You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Lumifer comments on Open thread, Dec. 8 - Dec. 15, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: Gondolinian 08 December 2014 12:06AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (289)
Tags: open_thread

Comments (289)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Lumifer 12 December 2014 03:43:55PM 3 points [-]

Well, his actual claim is that any product which sells for less than its inputs cost will not exist in the long run

As far as I remember, that's what he got to in the third volume of Das Kapital, but the first volume is very certain that the value of any product is a direct function of the amount of labour that went into it. I think the observation that Marx was a proponent of the Labour Theory of Value is uncontroversial? He didn't invent it, of course, but his name is strongly associated with it.

Comment author: Vaniver 12 December 2014 04:31:43PM *  2 points [-]

the first volume is very certain that the value of any product is a direct function of the amount of labour that went into it.

I'll have to wait until I get home to find the relevant section in my copy* to make sure I haven't misremembered it, but as I recall he claims a widget's value is lower bounded in the long run by the cost of labor because otherwise that laborer will starve / switch to doing something else.

That qualifier is very important, as with it the statement is a correct observation about equilibria, and without it the statement is an incorrect empirical claim (people can make mistakes and misinvest resources in the short run) that typically takes on a prescriptive or moralistic flavor.

* It's been a long time since I read Marx for a reason. I'm not seeing it in the 40 pages I was expecting it to be in, so who knows if it's there.

Comment author: Lumifer 13 December 2014 05:49:00AM *  2 points [-]

Well, thanks to the magic of the 'net let me quote from Volume 1:

A use value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labour time in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours. ...

We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour time socially necessary for its production. ...

On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an expenditure of human labour power, and in its character of identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of commodities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure of human labour power in a special form and with a definite aim, and in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces use values.

I think Marx is quite clear on what he believes creates the value of the product.

Comment author: Vaniver 13 December 2014 05:56:36PM 2 points [-]

I think Marx is quite clear on what he believes creates the value of the product.

I think the first part of that sentence is very dangerous: Marx does not use the writing style most modern readers of English are used to. For example, "plainly" can be either read as stating that the underlying reality is as simple as the description (as I think most moderns would interpret that sentence) xor that the underlying reality is less simple than the description (as most moderns would interpret that sentence if he used "simplistically" or "naively" instead). I'm moderately confident that the second case is the intended one: in the first volume, Marx makes a sketch, that he then refines again and again and again in the volumes to follow, and so to call him "very certain" of the sketch in the first volume is misreading him (or, at least, misrepresenting him).

All Marx is doing here is acknowledging that all commodities can be traded for each other, and that means there is some idea of a 'common standard of exchange-value,' and the obvious 'natural currency' in which to express exchange values is a sort of generalized human time. Consider this section a few pages later:

Since the magnitude of the value of a commodity represents only the quantity of labour embodied in it, it follows that that all commodities, when taken in certain proportions, must be equal in value.

The following section also serves as evidence that he is using generalized human labor just as a reference for prices:

Skilled labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multiplied simple labor, a given quantity of skilled labor being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labor.

To step back, Marx spends several pages discussing the difference between "Use value" and "exchange value"- the first is what we call 'utility,' and the second 'price,' and Marx typically uses "value" to refer to "exchange value"- consider this paragraph:

The use-values, coat, linen, %c., i.e., the bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements--matter and labour. If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of man. That latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing the form of matter. Nay more, in this work of changing the form he is constantly helped by natural forces. We seen, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use-values produced by labour.

Comment author: Lumifer 15 December 2014 08:36:32PM 2 points [-]

All that feels a bit too post-modern to me :-/ Even if Marx's thinking changed in between Vol 1 and Vol 3, that's not a good thing for the theory and cherry-picking is still cherry-picking.

Without going into what Marx really believed, let me just point out that the labour theory of value is widely accepted by Marxists (those that still remain) as the correct one, see e.g. here.

Comment author: Vaniver 15 December 2014 11:17:52PM 0 points [-]

Even if Marx's thinking changed in between Vol 1 and Vol 3, that's not a good thing for the theory and cherry-picking is still cherry-picking.

! The point isn't that Marx changed his mind, but that, among other communication problems, he makes many broad statements and then carves away caveats, either afterwards or in some definition elsewhere (that hopefully you've remembered correctly). For this particular example, though, consider the paragraph that you cut out with an elipsis:

Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour-power. The total labour-power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour-power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labour-power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time that is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour-time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time.

This is an explicit disavowal of the simplest possible interpretation of the labor theory of value, the claim that "labor in = value out." The 'labor' he's talking about isn't actual labor, but hypothetical generalized labor, and it basically exists just to be a natural currency.

let me just point out that the labour theory of value is widely accepted by Marxists (those that still remain) as the correct one, see e.g. here.

Sure, and I agreed on that point up here. LTV, as I see it, runs into huge Motte and Bailey problems, where the actual theory is inoffensive as a "dollar theory of price," in which the 'price' of a commodity is the 'number of dollars it costs', but the conclusions people want to use it for are "the past doesn't matter, everyone owns everything!" As far as I can tell, though, Marx stayed in the motte, and this is where the "I'm not a Marxist" statement comes from.

Comment author: Lumifer 16 December 2014 01:20:28AM 1 point [-]

he makes many broad statements and then carves away caveats

Which makes his thesis kinda hard to pin down, doesn't it? So what precise, hard, falsifiable statements about the nature of value of a good does Marx make, you think?

the actual theory is inoffensive as a "dollar theory of price," in which the 'price' of a commodity is the 'number of dollars it costs'

That's not inoffensive at all. There is a great divide between thinking the value comes from the supply side and thinking the value comes from the demand side. The theory is inoffensive if you make it say nothing useful, but that's not how it has been read.

Marx stayed in the motte

Did he now? You think he didn't make any connections between the LTV and his characterization of the bourgeoisie as parasites inasmuch all the value is created by the labour of the workers?

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit