There’s this new video by a good YouTuber - Value by Unlearning Economics. There was also an article by Ben Burgis for the Jacobin which argued the same.
Is it possible, as both these people argue, to separate Marx’s critique of capitalism from his theory of value? To keep the former and discard the latter?
Edit - I’m not siding with the video or with Burgis, btw. I think Marx’s value theory is correct. I’m just looking for people who can shine some light on this new(?) phenomena of leftists speaking out against LTV while trying “save” Marx’s critique of capital. To me, that just seems like a pointless and hopeless endeavour.
Labor theory of value is about production, as soon as you enter into market prices you already gone wrong in your application/critique
Value, Price, and Profit
Price and Profit are components of value, but can rise and fall independently from it.
The only reason market prices are so inflated now is because of futures trading and over leveraging to generate the conditions for a crisis that investors can use to extract more value from those smallholders that are liquidated or proletarianized by the crashes.
Anyone who tries to give you bunk about how LTV is wrong because of modern international stock market prices is either a moron or are intentionally trying to mislead you.
Value is exclusively created by labor and all other forms of it that float around in exchanges are either already dead and reified labor, or promisory notes from one capitalist to another that they will be able to exploit labor at some time in the future.
This is like someone saying gravity doesn't exist because they've gotten used to living on a space station then proceeding to shut off the reaction thrusters that maintain an orbit because if gravity doesn't exist, there's no need to maintain an orbit.