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My lay person take on it is that the inherent value of a product certainly lies in the labor it took to create it, its moral value so to speak, but to say that that and prices, which obviously reflect its exchange value since that's what someone is willing to pay for it and which can fluctuate wildly are close or nearly close seems idealist. The "pet rock" of the 70s may have had little in terms of labor invested in it, collecting the items and then packaging them, but the price that someone paid for it was a function of market conditions, subjective and otherwise. This essentially goes towards the main issue which is Sales, a word I think I hardly ever see mentioned by Marx's ostensible epigones. Without consummated sales no value is realized, oranges dumped in groves while people starve as during the depression. Thus, my impression of "marxists" on economic theory is that they are very weak, seeking to talmudically parse and justify an old prophet and his sacred texts without much interest in empirically rooting themselves in current conditions. Thus we have little from them concretely analyzing and demystifying the current burning economic issues related to mortgages, CDOs etc etc., although their heart is in the right place. Then again politics is not primarily an academic exercise either. On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Anthony Boynton <anthony.boyn...@gmail.com>wrote: > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > I have not followed this thread fully, but here are my three cents worth in > answer to this question. > > I don't think there are any 'flaws' in Marx's value theory. However, it has > never been fully developed. Historically the biggest glitch has been the > "transformation problem" which is still controversial. Other undeveloped > areas of value theory exist however. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
