Seems really fucking complicated. I doubt I'd be able to make most workers I know understand it (I'm neet tho anyway). There's no way I'm going to be able to read a book to be honest. I don't have the time, attention span, or intelligence to get what Marx is saying when ever I've read bits from marxists.org. As far as I can gather from articles, videos, and wikipedia, it seems to be that socially necessary labor time of a product is equal to its exchange value.
Socially necessary labor time = the amount of time needed for an average worker to produce the product in question? Exchange value = Equivalent things that it will exchange for?
SNLT = exchange value is supposed to be an empirical law that shows that a product will exchange for another product that took an equal amount of SNLT to produce (but this can't always be true so shouldn't it be AVERAGE exchange value?). I'm not sure if it also equals price (ON AVERAGE), or if it's SNLT + some other thing that explains it.]
SNLT = value in the abstract exchange value is determined by SNLT to an extent, but market and other forces affect it Exchange value is an commodity's value in relation to other commodities. It is not price.
Julian Powell
What does "value in the abstract" mean?
That sounds a bit handwavey. I thought that SNLT was the main basis of the market in Marx's view. What are these other forces?
That's what I thought, but I know it relates to price… somehow.
Daniel Walker
They're wrong, exchange value equals the SNLT.
Oliver Gutierrez
On average, right?
Aiden Lewis
When you are exchanging commodities in quantity you cannot know the concrete labour that went into them. Labour loses its concrete form (e.g., digging, assembling, etc.) and appears only as labour time. However, you still can't know the particular amount of time each piece needed, therefore you only have the social average (the socially necessary labour time).
Exchange governs the social division of labour, that is, you produce something someone else needs, and get something equivalent in exchange that you need. The exchange value is the amount the commodity contributed/costed to society's "metabolism."
Owen Ortiz
SNLT is already an average.
Logan Howard
Yes, but is exchange value?
Evan Hall
In what sense? The commodity is already "average" in the sense that it's not about a particular piece of it but the commodity in general.
Jayden Ortiz
Only because it is equivalent to SNLT which is an average.
John Anderson
Price is exchange value (based on SNLT) adjusted for supply and demand.
Gavin Rivera
It takes an average worker a certain amount of time to produce an average example of a particular product = SNLT? Right?
Exchange value is what that value will exchange for in terms of SNLT? Right?
But it won't ALWAYS exchange for that just by magic, so it inherently has to be an average as well.
Adam Campbell
Explain.
Parker Cooper
is correct. Exchange value equals SNLT but does not equal price.
If supply and demand are equal, then commodities will be traded on the market at a price which is equal to their exchange value which is equal to SNLT.
Because actual markets are in a constant state of flux, this is not how it works in the real world. Commodities are traded for more than their exchange value if demand is greater than supply, and less if supply is greater than demand.
Kayden James
Is that clear enough? I can try to break it down more if you need me to, but I am no expert on this.
Jonathan Roberts
I understand supply and demand and the classical economics clearing price, but I don't understand why price equals exchange value other than people just telling me it does.
Why would all goods that have equal amounts of labor time in them be sold by capitalists at similar prices?
Jaxson Thomas
What part of "socially necessary" in SNLT do you not get?
I don't care for LTV myself but that's Facebook tier criticism, calling people lazy for having leftist opinions makes you sound like a human lemming with no sense of dignity.
Bentley Gray
It may be time to consider that you just CBA
Jack Garcia
An-nils always contributing to discussion
Joshua Martin
The sum of economic forces birthed into reality by isolated producers, via private property, establishing a productive relationship (a market) upon which all else starts to depend, as if there were a law governing it all. Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand" and thought it was an eternal part of the human condition. Marx called this the law of value, and noted that it is a distinct and fairly recent phenomenon that comes from the generalization of humans producing for market exchange, and indeed first the generalization of capitalist private property (the restriction of access to productive goods and services in order to extract value from labour them via wage-labour; labour stripped of a reinvested surplus).
I should say, though, that nothing is going to read primary literature, so you'll want to pick up Marx sooner or later if you want to refine your understanding beyond the basic understanding you'll get from those videos.
