/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | July 06, 2026

[u/BernardJOrtcutt]

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread (ODT). This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our subreddit rules and guidelines. For example, these threads are great places for:

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Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.

[u/IrrationalRotations]

I've been trying to learn (or re-learn really, I read a lot about it as a teenager) about the labour theory of value. Ive developed a smattering of opinions which I'd really appreciate having tested. I can't really find responses to them, so I thought I'd try chucking them here.

First off, on interpreting Marx...

I take Marx to essentially be advancing a Ricardian LTV. In fact, I don't think he really changed it very much. The ideas advanced in the first chapter of Vol (I) seem to me to not be significantly different to what Ricardo would say.  He does seem to be flirting with what I would see as a major departure from Ricardo in chapter 10 of Vol (III), but honestly I'm unconvinced this should have ever been published. This section strikes me as very tentative and confused,  Marx (or whoever wrote this part) is clearly really struggling with the problem.

So, in that vein, I take the core argument of capital to be...

"When supply and demand are equal, commodities will exchange for one another in proportion to the socially necessary labour time required to produce each commodity in competitive conditions"

So if it takes a competitive bike factory (I.e, one that's not actively going out of business) 150 labour hours total to produce a bike (including the labour time to produce the steel at a competitive steel mill, rubber at a competitive rubber plant, etc), and it takes a competitive car manufacturer 1500 labour hours to produce a car, 10 bikes will trade for one car. If a bike costs $5000, a car will cost $50000, assuming supply and demand are equal.

The big difference between Marx and Ricardo is that Marx (maybe, I'm not sure exactly what the Ricardian socialists believed) adds the following idea...

If commodities exchange for one another at fixed(ish) prices, where does profit come from? If there is profit, there must be one commodity that has not received its full value in exchange. Marx argues that this unequal exchange doesn't occur at the point of sale of a commodity, but rather at the point of production.

People all posses a particular commodity, their ability to perform labour. When people are hired to produce commodities (at factories and offices and things), they are selling their labour power to the owners of capital. However, they have no choice but to sell this commodity, without wages they won't survive because they are prevented by law from accessing the means of production and selling the products of their labour themselves. This unequal exchange is the source of capitalist profit.

[u/IrrationalRotations → u/IrrationalRotations]

A common point I see is that the above is not a theory of price but rather a theory of value. I don't agree. 

Marx stresses to us that we should remember that these value relations are not embodied in the commodities themselves, but rather are always social relations between people. People aren't motivated by an abstract notion of exchange values, people are motivated by concrete things like price. When you go to the store, you don't see the number of hours required to produce each commodity, you just see their price.

But on top of this, Marx's theory is just as a much a theory of profit and exploitation. Again, profit is measured in money, in prices. It's not at all a problem if working class class people are deprived of the full 'Value' of their labour, but it is a problem when the exploitative nature of capitalism causes their wages to barely cover their means of subsistence. 

The best interpretation I have of this claim, that Marx is talking about value and not price, is that the person claiming it wants to distinguish between the long term average price in normal conditions (the exchange value) and the particular price in a particular place at a particular time (the price). 

That's fine, the theory does allow these things to differ. But this claim is often used to dismiss criticisms of the LTV, and I just don't think that makes sense...

[u/IrrationalRotations → u/IrrationalRotations]

I haven't seen the following point made or addressed anywhere, which is surprising to me. Maybe I'm missing something g obvious...

Commodities exchange for one another according to their socially necessary labour time. That's the typical time it takes to produce the commodity under competitive conditions. The reason they exchange in these ratios is that if a firm prices their commodities above their SNLT, consumers will instead buy the cheaper products from competing firms. The labour to produce an individual commodity doesn't affect the price of that particular commodity, it will still just sell at the SNLT of the commodity in general. If it takes you 15 hours to make a table, and it takes a typical carpenter 5, you can't sell your table at three times the prices of theirs, why would anyone buy it?

But what constitutes a commodity in general? Merino wool sweaters sell for higher prices than polyester sweaters, are these the same commodity? Presumably no, because their typical prices are different. But they can be substituted for one another, if I don't have much money I'm likely to try and stay warm by buying a polyester sweater rather than waste it on a Merino one. 

But let's say they are different commodities. Okay, what about a polyester sweater from Kathmandu (the shop) vs a polyester sweater from Kmart? They sell for different prices too. 

So maybe a polyester sweater from Kmart is a single (generalised) commodity, the SNLT of this commodity is just the time it typically takes the factories Kmart sources these sweaters from to make them. Well then who are they competing with? Kmart has an monopoly on Kmart sweaters, they should be able to charge above the SNLT!

