Is socially necessary labor really the only source of value in society...

It was an example. I ignored the labor it takes to grow the trees, the cost it takes to buy the land, etc. That doesn't disprove that value stems only from labor. Regarding energy, I don't know how this thermoeconomic thing works. Please elaborate.
I could have chosen a better example.

Marxists wish that sentimental value, moral value and aesthetic value were not values.

That's not what Marx means by value. Value, Wert, is a terminus technicus for Marx. Morals, emotions and aesthetics can't be measured.

...

The worth of a person's life can't be measured either.

it literally does, you just said it yourself my man

the reason why I believe thermoeconomics can really help Marx and Marxist is because I feel there is a hole in his labour theory of value, he even tries to fix this in his critique of the gotha programme, where he implies value also comes from natural wealth, if this is true, then where does the wealth found in natural resources stems from? a thermoeconomic answer would be that they are composed in certain ways so that they require lots of energy to be formed, as in the death of a star and so on, if this is true, then value equals energy, it takes energy to realize a commodity in a market, from the conceptualization of the commodity to it's realization as a commodity at the hands of the consumer, it takes energy for this process to take place, the energy that capitalism needs to function. this would take us to the following conclusion, the necessity to ablish capitalism is not a historical, but a scientific one, as capitalism is a system that requires a higher energy output than input and this is physically impossible

labour by itself is an action, an action that applies energy via force, hence why labour is work and again, work that applies a force that transform energy into commodities

good thing time exist, and that we can use time to measure work, which can help us find the amount of energy net exchange within an economic system

Wrong tha apples from my garden have a higher value to me then those from the groceries because chances are apples from the groceries are Monsanto Apples while ones from the garden aren’t. It’s important to differentiate between personal value and value as in SNLT.

Physiocracy sucks for the same fundamental reason the LTV sucks, but my man you btfo'd that brainlet.

I literally have autistically long blog essays justtakong down both the LTV and physiocracy in two blows: one as the determination of value based on what value means and truly is, and one on the demystification of labor's power of surplus production which capital exploits. Indeed, somehow people forget that nature's energy and capacities are the source of all surplus, including labor.

mind sending me a link to those essays fam?

would also like these

As a treefucker I will not deny that one of founding pillar of capitalistic mode of production is exploitation of nature but what do you propose as an alternative tool really? Can we really expect people to see beyond everything before even curing classcuckoldery?

It does?
Where does kinetic energy come from? It's biochemical energy. How does one attain it? By using means of consumption, like food and water, which is produced by other people's labor. Now, you also need the warmth of the sun and oxygen, but none of that is scarce.
Where? It's been a while since I've read it and I don't remember that. According to the LTV, high energy outputs don't necessarily create more value if we think about C+L=W, since in the end it's talking about equilibirum prices

They're unpublished and I have jus been too lazy to make final passes. The one on surplus should be out this weekend. It's actually for the purpose of making it clear that the claims of capital stealing from labor are very stupid, and Communists cannot argue from that standpoint without accepting the legitimacy of private property and the disproven theory of property claims legitimated on labor contribution.

The idea is to explore the nature of surplus production as a process of subordinating and using nature for ourselves, then this leads into the myth of property that arises by claiming nature's work as our own. This analogizes to how capital claims our labor as its own on the same logic.

not him but

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

yes, but the labour it takes to grow a tree is the result of aggregates of labour, Marx recognizes this.How can I realize the value an apple tree has if it's in the middle of nowhere? the only way I can realize this value is if someone delivers an apple to where I am located

this person would have an energy expenditure, similar energy expenditure to the one I would have if I were to get the apple myself, if we understand and agree that energy is valuable, then we understand that in order to consume the apple, a valuable action takes place, this action being acquiring the apple, we understand how an isolated act of labour is not the only source of value

sure, but again, the source of energy is just another form of energy, which as a result implies that energy is the main source, the other concepts being dealt here stem from it, we can attain energy by applying a force to a certain object via work, which is precisely what you described, we are in the same plane here.

this is where the social necessity of labour comes in, and why capitalism is bound to fail,as it won't reach an equilibrium

going back to the original point, a single isolated act of labour does not create the value, as a whole, that a commodity has