More or less. It's really more like the average amount of labour time needed to produce a particular commodity (object first predestined for exchange).
The rate at which commodities exchange. Also known simply as "value" in Marx.
Adrian Wright
don't worry, Holla Forums is full of people like this flag related at least you're not a faggot pretending otherwise again, flag very related
Leo Davis
First of all throw away all your rigid abstractions. We need more flexible abstractions. SNLT relates to the accepted time it takes to create a commodity. THIS ISN'T AN AVERAGE. It is the shortest time it takes to produce a certain commodity, which must be reproducible. Additionally, the seller must also lower the price, otherwise, it will never lower the SNLT. Remember it is the time that is accepted, which means by public scrutiny. If the public doesn't know that it has changed, how can they change expectations? Additionally, If it was the average, then there wouldn't exist monopolies. Even if production secrets spread to other factories, this doesn't mean that SNLT is always the average. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to explain super profit.
Price, this is NOT exchange value. People like to say they are the same because it is easier to grasp. Don't let them poison you. Exchange value is only determined during an exchange. Which means if two people agree on a transaction, it then only counts for that transaction. The old-school example would be two people trading commodities. I exchange 3 eggs for 6 potatoes. Therefore the exchange value for this particular (case) exchange is the following. 3 eggs = 6 potatoes, and, 6 potatoes = 3 eggs. Exchange value is unique for each exchange. A more modern example would be with money. This means that you exchange money for a commodity. I pay 1$ for 6 potatoes. Therefore the exchange value is 1$ = 6 potatoes. Now you might be tempted to say that this is the price. But what if we the price of 3 eggs is 2$. Suddenly we have the following. 1$ = 6 potatoes = 3 eggs = 2$ So which is it? Was the price higher than the exchange value? Did I exchange my eggs for too little? Trying to conflate price and exchange value doesn't make sense. The last way to understand this is in cases where no one wants to exchange for a commodity. It might have a price, but so long as no one buys it, there is no exchange and no exchange value.
Here is the abstraction capitalists use when selling products. Hire labour power, which has to be paid per hour. Buy machines and resources which workers use to make commodities. Because how social labour works, this process creates use-value which is considered worth more than the resources used. Since you only make things people want (otherwise you can't sell it). The increase of use-value is linked to the amount of labour it requires. This is because if the consumer would have to do this process themselves, they would require a lot of resources and work to create it. It, therefore, has a perception of increased use-value. The capitalist then uses this perception to sell the commodities at a higher price than the input resources and labour power used. Since capitalists need to make their money back, they sell it at a price which is acceptable (so that people wouldn't just do it themselves) but still nets them money in the process. This is the crucial part. It is the perception of value, which puts the social in SNLT. Here comes SNLT into the picture. SNLT can be conflated (but shouldn't when explained by itself) to be the average time it takes to create a commodity. This means that SNLT on average affects how much work goes into a commodity, and by that logic also how many wages the capitalist has to pay the worker per commodity. More wages means a higher price for the commodity because the capitalist has to get his money back. And the reverse as well. This is the reason why most products become cheaper when production is innovated and is more efficient than before. Supply and demand usually affect prices, however, less than neoclassical theory suggests. And it is usually adjusted between business cycles (if there is more demand, then they will make more, if there is less demand, they will make less, which means it will even out over the long run).
Okay, autistic explanation over. Ask for more if needed, or say something if I made a mistake.
Robert Cook
Loving these slide threads
Aiden Gonzalez
Price does not equal exchange value.
Price roughly equals exchange value adjusted for supply and demand, but there are other forces which can effect it as well.
Exchange value equals SNLT.
SNLT is the average amount of time it takes to produce the given commodity in the given society.
Daniel Sanders
Just read this pdf. It's short and easy to understand and it very clearly explains what the LTV is.
Effectively, the SNLT determines the exchange value, this value is what prices revolve around according to supply, demand, and competition. The SNLT is the total sum of all labor put into a commodity, including the dead labor of capital, it is not an average but a minimum. Two commodities can have the same exchange value but differing prices because the same amount of SNLT went into the commodity, but the market forces of supply, demand, and competition have influenced the price, yet, on a long enough time span, the average price of each commodity will be the same.