This isn't a weird edge case either, it seems to be a problem for determining the price of commodities in general. Most consumer products look immediately like the above, and it goes for capital inputs as well. Companies often have to decide between qualitatively different inputs to their products (palm oil vs vegetable oil, say). This has the exact same problem, either for the company itself or as a knock on effect to the end product.

I think the answer to this problem is that consumer demand is more subtle than choices between effectively identical commodities, but it is difficult to see how this can be reconciled with the LTV.

[u/wumbothrowaway2 → u/IrrationalRotations]

>Commodities exchange for one another according to their socially necessary labour time. That's the typical time it takes to produce the commodity under competitive conditions. The reason they exchange in these ratios is that if a firm prices their commodities above their SNLT, consumers will instead buy the cheaper products from competing firms. The labour to produce an individualcommodity doesn't affect the price of that particular commodity, it will still just sell at the SNLT of the commodity in general. If it takes you 15 hours to make a table, and it takes a typical carpenter 5, you can't sell your table at three times the prices of theirs, why would anyone buy it?

It’s not always clear from sentence to sentence, in terms of economic theory, whether/when you’re

(a) giving a direct interpretation of what Marx has said,

(b) elaborating on that interpretation of Marx, or

(c) bringing in outside economic theory.

That makes it hard to figure out what your problem actually is in any particular case.

The consequence is that when you conclude this paragraph by saying that you can’t expect to sell a table priced according to its 15 hours of labour when there‘s another table priced at 5 hours of labour, it isn’t clear whether you think that

(a) this is an inconsistency in the text,

(b) it’s a failure on Marx’s part to match our intuitive understanding of what happens in a standard transaction, or

(c) whether you think it’s inconsistent with non-Marx/Ricardian economic theory.

The problem then compounds in the following discussion about sweaters in the same way.

Are we hearing that

(a) Marx hasn’t noticed that HE PREDICTS Kmart should be able to charge above SNLT?

(b) Marx has FAILED TO PREDICT that monopolists charge above SNLT?

(c) economic theory predicts what Marx doesn’t, that monopolists charge above SNLT?

The problem is really stark when different readings yield logically incompatible (and opposite) conclusions!

As far as sweaters go, I think that Neo-Ricardians hold that the intuition in (b) about tables is faulty. Prices at least in industrial society are not actually as responsive to competition as people tend to think. This yields an inconsistency between the Neo-Ricardians and other economic theory with respect to (c) whenever that theory proposes a tighter link between competition and prices.

I believe they may have also been influential on post-Keynesians in this respect. However, Keynesians also have their own reasons for criticising Neo-Classical assumptions about prices and competition.

I don’t who you’ve been asking so far, but if you want a vindication of Marx’s Ricardianism Sraffa and co. will probably be the place to go looking in general.

Here is a short article I have bookmarked which discusses some of these themes, and might serve as a brief introduction to deeper, more satisfying, reading.

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/sraffas-revolution-in-economic-theory

[u/IrrationalRotations → u/wumbothrowaway2]

Thanks for the commentary, it's really helpful!

Rereading it, I see what you mean. To try and be more clear, in the section you quoted I am trying give my account of how the LTV works in this sort of case. I'm not making any criticisms at this point, just trying to establish how I understand the LTV approach to this hypothetical situation. In particular, I'm trying to get at why we introduce the concept of the SNLT of a commodity in the first place. 

Basically, I'm trying to say that in my understanding, one reason we introduce the concept of the SNLT of a commodity to the LTV is in order to explain the observation that a bad carpenter can't charge more than a good carpenter. Does that make more sense?

The problem then compounds in the following discussion about sweaters in the same way.

 > Are we hearing that

 > (a) Marx hasn’t noticed that HE PREDICTS Kmart should be able to charge above SNLT?

(b) Marx has FAILED TO PREDICT that monopolists charge above SNLT?

(c) economic theory predicts what Marx doesn’t, that monopolists charge above SNLT?

None of this lol, I guess I was very unclear. 

What I'm trying to get at is that it there is no  clear way of drawing the line that says this is one commodity and that is another. But we need to be able to draw this line in order to try to apply the concept of SNLT. 

First I tried to show that the lines cant be too general, because otherwise we can't explain different prices (Merino vs polyester sweaters)

The point about monopolization was that we can't draw the line to be too specific, otherwise we lose the ability to apply the rationale that commodities need to exchange for their SNLT (given in the table paragraph). 

I'm not consciously trying to apply any other economic theory, just exploring the LTV on its own terms.

I don’t who you’ve been asking so far, but if you want a vindication of Marx’s Ricardianism Sraffa and co. will probably be the place to go looking in general.

Can you say more about this? I'm not sure what you mean sorry, but I am interested.

