[claudiawerner]

The question is incomplete without knowing how the $15 and the $10 breaks down - if you paid, say $3 for the materials (C) and $10 for the labour (V), you'd sell at a $2 profit, Marx would say that assuming equivalent exchange of values on the market, neglecting the role of advertising and such, and assuming the chair is freely reproducible (i.e unencumbered by patents and trademarks, and not a one-of-a-kind item like a piece of artwork), the $2 is the monetary value of the surplus labour (S), also known as "unpaid" labour. This provides a rate of profit (or "rate of exploitation") r = S/(C+V) = 2/(3+10) = 0.153, the final product of course having a value of S+V+C, expressed, i.e 2+10+3 = $15.

[ernst_klim]

> the $2 is the monetary value of the surplus labour (S), also known as "unpaid" labour

What about risks and decision making, investing in the future products and potential failures? How much is "paid risk" and "unpaid labor", how to objectively evaluate that?

I would argue that $2 is paid risk, not unpaid labor, how to prove that that's not the case?

Also, if I paid you a salary, and than the product failed in the market, is it just according to marxists to ask your salary back, or, if the product was net loss, to ask you to pay for it as an employee?

[claudiawerner]

The proof follows from the labour theory of value (the proof of which is, I believe, more controversial, especially as Marx does the "proof"), which states that the magnitude of value of a commodity is objectively determined by labour-time, not by "risk", and I think that's shown in cases where many busniesses, no matter how risky (and it seems here you're only talking about the capitalist's risk, not that of the waged labourer), realize different rates of profit which don't align with what we consider to be the risk of production. More risky businesses, in general, simply don't generate more profit than non-risky ones. If it were the reward for decision making, the rate of profit would diminish the more you sell something the same way and in the same place, since there are fewer decisions to be made for each subsequent commodity. Investing in future products and protecting against potential failures are uses of the $2 profit, not explanations as to its origin.

Let's say that it is risk. The capitalist labours the monetary equivalent of $1, i.e he spends $1 on his labour power, producing a total of $2 worth of labour. When the product is sold he is still given $2, but not all of that is profit, only $1 is, since the $1 paid is now a cost, he only gets $1 "for free", not $2. Therefore it's clearly in the interest of every capitalist to minimize the amount of work he does himself and instead "exploit" a waged worker for it.

Marxists have never argued that the worker has a "right" to the surplus value, only that it would be, in the most non-moral sense possible, in the interests of labourers who have this surplus appropriated due to the structure of production to ensure it is no longer appropriated in this way - i.e. a socialist or communist society.

[ernst_klim]

> The proof follows from the labour theory of value

But I'm asking you about the proof of the labor theory of value in fact. I didn't thought that there exist people who take it seriously after marginal revolution.

> and I think that's shown in cases where many busniesses, no matter how risky

Business shows exactly the opposite, the most risky (volatile) domains have the highest gains and highest losses: pharma, construction, fintech.

> value of a commodity is objectively determined by labour-time, not by "risk"

So when the value of a bottle of wine inflates with time, somebody is working on it?

> no matter how risky

Did you ever run a business? When you pay for a snack, you pay not only for a snack, but also for a stolen snack. When you pay for a Intel x86 processor, you also pay for failed Intel iAPX 432 which never appeared in the market.

Risks are pretty material, and should be payed for. When you are starting a project, you never know in advance whether it would be successful or not. If it fails, the only way to pay the salaries and costs is through revenues of other projects.

> If it were the reward for decision making, the rate of profit would diminish the more you sell something the same way and in the same place, since there are fewer decisions to be made for each subsequent commodity.

Strange inference. Not the number of decisions matter but their impact. If you sell something many time, it means that the first one decision was very clever and rewarding. Not to mention that revenues are falling with time and it requires new strategies and decisions to make your company competitive and profitable again.

> The capitalist labours the monetary equivalent of $1, i.e he spends $1 on his labour power, producing a total of $2 worth of labour

Again, I see no evidence that labor creates any objective value on its own. Goods have value, labor has value as a good evaluated by an employer, but it does not "create value". If you make a chair, you apply labor, but if nobody values it and nobody buys it, it has no value, hence your labor has no value.

How did you evaluate that capitalist labors $1? Maybe his decisions and ability to take risks cost $100, and his workers are just freeriding him? How exactly did you infer that he spends exactly $1 of labor power? What is a labor power, how could you measure it objectively?

Forget about capitalists, here is a simple though experiment: there are two workers living in a commune and owning the means of production. They do chairs and sell it to the outer capitalist world. One worker is a carpenter who does the woodwork. Another one make nails. They sell chairs for $1, which share of this $1 each of than created? How to measure that objectively?

After that add a capitalist who start the business, takes risks, credits, make decisions and devise strategy. How to evaluate the "value" of his activity?

[claudiawerner]

>But I'm asking you about the proof of the labor theory of value in fact. I didn't thought that there exist people who take it seriously after marginal revolution.

The proof is "in the pudding" as it were; there are a few theorists (either heterodox economists or philosophers of economics) who argue that Marx himself did enough to "prove" the theory, either logical-deductively, or otherwise; see Elena Lange[0], Patrick Murray[1], Guido Starosta[2], Andrew Kliman[3], Chris Arthur[4] and a few others - though they approach the matter from different angles. Martha Campbell defends the objectivity of value in capitalist society as opposed to marginalist accounts and Veblen's "habitual action" account[5]. In general, those that hold to Marx's exposition with the "third thing" argument argue that the theory cannot apply to each commodity individually, though it would apply to an aliquot as taken as a sample of the lot of them.

