[jujube3]

Sure, it costs more, and everyone agrees on that. Where we disagree is whether it provides more VALUE. The LTV says that it does by definition, because labor = value, and therefore more labor = more value.

You may choose to disagree. Just as modern economists disagree with the LTV.

[thiagoharry]

You are completely wrong. This stupid example of digging holes is dismissed even in the first chapter of Das Capital if I'm not mistaken. First because if you do not provide use value (like digging useless holes), you cannot produce exchange value. Second because what really matters is the social necessary labor to dig the holes, assuming that there is a market for this. You will just waste money paying people to dig holes if we live in a world with technology to use backhoe excavator.

Economy is not a natural or exact science. There is a mainstream. But this does not mean that there is no valid inquiries and theories outside mainstream.

[jujube3]

The market does not always choose to use the maximum amount of automation for everything. For example, a small business may rationally choose to wash dishes by hand rather than paying for a dishwasher. Are their meals more valuable (because more labor intensive) than the big restaurant across the street that does own a dishwasher?

You are the one defending the LTV, not me. If value = labor, but not when that would be silly, it's a bit like saying F = ma, but not when that would be silly. No serious scientist would accept this formulation. You would be laughed out the room.

After millions of deaths, environment devastation, and political repression, Marxism deserves to be laughed out of the room as well. I hope it will be, some day.

[thiagoharry]

The exchange value produced in the business with or without the dishwater would be exactly the same if they are from the same society. It is not the individual labor, but the socially necessary labor that is counted. Moreover, value is also entirely different than price.

I never said anything about "use the theory, except when its silly". What was silly was the example because of the lack of understanding of the parent comment: LTV does not work like described by that comment. You can not even properly criticize something if you do not understand it.

The moralist excuse to forbid or negate certain knowledge is also silly. Depending on where you live (USA, Europe), you probably post these comments in a society built (and perhaps even mantained) by an even larger kill count, but I never will use this as a way to refuse or negate discussion or knowledge.

[jujube3]

I never said we should forbid discussion of Marxism. I just think it should be treated the same as Nazism, with which it shares many similarities. The general pattern of "find a minority, say that they are the source of all problems, argue for dictatorship so you can solve the problems" is clearly present in both. This is called "vanguardism."

I've already presented several scenarios where a different amount of labor did not produce a different amount of value. Your response has just been that "socially necessary labor" is different than "labor." But this is nonsense since we don't have any authority to tell us what is "socially necessary" and what is not. Indeed, we have many examples of socialist governments deciding that it's not "socially necessary" for certain groups of people to eat at all -- the Holodomor in Ukraine, or der Hungerplan in Nazi Germany.

[aguaviva]

"find a minority, say that they are the source of all problems"

That's not what Marxism says at all.

[thiagoharry]

> I've already presented several scenarios where a different amount of labor did not produce a different amount of value.

Your examples are exactly as expected by LTV. LTV agrees that they do not produce different exchange values. The problem is that you are just ignoring what the LTV says, ignoring the theory definitions and is coming with your own ideas of what you think it says. And when I try to give you what the theory says, you just say that it is nonsense, saying more things that confirm that you have no idea about what you are talking:

> But this is nonsense since we don't have any authority to tell us what is "socially necessary" and what is not.

You do not need the authority. The theory describes the functioning of free markets, and capitalism running without hindrances. But taking into account the material reality that you need nature + labor to socially produce things and that in one side you have production, at the other side you have consumption and these things need to be balanced.

Pro tip: LTV was the mainstream of economical theories during the era when Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Marx, and all other classical economists published their contributions. All them agreed with LTV. Do you really think that you can refute it using so silly examples? In fact, there are several criticisms and known paradoxes that applies to older forms of LTV, but your attacks are missing even these older and more naive forms. Which is expected: you cannot formulate proper criticism for things that you do not fully understand and did not study.

[orthecreedence]

The LTV effectively argues that competition brings prices of mass-produced commodities down to a magical threshold, and that magical threshold is the aggregate cost of labor in order to produce whatever commodity is being examined.

Modern economists haven't refuted this, and in fact many parrot it, and anyone saying they have rejected the idea is misinformed. See for instance https://bnarchives.yorku.ca/308/2/20101200_cockshott_nitzan_...

The LTV absolutely accounts for demand (what capitalists call "value") and in fact requires it for its description of how capitalism operates. It's really just saying there are two forms of value: aggregate demand and aggregate production costs, with competition driving prices down to production costs. If you don't agree with that, I don't really know how else to help because it's kind of a universal truth in a mass production market economy.