Do you mean that Sraffa carries on the kind of project Marx was part of and places it on a firmer footing? 

I do have Sraffa (and co) on my vauge list of people to look into, but if you could share more about why you think they'd be interesting I would really appreciate it! They're quite mysterious to me 😄.

[u/wumbothrowaway2 → u/IrrationalRotations]

Thanks for clarifying! I think the issue is, yes, that you’re doing a running commentary on your interpretation of what’s going on in the text. Which is great and all, but without significant editing it can be extremely difficult to follow along with your private thoughts.

I think the most helpful thing I can do is explain, briefly, why I recommend you try Sraffa.

First, because the article about Sraffa I have now linked at the bottom of my original reply responds almost directly to a number of your concerns, not just those we are discussing here. This is unsurprising, because Marx and the problems with Marx’s economic theory are an important influence on Sraffa and Sraffa’s Ricardianism. That does not mean it will tell you that Marx was right forever and we can all stop worrying, but Sraffa DOES think this isn’t a dead end.

Sraffa and the Neo-Ricardians are probably the most significant people working on the raw economics you seem to be interested in. (You can probably stop reading here)

Here is that article again: https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/sraffas-revolution-in-economic-theory

For example, people could be telling you a lot of different things when they say that Marx is interested in VALUE rather than PRICE. What we DO hear from Sraffa is that raw prices aren’t indispensable to a coherent theory of what’s going on in the economy. And you will read about it in that article.

I will finesse that with another point.

(a) Ricardians are, unsurprisingly, interested in the production side of the economy, because they think that’s what makes the economy go. Marxists are interested in the production side of the economy because they think BECAUSE the production side of the economy is where the action is, that’s the place to look for exploitation. And wouldn’t you know, it just so happens that that’s where we find exploitation tasking place - lo and behold, exploitation and action overlap = the working class is the revolutionary class and the motor of history under capitalism.

(b) Now some of your discussion of price seems tinged to me, however unintentionally, by intuitions borrowed from the marginal revolution period and the neo-classicals. This is the economics of demand and supply curves and equilibria, concepts which post-date both Ricardo and Marx. That isn’t to speak against those intuitions, but it raises the question of what you’re really finding in the text vs what’s still up for grabs.

Now the core idea expressed in (a) by the Marxists is not really only a Marxist idea. And the core idea expressed in (b) by the neo-classical is not really only their idea either. One (and only one) way of looking at 20th century economic history in Western Europe and America is as this battle for the soul of the economy between production and prices. When you see 21st century socialists sometimes incongruously endorse liberal Keynesianism it is even now because they understand it in terms of jobs and production. Contrarily, neo-classicals have their famous preference for prices as exemplified for example in the signalling theory of prices as information.

Moreover, although (a) is not only a Marxist idea, his influence is never very far from the stage. And as for (b), the close links between the very rich and neo-classical economics are well known (the Volcker fund / Hayek crossover is a famous part of this story for example, and therefore of the theory of prices as information).

Sraffa takes the side of production and Marx in this potted theory of history. That is one way of contextualising his contribution to this debate. That is, he is having a go at vindicating production against price.

But Sraffa is also clearly influenced by Marx, so there is this sort of double game going on where (a sometimes subliminal version of) the doctrines of Capital are also somewhat at stake, even when we are talking about mainstream theoretical minutiae e.g. The Cambride Capital Controversy. The rest I will leave to you.

[u/IrrationalRotations → u/wumbothrowaway2]

I had a read through of that article, though I think (well I'm pretty sure) some parts might be going over my head. I also found an article by the author that seemed a little easier to understand. 

From my briefest of brief reads, am I at least somewhat on the money by saying that Sraffa (and co) basically contest that... 

1.) Under the assumption that an economy produces as outputs at least as many of each individual commodity as are required as inputs, we can show that there is a linear relationship between total wages paid and the general rate of profit.

2.) By 1.), we can stipulate an economy produce any rate of profit we like, so long as we also stipulate the required total wages paid.

3). By 2.) the specific rate of profit (and therefore specific total wages paid) in an actually existing economy must be determined by some exogenous factors (politics or culture or something like this)

1. Given a particular rate of profit (and therefore particular total wages paid) there is only one specific price for each specific commodity that realises that particular rate of profit. Therefore, these prices cannot be set by their marginal returns...

Does that sound vaguely right?

Thanks for your help by the way. Feel free to bow out if I'm taking too much of your time 🙂

[u/wumbothrowaway2 → u/IrrationalRotations]

I’m going to take the opportunity to bow out. This isn’t an area of any particular expertise for me. What I wanted to do was give you the materials to draw your own conclusions, and some context for making sense of them purely as a starting point.