On the contrary, I think applying theoretical models to current real-world economics is the only way to make sense of where theory and reality deviate.

I agree. My original "reminder" was to point out that deviations occur. The mental shortcut that I meant was to only take LTV into account when discussing economics.

I would have found it more interesting if you had been more specific in how you think LTV was being misused.

I don't know if "misused" is the right term, but one example where LTV falls flat is that it doesn't model the destruction of value due to environmental pollution.

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 1 points 11 months ago

After watching the video you've been citing, i think i understand where you're coming from now.

You have to understand that absent the necessary context, 'LTV isn't objectively true' can come across as a troll. Because while nobody was actually mentioning LTV, the assumption that people in the thread were thinking it - and misusing it as a way to quantify some value for stolen labor - is a bit insulting.

Unlearning economics is taking LTV as a theory of 'exchange value' and evaluating it on economic terms. That isn't to say those critiques aren't valid (they are), but it does two things that might mislead someone into thinking leftists don't understand economics and mistakenly believe something that's incorrect:

He discusses Adam Smith as having developed the labor theory of value first, then discusses it as something new when he gets to Marx at the end of the video. It makes it unintentionally seem like LTV is a Marxist conception when even he mentions that it isn't
He starts the video discussing what 'value' is and how various scholars tried to define it, but then carries on with the rest of the video with the implication that 'value' is synonymous with 'economic value' and then evaluates Marx's theory by taking that as granted.

These aren't even a critique of him - he runs an economics youtube channel, it makes sense that he'd be evaluating these theories from that lens. But as you mentioned before, LTV (as Marx uses it) is useful as a political philosophy more than an economic model. Admittedly, I read Capital through the lens of metaphysics, so Marx's discussions of calculating the values of various things came across less as explicit proofs for determining objective value and more like a critique of the economic theories of the time. I can't speak to the intent of those assertions, but I can tell you that I (and many other) leftists do not evaluate labor-value-relations as quantifiable properties but as a way of evaluating the success and failure of capitalism to promote it.

You and I agree that 'value' as capitalism accounts for it, does not satisfy a idealistic definition of value; if economic value and abstract value were the same, there wouldn't be that contradiction that you pointed to (e.g. the creation of economic value coming at the cost of environmental pollution, ect). Similarly, I view the employee-employer relationship as fundamentally in-tension, and I see "stolen labor value" as an accurate framing from the point of view of competing interests.

Sorry for mistaking your intentions, it wasn't my intention to bully you.