This question has gradually attracted many Marxist enthusiasts and opponents, and it feels that sooner or later it will develop into “Why has modern Western economics abandoned the labor theory of value?”
Why has modern Western economics abandoned the labor theory of value?
As a Marxist lover and a student of Western economics, I am very disgusted that the discussion only revolves around the original works of Marx and Engels. It is generally accepted by the academic world (and so is common sense) that Capital is an unfinished masterpiece, and many arguments are left to subsequent Marxist scholars. It would be too metaphysical to discuss the Marne Canon in wordless terms without their research.
To accuse the labor theory of value of not being able to compare with the utility theory of value is too “enclosed”. Academic concepts are clarified in comparison. It is meaningless to say that the concept of xx cannot be compared with the concept of xx. It is like a self-talk in a small circle. Only by collision and dialogue can we get a clearer understanding.
In addition, holding a prejudice against all theories of Marxism and believing that they should be “swept into the garbage heap” is not helpful for understanding the laws of economic operation. It is important to know that no matter which textbook of “History of Economic Thought” is published in China or abroad, there will be a separate chapter for Marx, which is enough to demonstrate its important influence on the modern economy and the importance of understanding Marx. If you think that any of Marx’s theories are wrong, you can state your own logic, and then give a value judgment that can only express a position, not a point of view.
How to look at it first. I feel that most of the students who encounter this problem are undergraduates, because there is a big difference between a set of economics theories and the textbook “Economic Life” in the high school politics class, so they feel very confused. Twelve years of primary education has shaped a thinking system, and it is difficult to suddenly switch, at least not accepting a new way of thinking at the beginning. Judging from the problem description, the topic owner is very unacceptable to the utility value theory (using the derogatory term “touting”). If you want to object, read more papers and try to write an article yourself to refute the teacher’s point of view. Whether in the end you find that you’ve been persuaded or you’ve actually succeeded in rebutting, it’s a good mental exercise.
In addition, I think the subject is only discussing where the value comes from, so there is no need to talk about anything. If there is no xx axiology, the xxx theory will cease to exist. It is true that the labor/utility theory of value is the foundation of many theories, but this is not the reason why the labor/utility value theory cannot be refuted. For students or scholars of economics, it is a better way to understand the source of the two concepts and find the similarities and differences.
Let’s talk about the utility theory of value and the labor theory of value.
The previous answer just shows that there are too few liberal arts students in economics, and they all confuse price and value…
First, the utility theory of value does not come from the labor theory of value.
The concept of utility comes from utilitarianism (or hedonism going back to ancient Greece), where people seek what makes them happy and avoid what creates pain, all individuals seeking to maximize total happiness. According to Bentham’s original definition, “utility is that which favors or opposes any action insofar as it is favorable to increase or decrease the happiness of those involved, or, in other words, to promote or hinder those happiness.” And labor is considered “painful.” ‘, and therefore needs to be “compensated”. The earliest utility value theory can be traced back to Papen, who believed that the value of all items comes from their utility; useless things are worthless; the utility of items lies in satisfying needs; all items can satisfy the natural physical and spiritual desires of human beings. Become something useful, and thus have value. Furthermore, Papen predates Adam Smith (Adam Smith also held the labor theory of value), and Bentham predates Marx, so it is impossible that the utility theory of value derives from the labor theory of value.
The research of Arrow and Debreu (1954) also fails to show that the utility theory of value derives from the labor theory of value. The original text assumes, “For labor services, the amount supplied may be regarded as the negative of the rate of ‘consumption’, so that X_hi <= 0 if h denotes a labor service.” This is because labor has negative utility and is considered to be painfully. And suppose VII is only discussing a special case under strict restrictions, namely “if no restriction is imposed on the amount (consumed) of some one type of “productive” labor, then it is possible to increase the output of at least one” desired” commodity (a commodity in D) without decreasing the output or increasing the input of any commodity other than the type of productive labor under consideration.”
The core point of the labor theory of value is that the commodity has value (or exchange value) and use value, and the value comes from the socially necessary labor time required to produce the commodity under normal social production conditions, under the average labor proficiency and labor intensity of the society , while some scholars believe that use value corresponds to utility. Supply and demand do not determine value but determine price. Price fluctuates around value and is not necessarily equal to value. The biggest feature of Marx’s labor theory of value is that, except labor, all other elements cannot create value, and the value created by land and capital is an illusion. This argument refutes Say’s factor theory of value, which refutes the identification of labor and material production factors as a common production input factor that can be obtained only by paying wages.
Secondly, since the subject of the topic is finance, I must have systematically learned the effect value, and most of the previous answers also explained the usefulness of the effect value. Here I will only describe how Marxist economists “defend” the labor theory of value.
Some scholars directly criticized the theory of utility value and the logic behind it . Domestic scholars Wei Xinghua, Zheng Zhiguo, Ding Baojun and other scholars have made a critical review of the “utility value theory” of Western economics and pointed out the vulgarity of this theory. There are two main issues: First, is the utility comparison a qualitative standard or a quantitative standard? In comparing the “total utility” of water and diamonds, the “marginal utility theory” uses a “qualitative” rather than a “quantitative” standard—that is, the “importance” of meeting human needs to measure water and diamonds “total utility”. However, when comparing the “marginal utility” of water and diamonds, the “marginal utility theory” uses a “quantitative” standard instead of a “qualitative” standard—that is, the number of items to measure water and diamonds. The “marginal utility” of diamonds. Second, how does the utility of different items compare quantitatively? The utility of the same kind of goods can certainly be compared in “quantity”. But how does the “quantity” of the utility of different kinds of goods compare? (Marx had an objective analysis of this issue. Regarding the exchange equation of “one quart of wheat = x amount of shoe polish”, Marx pointed out that the quantity here is not the quantity of “utility”, but the quantity of “labor”.)
