Originally Posted by elphenor

I've only been repeating myself regardless of how wordy I can make it

it's not a Marxist trope, Adam Smith was a proponent of Labor Theory of Value

Originally Posted by Doug McClasky

Yeah see I think you're missing that value does not exist an economic bubble. Value is at least partially a power transaction. Unions lobby for minimum wage and the value of labor goes up, not for any market reason, but because power has been "paid" by the unions to make it so. Minimum wage employees aren't paid low wages simply because of the value of their labor, they're paid low wages because of the power imbalance between employer and employee (e.g. corporate lobbying for the benefit of the company, lack of unions, etc). Countries with sweatshop labor don't have less valuable labor, the workers lack even more power than we do.

Attributing value simply to supply and demand implies some sort of mathematical legitimacy. It's that way because that's how the system simply functions. That's not how the system functions though. Power transactions from both workers and employers act as leverage to alter how the system functions.

Originally Posted by elphenor

in fact

private property

classical liberalism

John Locke....Rousseau all those mates

proponents of Labor Theory of Value

Marx just asks the same question they did of Kings, in a different time

Originally Posted by jwb

this has already basically been addressed.

Unions work to the extent they mobilize collective bargaining. Which makes cheap labor harder to get. So does minimum wage. All this is perfectly in line with what I've said this far.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.

Originally Posted by elphenor

the employee is entitled to the Value Added

Originally Posted by Doug McClasky

wut

Minimum wage doesn't make cheap labor harder to get. Under a certain level it eliminates it. You're also ignoring the point. Unions through threat of strikes, or even violence, and companies through lobbying alter value based on non-market factors via power. If a corporation is increasing the value of whatever they're selling by having laws enacted or struck down that artificially inflate value then value is meaningless. All you're talking about is power. And power is not actually a synonym for money.

Originally Posted by elphenor

the employee is entitled to the Value Added

"value of the employee" is, idk, it doesn't mean anything

value of employees labor, is the Value Added