LOV or LTV

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Quite rightly, these fundamental questions come round and go round.

I have not been able to keep up with all the recent posts. But I notice
that some of the debate is using the abbreviation LTV.

I suggest that this slants the debate and makes it more likely that people
will talk past each other.

Marx and Engels never used the term Labour Theory of Value, nor did they
invent it.

It was conceptualised by the classical political economists.

Marx and Engels to be fair also did not formulate a neat definition of the
Law of Value, but LOV is the term they did use.

I suggest that approaching these debates with the mind set of LTV, sustains
an assumption which is essentially about a simple equation:

the value of something is its labour content (with various subtleties added
about terminology and more or lessness)

LOV however is essentially a whole systems dynamical  approach to the
circulation of the collective social product that is produced in the form
of commodities.

Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a
simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic system.

IMHO

Chris Burford

London