Nature is an arbitrary force. Nature doesn't work, it just exists. There isn't a dichotomy between humanity as a biochemical phenomenon and the rest of nature. The reason there is a difference between human labor to harvest the fruits of nature and the composition of the fruits of nature itself, is that that the former is a conscious, deterministic process.

it does tho

Fair enough. But roughly, the energy output between two different kinds of labor is usually the same, confirming the LTV. Someone who does more physical demanding labor doesn't need much more energy input, or at least not significantly more, it's still roughly three meals a day.
Yes. Law of conservation of energy means that energy never gets used up, which means that the only way to transform energy is labor. Energy as a measurement has no value, as it doesn't become less, just changes its state of matter.
No disagreement here

Semantics, the difference is still that it is neither conscious nor deterministic. Unless you are religious of something, which I highly doubt judging by your flag.

Then why does it matter that labourer is conscious of his/her act or not?

Mother nature won't seize her memes of production by eradicating humanity from the surface of this planet but I can imagine some sad nihilist stretching LTV formula to demand such extreme measure.

Then again I always thought and probably will consider LTV as a rather convenient tool for explaining exploitive nature of the capitalism but nothing more than that. If we try to talk about deeper implication of the 'origin of value' we will always end up like thread like this. Which is entertaining but not amounting to anything practical for now

yes to all your points, we are in synchrony, however there is an issue here, and why I think we should use thermodynamics to explain the LTV.

true, however, this doesn't mean all energy inputs end up in the form of the desired output, energy is transformed into other sources of energy, these sources of energy being such where obtaining the energy back is a lot more energy consuming than the net amount of energy we will be obtaining, what does this mean to Marxism? easily, the energy was never available to society, it never satisfied a social necessity, if we take the strawman of the mudpies as an example, mudpies having no value because they do not satisfy a social necessity, we can also affirm that the energy expended, and the energy within mudpies cannot fulfill a social need. we can still explain basic marxist terms with theroeconomics

true,but it becomes less avaliable.

The laborer tries to achieve a conscious goal. Nature doesn't. Some animals do as well, but not in an abstract way, they are regulated by instincts. Only humans have a concept of use-value. In the end, humans as biochemical creatures aren't different from nature, but the act of conscious labor is.

I'd argue that hunger, thirst, the desire to reproduce etc. are part of nature. The process of satisfying them aren't once we start planning ahead, which begins with the invention of fire.

I'll answer tomorrow as I'm getting quite tired

Although humans have more options and availablity compared with their wildlife counterparts, your statement sounds weird. Did you mean exchange value?

Pretty much. Think about it they really just manage capitalism of other economies that produce use values.

SLNT is the best argument against capitaism. So much time wasted on bullshit.

alright my dude

A dog is just entertaining, it doesn't 'work' at it. If you charge people to be entertained by your dog, you're doing so by claiming what it >does< is your labor somehow according to the LTV and the theory of labor as legitimating property claims.

"Socially necessary labour" is not a thing. Socially necessary labour time is what determines the magnitude of value, but it's not the source of value. Things become commodities and thus have value if they are products of labour and enter exchange. So you could say that labour and exchange are the sources of value. But keep in mind that value and wealth are not the same.

Services are usually seen as commodities that are consumed at the same time they are produced and they do have value and the magnitude of value is determined by SNLT the same way as with any other commodity.

It says nothing about value. It talks about use values only.

Services are commodities.

Nature is a source of use values

*Chose

...

Wow rude

Underrated post.

t. Marxist

I think the idea is that a lot of services are similar to what priests and aristocrats may have done in the distant past. As in, the work they did didn't actually feed anybody, house them, or assist in their "fundamental" living conditions. But, the work they did had a lot to do with shaping and maintaining the cultural superstructure.

Those people are dependent on the "productive labor" to do what they do. They couldn't live in the same conditions (in palaces with food, clothing, weapons or doing rituals in temples) without the peasants or slaves to create those conditions. So the work of the peasants and slaves is more elementary and weight bearing than the abstract work of the upper echelons.

But this isn't an actual value-judgement so much as a statement of which way dependency runs in the economy. Money can only buy accountants so long as they have such productive activities to account for, and facebook can only sell information to corporations so long as that information somehow relates to the decisions of production and distribution in that economic base.

'Value Theory of Labor' > 'Labor Theory of Value'