Default Labor Theory of Value vs. Supply and Demand

[Kidblop]

There was recently an argument with my friend and I over the validity of Marx's LTV. She claimed that supply and demand determines prices and thus any exploitation argument is void like flat earth theory. Is this so? How do we, as Marxists and anarchist, feel about the law of supply and demand? Do we reconcile it somehow with the Labor Theory of Value?


* Sorry about my english.

 

[Mathematician]

The Labor Theory of Value doesn't determine prices. It's a measurement of value - particularly, for wants. Despite popular misconceptions perpetuated by neo-liberalism, supply and demand and the LTV are not foils. LTV determines why an item is more valuable than the materials it's produced from, and the only conceivable answer is labor - intellectual and physical. Technocrats break it down further into energy.

Workers are exploited because their labor is what goes into producing the value of a commodity. Capitalists act as vampires; at a point where the workers are educated and skilled enough to take over, the ruling class's labor only hinders material progress, much like how the aristocracy impeded development.

 

[Troublemane]

There is a way for workers to avoid being victimised by their employers, in our free market system, by joining a Union. If all workers were unionised then they would effectively control their own work. However, the union movement in this country has become sluggish as the old-timers are all retiring and the young are not as knowledgeable about the benefits of unions. And in addition, what I have seen (im a member of IBEW Local 606) the Unions themselves have been xenophobic, making it too hard for outsiders to get in, so many immigrants are working non-union. Theres alot of complaining about the illegal immigrants taking all the work, and now there is a drive in IBEW and other unions to reclaim that work, but its gonna take more than just voting for whatever democrat is on the ticket (as unions do), because its obvious they wont do anything about illegal immigration except vote to legalize all those here already.

So, anyway, to sum up, the union theory of labor is that when the workers unionise they have more bargaining power as a group if they control all the labor, but this control diminishes as unions allow more non-union workers to operate in their territory. This happens naturally as people become complacent I think.

 

[Mathematician]

There is a way for workers to avoid being victimised by their employers, in our free market system, by joining a Union. If all workers were unionised then they would effectively control their own work. However, the union movement in this country has become sluggish as the old-timers are all retiring and the young are not as knowledgeable about the benefits of unions. And in addition, what I have seen (im a member of IBEW Local 606) the Unions themselves have been xenophobic, making it too hard for outsiders to get in, so many immigrants are working non-union. Theres alot of complaining about the illegal immigrants taking all the work, and now there is a drive in IBEW and other unions to reclaim that work, but its gonna take more than just voting for whatever democrat is on the ticket (as unions do), because its obvious they wont do anything about illegal immigration except vote to legalize all those here already.

So, anyway, to sum up, the union theory of labor is that when the workers unionise they have more bargaining power as a group if they control all the labor, but this control diminishes as unions allow more non-union workers to operate in their territory. This happens naturally as people become complacent I think.

I'm skeptical about the future of unions as a means of counterbalancing the forceful tug of capitalists. Under the American welfare state they only served to temporary halt some of the more dramatic inroads, and in some ways the leaders are polarized from the working class - with instances of pay offs for not pursuing anything radical.

I would say the default problem lies in how complacent we are with corporate personhood and corporate welfare. Instead of spreading wealth out to the point we're all (practically) equal in our pursuit of money, corporations grow and grow beyond preferred size.