File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/94-08-17.000, message 49


Subject: D Jones on the LTV 
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 94 16:36:19 +0100
From: wpc-AT-cs.strath.ac.uk



The labour theory of value is all the things that Donna says that it
is, but it is quite clear that Marx also considered it to be a theory
of prices.

As an analysis of exploitation it would cease to have any hold on the
world if the values of goods were not in fact proportional to their
embodied labour.

Suppose that on the contrary market prices were inversely proportional
to embodied labour, then capitalists would be able to make a profit
employing little or no labour and the whole analysis of exploitation
would fall.

If you allow prices to be independent of labour values all of the other
parts of the anlysis of exploitation lose coherence. Why, for instance
should capital have been interested in lengthening the working day?


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