alienation between
work and goods, by markets.  Workers' product will continue to be valued in
the market.







        peace





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