I read Capital, and the whole thing just went over my head. I really couldn't understand what he was getting at. Could any comrades help explain the LTV? Thanks! 
I read Capital, and the whole thing just went over my head. I really couldn't understand what he was getting at. Could any comrades help explain the LTV? Thanks!
Take a producer of goods, it pays for constant capital (something it doesn't have cost-control over, electricity, machines, ip rights, rent etc) and variable capital (worker compensation). To produce a profit he has to underpay workers for the amount of stuff they produced (e.g. worker owned factory producing 100 tonnes of pasta, paying 20 tonnes of pasta for inputs, would be able to afford exactly 80 tonnes of pasta).
Taking the whole spheres of production capitalists end up with excess (profits/exploitation) basket of goods (money equivalent of 10 tonnes of pasta here, bag of coffee beans there), which they utilize to finance their consumption, means of production development, and paying for unproductive sector jobs (finance, defense etc)
That sounds more like an explanation of 'surplus value' than of the question above.
Yeah, this is like condensed capital v.1-3, but comrade said they've struggled to internalize it. Labor theory of value by itself doesn't have explanatory power, just saying stuff embeds labor, its value and price are vaguely connected into this embedded labor. But also here are 1000 pages how this gets distorted by equalization of profit rates across spheres of production, means of production, competition, finance capital and other factors.