• vovchik_ilich [he/him]
    ·
    4 days ago

    rising labor costs

    cost of goods go up

    I smile when I encounter the Labour Theory of Value

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
      ·
      4 days ago

      MFW people who argue that we should not raise the minimum wage or else consumer prices will go up ironically argue for the Labor Theory of Value.

        • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
          ·
          4 days ago

          Capitalist mystics, aka libertarians, will often argue that there is no discernable basis for price. It's just whatever a seller and purchaser agree it will be. There's nothing else to know and no need to consider how or why prices tend towards a predictable level. Where do wages and profit come from and why some people get more than others? That's just personal morality reflected as value. Value is absolutely not the product of work.

          They'll still also argue that increases in minimum wage necessarily result in corresponding price increases, completely forgetting that profits even exist. They'll also tell you that you don't understand basic economic ideas.

        • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 days ago

          denial of LTV is where the whole "paying somebody to dig a ditch and then fill it back in again is a refutation of Marx because there's no value created there and yet labor was done" thing comes from, which is really a sign that these people haven't read a single word of Marx

    • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      3 days ago

      The labour theory of value would predict that higher wages don't increase prices, but reduce the rate of surplus value.

      The labour theory of value says that prices are most strongly correlated with the labor time needed to produce the commodity regardless of the wage rate.

      The theory that prices would increase based on wages is called the prices of production theory, in which price = (1+rate of profit)*(material cost + labor cost). It conflicts with the LTV and this conflict was actually something that troubled marx quite a bit.