Sympo
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DJP wrote:They sell thier labour-power, not their actual labour but their capacity to labour, and the value of labour-power is determined by the value of the goods needed to reproduce it.
Are these two statements correct: 1. The value of labour power is determined by the value of the goods that is needed to reproduce the labour power. 2. The value of those goods are determined by the amount of (socially necessary) labour put into them. If these are correct, then what determines the value of labour? Or does labour have no value?
Btw I was joking earlier. The joke wasn't saying that SPGB members want to execute me. It was that SPGB members find my questions so annoying and repetitive that they would rather get executed by the Soviet state than reply to another one of my threads. Which is an exaggeration of the annoyance one can feel when discovering a new thread concerning value theory created by me.It was just a stupid joke and I understand if people find it inappropiate or gruesome. I meant no harm with it.
DJP wrote:Is it only part 7 that is supposed to help or does one have to the read the entire manuscript? I read 7 and 8 but it didn't help me understand things better.In the manuscript, Marx says "its value is determined by the quantity of labour necessary to produce it." But isn't the value of those things determined by the labour it took to make them aswell?What is it that I'm not seeing?
I think I might be getting close to understanding. Is this correct:Commodities are exchanged for eachother in stable ratios. That means that they must share some common characteristic. The idea that labour time determines this ratio is the only reasonable explanation, seeing as we cannot say that a broom is "more useful" to society than a pen. Usefulness of different objects cannot be measured, but labour time can be measured. Also, the LTV is the only thing that can explain what determines the price of a commodity when supply and demand are equal. The LTV is not meant to explain prices for every object on a market.
DJP wrote:Only if someone bought it.What would determine its price if only one person wanted to buy it (supply and demand in harmony)?
If a piece of land is considered completely useless for commodity production, would it still have a price?
How can it (and paintings and artifacts for that matter) have use-value and a price, while at the same time have no exchange-value?Is the LTV limited to commodities?Land is not a commodity because it is not a product of human labour, and it cannot be reproduced.Can't we claim that non-commodities can have value while at the same time claim that the LTV is correct?
You're probably correct when you say that information about the White Helmets is not mentioned by popular newspapers in order to make them look good. But we should be careful when we accept "information" by RT or Sputnik News or whatever. I have a lot less trust in them than, say, the BBC (I'm not saying that the BBC doesn't say things that is bs).
I've read that term "capitalisation of rent" before and I haven't got a good grasp of its meaning. What does "capitalisation" mean in this context? I don't know how ignorant this question is but what would be the answer to this question: isn't land useful to human beings? Don't we need land in order to produce commodities?
I don't know much about the White Helmets but I wouldn't assume they're jihadists solely based on the fact that the Guardian journalist is anti-Assad.
From what I've heard Bitcoin is just a bubble waiting to burst. I'm not an expert on economics so I've never fully understood crypto-currencies
What if it takes 1 hour for A, 2 for B, 3 for C and 4 for D to produce a certain commodity? What would then be the SNLT?
What would be the direct answer to the question "If it takes 5 hours for company A to make something and it takes 10 hours for company B, C, D etc to make the same thing, is the SNLT 5 hours?" I'm thinking about what the term "socially necessary" means. Company A in this example has shown that the commodity can be made in 5 hours. Does this not mean that company A has, by itself, lowered the socially necessary labour time?
Then what is it?If it takes 5 hours for company A to make something and it takes 10 hours for company B, C, D etc to make the same thing, is the SNLT 5 hours?
"For example: There are six customers in a shop, each of whom, shall we say, demands a tin of biscuits, and the shopkeeper has precisely six tins of biscuits to sell. What happens in these circumstances ?"I'm discussing the LTV with a non-marxist and I basically took this quote as a part of my reply. The reply I got was this:"The biscuit example is a stylized scenario. In the real world, a shop owner won't change his pricing policy based on the specific circumstances of one moment and try to clear the market at any point. He is perfectly willing to keep the biscuits as inventory in order to sell them later for a higher price, or to even throw them away rather than to lower the price until it clears immediately, so as to not destroy his total income down the way (or give customers the incentive to wait for the late-night sales).In reality, the shop owner bases his pricing on overall supply and demand dynamics. How much money is he willing to trade his biscuits for? In other words: what are the lowest costs plus profits he's willing to sell X amounts of biscuits (the supply curve)and at what price point are customers willing to buy the biscuit amount of X (the demand curve)?But even in a "Robinson Crusoe" economics example: there are 6 biscuits (and no way to make more) and 6 customers, each willing to buy one of the biscuits at up to price X. In that case supply and demand still determine most of the transaction: Supply is determined by the biscuit owners own opportunity costs (what is the biscuit worth to him if he doesn't sell it?) and demand is determined by the customers' willingness to buy a single biscuit. Of course we restricted the possibility to increase quantity artificially and ruled out competition. But supply and demand still matter. This market will clear. Either they are willing to pay what he asks for or not. It doesn't need to follow a Walrasian concept of equilibrium to be true. Equilibrium is simply a state in which nothing and all forces are at balance. Whether or not those biscuits will get sold at the end of the day, if nobody feels the need to act, that's an equilibrium." Anyone with more knowledge on the LTV who could argue against this?
