Talk:Criticisms of the labour theory of value/Archives/2015

Clean-Up

This article needs serious clean-up. Some of the sections in this article seem to have been copy-pasted from the interwebs, and others make no narrative sense. There is little to no unity between sections. Some of the criticisms could be labeled invalid since they don't take into account distinctions between price and value. The whole section on Methodological Individualism says absolutely nothing of consequence:

The Austrian school, led by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, argues against the whole tradition of the LTV (see above). Neoclassical economics also follows this lead — and that of Jevons, Menger, and Walras — from the 1870s and discards the LTV in favour of general equilibrium theory, which determines prices based on the interaction of preferences, technology and endowments through supply and demand. Some Marxists (see analytical Marxism) have adapted to this neoclassical general equilibrium theory with a new emphasis on individual exchange and markets through what they call methodological individualism.

The section says nothing about exactly what the Austrian School argues, nor any of the names previously mentioned. The whole section ought to be scrapped or expanded.

"Proponents of the labor theory of value (LTV) would reply that as capitalism only recognises demand backed by money—the price of a good is not simply measured by its usefulness but by the amount of money consumers own."

While this is a valid criticism of marginalist theories of "value", there is a deeper difference: to adherents of LTV, "value" and "price" are different entities, which are related, but not in a simple, linear way. To marginalists, on the other hand, there is no difference between "value" and "price". 189.9.38.103 (talk) 11:35, 12 November 2015 (UTC)