Re: [Phys-l] Federally mandated homework

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

On 2011, Nov 04, , at 07:46, John Denker wrote:

> In short, I totally reject the Marxist "labor theory of value".


Curiously LTV is traced to Aristotle ("Politics")

Both Marx and B. Russell do this.

bc thinks Marx was a bit more "nuanced" than JD implies.

"Marx's contribution
Contrary to popular belief, Marx does not base his LTV on what he dismisses as "ascribing a supernatural creative power to labor", arguing in the Critique of the Gotha Program that:
Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much a source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor which is itself only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power.[30]
Here Marx is drawing a distinction between exchange value (which is the subject of the LTV) and use value.
Marx uses the concept of "socially necessary abstract labor-time" to introduce a social perspective distinct from his predecessors and neoclassical economics. Whereas most economists start with the individual's perspective, Marx starts with the perspective of society as a whole. "Social production" involves a complicated and interconnected division of labor of a wide variety of people who depend on each other for their survival and prosperity.
"Abstract" labor refers to a characteristic of commodity-producing labor that is shared by all different kinds of heterogeneous (concrete) types of labor. That is, the concept abstracts from the particular characteristics of all of the labor and is akin to average labor.
"Socially necessary" labor refers to the quantity required to produce a commodity "in a given state of society, under certain social average conditions or production, with a given social average intensity, and average skill of the labour employed."[31] That is, the value of a product is determined more by societal standards than by individual conditions. This explains why technological breakthroughs lower the price of commodities and put less advanced producers out of business. Finally, it is not labor per se, which creates value, but labor power sold by free wage workers to capitalists. Another distinction to be made is that between productive and unproductive labor. Only wage workers of productive sectors of the economy produce value.[32]
[edit]"

I think JD is stressing "use value".

Note also that Marx includes (implies) social costs, e.g. pollution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_contribution




On 2011, Nov 04, , at 07:46, John Denker wrote:

> When I pay a delivery company to move a parcel from point A to
> point B, I am not paying them in proportion to the time they
> spend on the task.  I am paying them for the result.  Surely
> there is some time required, but slower is not better.
>
> Handel wrote his /Messiah/ in 24 days.  There are plenty of people
> (including me) who could spend 2,400 days writing an oratorio and
> not produce anything of comparable value ... let alone 100 times
> the value.
>
> That is something of an extreme example, but I have seen innumerable
> less-extreme examples in my own life, up close and personal.  I have
> hired lots of engineers, and paid them out of my own pocket, which
> makes me acutely sensitive to issues of productivity and value.  When
> I need a widget designed, it is quite common to find that one engineer
> can design it tenfold more quickly -- and better -- than another.
>
> Most colleges provide a "reading center" that helps students to
> increase their reading speed and reading comprehension.  This
> allows students to do their homework with less "time on task".
> Slower is not better.
>
> In short, I totally reject the Marxist "labor theory of value".