Another group of scholars indirectly “defend” the labor theory of value by solving the consistency of price and value , that is, to prove the relationship between price and value to support the labor theory of value. The inconsistency between price and value in quantity first came from the “Bomb- Bawerk question ” (in recent years, the domestic insistence on this question is mainly caused by Professor Yan Zhijie). “.
One way is to abstract the unique usefulness of a single commodity to meet people’s needs, and get the concept of ” abstract use value “, which is defined as the usefulness of any commodity to meet people’s needs. Many abstract use value theorists regard use value as the first attribute of commodities, and as the basic category to study commodity exchange and production, while value becomes the appendage of use value (even completely cancelable). The transformation of this research paradigm originates from the identification and analysis of the attributes of use value, and is realized by fully absorbing the basic arguments of the utility value theory. Critics believe that this is just borrowing the coat of Marx’s theoretical system, and its content is consistent with Western economics, and it is also a subversion of Marxist economics.
One approach is to address this discrepancy by studying the problem of transformation, which at its core is ” proving that value determines the price of production “. In the discussion of the transformation problem, it can be divided into A system and B system according to different attitudes towards labor commodities. System A assumes that workers receive wage goods in a given physical form, and the quantity and composition of this group of goods are given exogenously and are the same in the value and production price systems. System B, on the other hand, abandons the assumption of a given wage in kind, and treats the wages earned by workers as part of the value of society’s net product. A branch of System B, the “New Interpretation” school, believes that the reproduction of labor commodities does not belong to the typical reproduction of capital, and another branch of System B, the “average rate of profit unchanged” school, believes that the average rate of profit is under the value and production price system. are equal.
One approach is to have a monetary representation of labor time (“Monetary Representation of Labor Time”, MELT) . They proposed that Marx’s labor theory of value could be reconstructed on the basis of emphasizing the relationship between money and labor time. Consider this a clear monetary representation of labor time that is operational and measurable in any real economy. Some scholars pointed out that “market demand plays an extremely important role in the quantification of labor value.” “In a sector, the value of commodities produced by a single commodity producer can be converted into socially necessary value, so it can also be calculated.”
There is also a view that all calculations of the amount of value are unnecessary . Marx clearly pointed out, “No matter how you reverse each commodity, it is always intangible as a value. But if we remember that commodities have value objects only as the expression of the same social unit, that is, human labor, and therefore they are The objectivity of value is purely social, so it goes without saying that the objectivity of value can only be expressed in the social relationship between commodities and commodities.” “Contemplation of the form of human life . . . begins after the fact, that is, it is It begins with the results of the completed process of development. . . . Therefore, only the analysis of commodity prices leads to the determination of the magnitude of value, and only the common monetary expression of commodities leads to the determination of the nature of their value.” Therefore, the essence of the labor theory of value is not It lies in finding out the quantity of “relative value amount”, but in revealing the essential stipulation of value hidden behind “relative value amount”. This view is further understood from a philosophical point of view, and believes that only “form” can be quantified, because quantification is inseparable from form, and what carries and expresses quantification can only be a certain “form”, just like price in Western economics. For utility is a form.
Let’s add some Western economics research to see how the latest progress in economics understands utility value theory.
Utility has the following properties:
However, the experimental results of behavioral economics and psychology show that these two properties have been challenged, in other words, the rational person hypothesis may not exist (or, in other words, it also needs to assume the premise). Specifically, in two games with roughly equivalent mathematical expectations, subjects often choose the game with high probability and small profit and loss value, but will sell the game with low probability and large profit and loss value at a higher price, which Indicates that people’s preferences for choice and pricing are inconsistent (Lichtenstein and Slovic, 1971; Pommerlme, 1982; Reilly, 1982). [Behavioral economics also presents many irrational phenomena that can explain many events in life. 】
Another interesting debate within economics about labor theory of value and utility value theory is the “Cambridge Capital Debate”. Zhihu has already explained it in detail, so I won’t repeat it here.
references
[1] Stanley L. Blue, Randy R. Grant, Di Xiaoyan. History of Economic Thought (Seventh Edition) [M]. History of Economic Thought, (Seventh Edition). Peking University Press, 2008.
[2] Arrow KJ, Debreu G. Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy[J]. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 1954: 265-290.
[3] Zhao Lei. Criticism of “Utility Value Theory” – Starting from the Logic of “Utility Value” [J]. Contemporary Economic Research, 2019(04): 45-54+113.
[4] Duncan Free, Gao Wei, Zhang Su. The latest development of labor theory of value [J]. Review of Political Economy, 2008 (01): 18-41.
[5] Zhao Lei. Does “Cannot Quantify” Falsify the Labor Theory of Value? [J]. Review of Political Economy, 2017, 8(04): 3-17.
[6] Chen Yang. From System A to System B: A Centennial Review of Transformation Problems [J]. Tsinghua Journal of Political Economy, 2014, 2(01): 53-84.
[7] Rong Zhaozi. The Modern Expression of Transformation Theory and the Final Solution to the Transformation Problem, Commenting on Samuelson’s “Occam’s Razor” [J]. Economics Dynamics, 2009, (10): 45-51.
[8]Rabin M. Psychology and economics[J]. Journal of economic literature, 1998, 36(1): 11-46.
Source: Zhihu www.zhihu.com
Author: Peng Peng Qimai
[Zhihu Daily] The choice of tens of millions of users, to be a big cow to share new things in the circle of friends.
click to download
There are 152 more answers to this question, see all.
Further reading:
What is the relationship between the labor theory of value and the theorem of one price?
This article is reproduced from: http://www.zhihu.com/question/447645647/answer/1767994448?utm_campaign=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_content=title
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.