[recursivedoubts]

The Labor Theory of Value is true: value is created when human labor is applied to raw materials. Just because the Marxists adopted the idea doesn't make it wrong. They were wrong about other things.

Adam Smith and David Ricardo both believed in the labor theory of value.

[MichaelCollins]

> The Labor Theory of Value is true: value is created when human labor is applied to raw materials.

Wrong, value is created subjectively, by other people desiring the products of that labor. If nobody wants what the laborers created, then their labor had no value.

Roll a rock up and down a hill all day. You'll work hard as hell but you'll create no value. Anybody who denies the subjective theory of value is out to lunch.

[recursivedoubts]

I agree that value is subjective, but value is still created by labor.

Sit and stare at a rock and you have created no new value.

Labor can also destroy value, for example when a building is destroyed in a riot, or when a rock is pushed up a hill to a location that makes it less valuable.

[MichaelCollins]

Trip over a sufficiently shiny rock and you'll discover that it has value (to some people) even though you put no labor into it.

[recursivedoubts]

yes, a very small amount of readily available (labor free) raw material has value to some people

but most raw material requires applied labor to become valuable: at the very least transportation to them

[WalterBright]

> Adam Smith and David Ricardo both believed in the labor theory of value.

Everybody makes misteaks.

[recursivedoubts]

Not me!