>Business shows exactly the opposite, the most risky (volatile) domains have the highest gains and highest losses: pharma, construction, fintech.

These are not businesses, but fields of businesses, within them it is possible to find the greatest variation in risk. It is also not clear whether the risk is taken by the owner of the capital, or by the labourers themselves - in construction, a major risk falls on the safety of the workers. To say that they have the highest gains and the highest losses implies risk is a mere tautology (of course! that's what risk means, you win big or you lose big), but it says nothing about profitability.

>When you pay for a Intel x86 processor, you also pay for failed Intel iAPX 432 which never appeared in the market.

Again, offsetting the effects of failed developments and theft is what capitalists do with profit, it is not an explanation as to the origin of profit.

>Goods have value, labor has value as a good evaluated by an employer, but it does not "create value".

What you're saying is absolutely true, but it's an equivocation on "value". When you speak of the value to someone, from someone's perspective, that's not what Marx means by "value". Marginalist accounts of value are semi-compatible with the labour theory of value, so long as we're talking about different things when we say "value"; for example, it's clear that what the LTV means by "value" is not "artistic value" or "moral value" or any of a huge range of values. In the same way, it does not mean value as a subjective preference for one thing over another. That concept gets a look-in with the Marxist concept of use-value - but not exchange-value.

>If you make a chair, you apply labor, but if nobody values it and nobody buys it, it has no value, hence your labor has no value.

Only use-values count as values, because according to Marx, a commodity is a complex of a use-value and value (expressed in a given magnitude of exchange-value). Therefore it's meaningless to talk of something usunable and undesirable as having value. Even Ricardo knew this was the case. Wine is a more interesting matter; depending on how one looks at it, either the very act of storage is (objectively) highly valued, or the good is not entirely freely reproducible (i.e my wine aged for ten years will never sell as well as a brand name aged for five years), or along with Murray, the theory does not apply to this individual commodity, but if you were to take a sample of all capitalist commodities, you'd find that the identity of total value = total price holds in aggregate.

> They sell chairs for $1, which share of this $1 each of than created? How to measure that objectively?

There is no way to determine that; it is just as impossible as quantitatively determining "utility". Value is not sensible, it is a socially-determined supersensible aspect of commodities. In other words, the essence behind the appearance. See Murray on the neoclassical focus on capital's shadow forms[6]. In the same way, measuring skilled versus unskilled labour may not be possible quantitatively, but it clearly happens qualitatively - what the market rewards in wages on average to two groups of people with different skill sets means the abstraction and calculation is already quantitatively done for us in the real world. This is exactly the same with the neoclassical concept of utility, in which we can actually see prices, but not a drop of utility, no matter how we twist and turn an object.

[0] http://www.consecutio.org/2018/11/the-proof-is-in-the-puddin...

[1] https://philpapers.org/rec/PATIDO-2

[2] https://cicpint.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2008_Starosta...

[3] Kliman, A. 2008. The Fourth Thing on the Third Thing: A response to James Furner and Patrick Murray.

[4] Arthur, Christopher J Source: Capital & Class 15-39 no. 73 (Spring 2001): p. 15-39 https://libcom.org/library/value-labour-negativity-christoph...

[5] Campbell M. (2004) The Objectivity of Value versus the Idea of Habitual Action. In: Bellofiore R., Taylor N. (eds) The Constitution of Capital.

[6] http://crisiscritique.org/political11/Dennis%20Badeen%20and%...

[ernst_klim]

> Again, offsetting the effects of failed developments and theft is what capitalists do with profit

Wait, what? I'm asking, how would you subsidize failed developments if you consider 100% of profitable development as wage.

If you consider net income as wage, should the net loss be paid by the workers?

> in construction, a major risk falls on the safety of the workers

Which is also payed by the employer in the form of insurance. And the investment risks also totally lie on the employer here, workers just get wages. If the construction is failed/not being profitable, workers get wages and insurance, employer and investors are paying bills and credits.

> what the market rewards in wages on average to two groups of people with different skill sets means the abstraction and calculation is already quantitatively done

But again, market rewards have nothing to do with created values, but rather the utility of labor. If your labor could be substituted with the machinery for the smaller price. It's based solely on marginal utility of labor.

No calculations based on value creation is done whatsoever, the wage is a result of a bargaining process.

> measuring skilled versus unskilled labour may not be possible quantitatively

> it is just as impossible as quantitatively determining "utility"

But you don't need to, that's why labor theory of value is dead and Marginalism has conquered the world. You don't need to quantify utility to evaluate wages, just let people bargain based on their subjective notion of utility, ability to find substitutions etc. Marginalism is suitable for modeling and planning here, all you need is gather statistical data other how the preferences and desires for the good change with the appearance of substitutes or changes in quantity.

You can't, however, evaluate wages based on labor theory of value, you can't measure the value one has added to the value of raw materials, if it's even the case.

You can't even solve a simple problem of two worker's shares of surplus value with the labor theory, it's totally useless for anything but being a justification for exploitation theory.

There are neither empirical nor deductive evidence that the value of commodity is proportional to the wages. Even if you exclude luxury goods (which is already a clear intellectual dishonesty, because the notion of luxury is vague, and differences between luxury and basic are impossible to be quantified of defined), you would still have a huge difference in prices of buckwheat and wheat, or water simply in different contexts (even if no labor is applied to extract it, as in the case of oasis, oasis water in the middle of desert would be evaluated more than the water being extracted from a deep shaft in a less severe conditions).

Value is inherently subjective, it stems in scarcity, utility, ease of finding a substitute etc. Even labor is such a good, evaluated subjectively.