Yaron Answers: What's Wrong with the Labor Theory of Value?

[latentcc]

Intellectual labor IS labor. I'm a software developer so my labor primarily does not manifest into a physical, material object but a digital one. As Marx distinguishes in Capital, the difference between a human and a bee is that the human conceptualizes first in their mind the object of their labor. It still takes time and energy out of my finite life to produce a digital commodity.

[muhammadal-farouq]

Labor Theory of Value is not “Physical Labor Theory of Value.”

[maxbarker]

Are you suggesting that research and development doesn't constitute labor? A scientist is not laboring?

[ollielon]

It's really hard to take seriously the arguments against the labor theory of value when the ones making the arguments don't understand what the labor theory of value is. I'm looking for actually good criticisms of that theory since I'm still skeptical of said theory, but when I come across posts and videos like this one that do not understand it, it really makes me think the labor theory of value is correct due to the fact that those who oppose it don't seem to understand what it is.

[seandelaney]

The speaker doesn't understand (Marx's) labour theory of value.

[merops]

There may well be plenty wrong with the LTV, but this video does nothing to clarify it. The speaker doesn't understand the LTV at all. The video has been a complete waste of time.

[uiodxt]

“Intellectual labor making value proves that labor doesn’t create value” what a joke

[cliath]

Imagine being an Ayn Rand stan and valuing intellect

[owelofminerva]

The errors begin to come right out of the gate. The ltv does not state that everything around us comes from physical work. Marx even notes in capital that there are some things which come from the natural world absent of human labor.

He goes on to try to down play psychical labor and aggrandize the roll of intellectual thought that goes into an item ignoring the fact that thought counts as psychical labor and without the assembly lines in china these ideas would not be able to become physical things. He also talks about how automation is down playing labor ignoring that we need labor to maintain, allocate, and create these robots (shit a first grader could figure out)

He also hinges his argument on an improper definition of value. Value in the sense of market economics is not value in the sense of personal preference. It is a completely different ball park that is a planet of football fields away from the other. Value in the sense of market economics as Karl Mark notes in his economic manuscript on the value form is the exchangability of things on the market. Values are those objects which are useful in exchange on the market. For values to be brought into existence we must have human labor to create the market economy and to make a specific object exchangeable on the market. 

[afgor]

Tell me you've never actually read kapital without telling me you've never actually read kapital.

Also there's nothing in the LTV that says work has to be physical... Marx very specifically talked about the labour value of intellectual property

[georgeXXXX]

Absolute rubbish! Could not go beyond 1 sec. Physical labor?! Said who?!

[lucaalbano]

Wait- someone actually dedicated an institute... To Ayn Rand? Seriously? Who are we going to dedicate an institute to next, Hitler? Banderas? Or maybe Pinochet?

[michaelcentra]

Is this a joke? So if I just THINK of a new invention or building design, that's not only the same thing as constructing it but that's all that's required for the building to be constructed? Nonsense. This seems as just a sneaky attempt to disregard the input of labor in the production of goods and services. So all human physical labor is undertaken inside a vacuum with no relation to any of the objects and services that labor is providing? If that's true why pay physical laborer's any wage at all? They're not necessary to production, right? They don't provide any value, right? It seems to me laborers provide the brunt of the value. If they didn't that idea in your head for a new building would remain in your head as a figment of your imagination.

[ketch_up]

Marx's theory of value, does "labour" not include intellectual labour just as much as physical labour? 

[christopherrobinson]

Basic labour =/= Complex labour, the intellectual labor is also recognized by LTV.

[kcaron]

"Intellectual work", as you describe it, is labor too.  Proponents of the labor theory of value have never argued that physical labor is the only type of labor.  Therefore, the labor theory of value has no problem explaining the creation of value through intellectual work vs. physical work.  What you are saying makes no sense and demonstrates your deep misunderstanding of the labor theory of value.

[Madcout]

Poor explanation.  Labor Theory of Value is easily extended to intellectual and social labor.  In the technical era, the "labor" is the intellectual labor.  This is a horrible video.  Value is created through intellectual productivity.  And almost none of that makes any difference without it being physically produced.  He also ignores iterative productive value which is also already explained in LTOV.  The machines that make products were made and programmed at some point by a human being engaging in physical labor and it is iterates itself into the future.  You cannot think a robot into existence.  You can think of the plan but it must eventually be produced to actually do anything.

[pasparaldabeiradocanal]

In a free and competitive market the prices of all reproducible commodities tend to gravitate towards the minimal total (aggregate) labour time required to produce them.

A commodity's use value is indeed quite subjective. But according to the labor theory as long as a commodity has a use value the exact quantity of this use value is irrelevant since competition will ensure the commonidy's price will not exceed its price of production (+ profit rate).

[Bryce-svnn]

not even 15 seconds in and he doesn't know what the LTV is

[Creezusz]

These arguments are cleared in the first 10 pages of das Kapital