4 ms·

Not exactly, because the master woodworker’s prior labor to gain that experience would factor into the value assessment.

prometheus76 5y ago
OK here's my third refutation of the labor theory of value: you and I both have 1,000 hours of experience making bookshelves. You spend 50 hours making a beautiful bookshelf, and you carve scrollwork into the legs of the shelf and beautiful scrollwork into the front of each shelf, and it is level, square, and plumb. I spend 50 hours making a bookshelf, but it has one leg that is much thinner than the rest, and there is no scrollwork because I don't know how to do that, and I didn't really measure anything, I just kind of eyeballed it, so everything is out of plumb and out of square, and the bookshelf is rickety, at best. According to the labor theory of value, our bookshelves are worth the same amount, because you put 50 hours into making yours, and I put 50 hours into making mine, and we have the same prior experience.
- just-ok 5y ago
  Heh, this is kinda fun. Another follow-up question, then: How did you manage to spend 50 hours making it? Did you sit there, painstakingly, making one leg thinner than the rest for some reason? Did you sleep? Did you spend 20 hours of it browsing HN? In either case, this would likely fall under the category of unproductive labor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_and_unproductive_labour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_and_unproductive_la... There's also the distinction of "socially-necessary labor", which feels (to me) like Marx's parallel to subjective value - the more socially-necessary, the more valuable the labor (a nice table vs. a crappy one). In any case, the value is not just a measure of "hours put in" as you're making it out to be here; clearly I put more labor into it than you if mine looks/performs better in the same amount of time.

prometheus76 5y ago

OK here's my third refutation of the labor theory of value: you and I both have 1,000 hours of experience making bookshelves. You spend 50 hours making a beautiful bookshelf, and you carve scrollwork into the legs of the shelf and beautiful scrollwork into the front of each shelf, and it is level, square, and plumb. I spend 50 hours making a bookshelf, but it has one leg that is much thinner than the rest, and there is no scrollwork because I don't know how to do that, and I didn't really measure anything, I just kind of eyeballed it, so everything is out of plumb and out of square, and the bookshelf is rickety, at best. According to the labor theory of value, our bookshelves are worth the same amount, because you put 50 hours into making yours, and I put 50 hours into making mine, and we have the same prior experience.

just-ok 5y ago
Heh, this is kinda fun. Another follow-up question, then: How did you manage to spend 50 hours making it? Did you sit there, painstakingly, making one leg thinner than the rest for some reason? Did you sleep? Did you spend 20 hours of it browsing HN? In either case, this would likely fall under the category of unproductive labor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_and_unproductive_labour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_and_unproductive_la... There's also the distinction of "socially-necessary labor", which feels (to me) like Marx's parallel to subjective value - the more socially-necessary, the more valuable the labor (a nice table vs. a crappy one). In any case, the value is not just a measure of "hours put in" as you're making it out to be here; clearly I put more labor into it than you if mine looks/performs better in the same amount of time.