4 ms·

Seriously, this _is_ the labor theory of value. Don't know why the other comment to point this out is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value h

by theoh 13y ago

Seriously, this _is_ the labor theory of value. Don't know why the other comment to point this out is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value It's completely inadequate. See, for example http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...

gboudrias 13y ago
I've always been fascinated by people's propensity to write about things they don't know, with the excuse that it's just humanistic sciences. There's a huge body of work that's largely ignored on the Internet, because while the average geek knows a lot about hard sciences, they're very ignorant on humanities (maybe because it's not taken as seriously). (As a side note, it's ironically hard to find out what this guy actually does!)
- smacktoward 13y ago
  In this particular case it may also have something to do with the LTOV's association with Marxist economics. The only thing Americans are expected to know about anything even vaguely associated with Marxism is that it's bad (mmmkay?), so U.S. educational institutions tend to avoid teaching things in that category to students who aren't specializing in economics. Which leads to Americans coming up with their own labels and descriptions for things that Marx observed and labeled long ago. All of which is too bad, because Marx had a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about the problems of industrial economies (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 for a good introduction), even if the solutions that were tried in his name didn't work out. It just wastes people's time and energy having them spin their wheels re-discovering things he discovered 150 years ago.
- zeidrich 13y ago
  The average geek doesn't know a lot about hard sciences. The average geek is self taught and knows how to impress other people with scientific language. Rarely do I run into "geeks" that make me think, "Wow, this guy could write a novel paper on this". More often it's more a matter of "Wow, this guy knows just enough to completely misunderstand the subject but speaks like he has all the answers."
  - Crito 13y ago
    You should hang out with better geeks. Geeks that do, instead of just talk.
    - themusicgod1 13y ago
      I do not think that you'll find geeks who do without gaping holes in their knowledge.
myth_drannon 13y ago
Thanks , really great talk.
marcosdumay 13y ago
Not so. Here, a quote from the beggining of the wikipedia article: > the value of a commodity is only related to the labor The problem is that "only" word. Saying that labor is essential to create value is different from saying that labor is the only component of value. And to take it further, the article claims neither of those, it only says that if you want to turn labor into value, you must apply the labor in some activity that creates value. Yep, quite tautological once you remove all the interesting parts.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  Not to mention that there are multiple, significantly different labor theory of values...
steveklabnik 13y ago
At least in Marx's formulation of the labor theory of value, the TED talk doesn't poke any holes. Exchange value is obviously influenced by a wide variety of things, especially marketing.
sirgawain33 13y ago
Great link to the talk, thank you. I haven't seen a good TED talk in years, but this was an exception. That said, I agree with the other comments in this thread that linking the blog post to the Labor Theory of Value doesn't really make sense. I don't see anywhere in the post that defines "work" in a way that excludes activities that generated perceived value. I think an interesting follow up conversation is to consider what "doing" really means. The Rory Sutherland talk you link makes a compelling case that there is an entire class of activities that generate value for a product/service but that you cannot directly measure in terms of material result (at least not right away) e.g. Frederick the Great spending time convincing people that potatoes are good wouldn't have tangible results until much later when demand rose.

by theoh 13y ago

gboudrias 13y ago

I've always been fascinated by people's propensity to write about things they don't know, with the excuse that it's just humanistic sciences. There's a huge body of work that's largely ignored on the Internet, because while the average geek knows a lot about hard sciences, they're very ignorant on humanities (maybe because it's not taken as seriously). (As a side note, it's ironically hard to find out what this guy actually does!)

smacktoward 13y ago
In this particular case it may also have something to do with the LTOV's association with Marxist economics. The only thing Americans are expected to know about anything even vaguely associated with Marxism is that it's bad (mmmkay?), so U.S. educational institutions tend to avoid teaching things in that category to students who aren't specializing in economics. Which leads to Americans coming up with their own labels and descriptions for things that Marx observed and labeled long ago. All of which is too bad, because Marx had a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about the problems of industrial economies (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 for a good introduction), even if the solutions that were tried in his name didn't work out. It just wastes people's time and energy having them spin their wheels re-discovering things he discovered 150 years ago.
zeidrich 13y ago
The average geek doesn't know a lot about hard sciences. The average geek is self taught and knows how to impress other people with scientific language. Rarely do I run into "geeks" that make me think, "Wow, this guy could write a novel paper on this". More often it's more a matter of "Wow, this guy knows just enough to completely misunderstand the subject but speaks like he has all the answers."
- Crito 13y ago
  You should hang out with better geeks. Geeks that do, instead of just talk.
  - themusicgod1 13y ago
    I do not think that you'll find geeks who do without gaping holes in their knowledge.

myth_drannon 13y ago

Thanks , really great talk.

marcosdumay 13y ago

Not so. Here, a quote from the beggining of the wikipedia article: > the value of a commodity is only related to the labor The problem is that "only" word. Saying that labor is essential to create value is different from saying that labor is the only component of value. And to take it further, the article claims neither of those, it only says that if you want to turn labor into value, you must apply the labor in some activity that creates value. Yep, quite tautological once you remove all the interesting parts.

steveklabnik 13y ago
Not to mention that there are multiple, significantly different labor theory of values...

steveklabnik 13y ago

At least in Marx's formulation of the labor theory of value, the TED talk doesn't poke any holes. Exchange value is obviously influenced by a wide variety of things, especially marketing.

sirgawain33 13y ago

Great link to the talk, thank you. I haven't seen a good TED talk in years, but this was an exception. That said, I agree with the other comments in this thread that linking the blog post to the Labor Theory of Value doesn't really make sense. I don't see anywhere in the post that defines "work" in a way that excludes activities that generated perceived value. I think an interesting follow up conversation is to consider what "doing" really means. The Rory Sutherland talk you link makes a compelling case that there is an entire class of activities that generate value for a product/service but that you cannot directly measure in terms of material result (at least not right away) e.g. Frederick the Great spending time convincing people that potatoes are good wouldn't have tangible results until much later when demand rose.