Forums of the Libertarian Left

As some of you know, Noor and I have been busy attacking STV. We wrote a FAQ about it:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhbvr2gz_506v2f83dh

I also recently wrote an entry against an attack on LTV on Jew Rockwell's site:
http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2 ... v-i-reply/

The ancaps are cutting quite a weak, pathetic figure through all this. It only reminds me of how vacuous the ideology is. Even when I was an ancap, I'd have had no argument against this. I just believed in STV out of pure dogma, and so do they.

"the value of the product, which is a property of the object itself"

Francois, This seems to be the what you're arguing for. I've tried to find where you actually argued for this and I haven't really found it. I'm not trying to play dumb but could please explain why economic value is intrinsic to an object?

I've been following this Noor/Franc tag team of Fr33agents and elsewhere and I'm not sure I've figured out the arguments either.

Francois Tremblay wrote:The ancaps are cutting quite a weak, pathetic figure through all this. It only reminds me of how vacuous the ideology is. Even when I was an ancap, I'd have had no argument against this. I just believed in STV out of pure dogma, and so do they.

Actually, the "ancap" who has been giving you the most trouble is really a left-lib with social anarchist credentials far, far better than your own -- and you should know that. The arguments you have been getting, on your own blog and on Flag, are real arguments, which you are simply not addressing.

The problem is probably that you believed a dogma, and therefore believe that everyone else must as well. But that's pretty obviously not the case -- and you appear to have just changed dogmas.

Value is inherently social, or, at minimum, relational. If you attempt to talk about economic value without addressing inputs and preferences, you will probably fall on your face. Clear thinkers on both sides of the (largely useless) LTV/STV divide understand this. The "amount of labor" that is in some (fairly rough) sense inherent in an object represents a cost that may include every sort of marginal consideration. "Value in exchange" and "value is use" are inextricably tied together. Etc. Nothing is being clarified in these debates, and it seems likely that no one's interests are being served except those of a few hardened sectarians.

Rorshak (1313) wrote:"the value of the product, which is a property of the object itself"

Francois, This seems to be the what you're arguing for. I've tried to find where you actually argued for this and I haven't really found it. I'm not trying to play dumb but could please explain why economic value is intrinsic to an object?

I'm not talking about economic value per se, I'm talking about the term "the value of a product," meaning an attribute of the product, as opposed to the values of the individual, which are relative to the individual.

Shawn, you've been on my ignore list for months now, I don't know why you're still posting on my threads. I've seen what you have to say about my arguments in other places, and to be honest, to me it's just more of your pedantic assholery.

FYI, I let Franc write up the entirety of the STV/LTV stuff, so blame him for that one.

My thoughts exactly, Shawn. On Fr33agents, I read 18 pages of comments that involved ignoring (often contemptuously) very legitimate points and objections. That says nothing about whether the argument is correct or not, but there certainly seem to be valid concerns that aren't being taken with the seriousness they deserve. It's not clear yet that "interest/profit is evil" is anything more than dogma either until we reach a certain level of understanding that goes beyond simply wrapping ourselves in radical jargon. We run the risk of earning the crank label often given to us by the right if we can't do a better job and that job is unfinished as far as I can tell.

Francois Tremblay wrote:

Rorshak (1313) wrote:"the value of the product, which is a property of the object itself"

Francois, This seems to be the what you're arguing for. I've tried to find where you actually argued for this and I haven't really found it. I'm not trying to play dumb but could please explain why economic value is intrinsic to an object?

I'm not talking about economic value per se, I'm talking about the term "the value of a product," meaning an attribute of the product, as opposed to the values of the individual, which are relative to the individual.

Shawn, you've been on my ignore list for months now, I don't know why you're still posting on my threads. I've seen what you have to say about my arguments in other places, and to be honest, to me it's just more of your pedantic assholery.

I'm having trouble grasping what you mean by "value of a product". What is it, and how is it separate from any value judgments?

Look, if you're not even going to try to read what Shawn says, please read it here because it's an excellent point.

"Value is inherently social, or, at minimum, relational. If you attempt to talk about economic value without addressing inputs and preferences, you will probably fall on your face. Clear thinkers on both sides of the (largely useless) LTV/STV divide understand this. The "amount of labor" that is in some (fairly rough) sense inherent in an object represents a cost that may include every sort of marginal consideration. "Value in exchange" and "value is use" are inextricably tied together. Etc. Nothing is being clarified in these debates, and it seems likely that no one's interests are being served except those of a few hardened sectarians."

From what I've seen (and I've seen a lot), it may be better for Franc and other LTVists to avoid the word "value" and stick with another term (I can't think of any better ones right now, though). It seems that "moral values are subjective" is a truism, which Franc accepts as well, but when he talks about "value" as being an innate property, then that's where things go bad because others think of values as in the sense of being relational to the moral agent.

He's argued that STV is based on the equivocation fallacy because it equivocates "moral value" with "material value" when others don't think of "material value" being a part of reality.

Noor hit the nail on the head exactly. We probably need another term, in order to clarify our position away from the nonsensical usages of STV proponents.

I'm having trouble grasping what you mean by "value of a product". What is it, and how is it separate from any value judgments?

It has to be separate, since the value-judgments are relative to the individuals, and as such are no help when trying to determine the attributes of an object. If there is no "value of a product" (as an attribute of the product) independent from value-judgments, then it doesn't exist at all, and value theory is pointless.

Francois, if you want to call the willingness to do the homework and a desire to avoid needless and useless battles "pedantic asshonery," well, it will only confirm my low-and-lowering opinion of you. I'm sitting here rereading Proudhon's work on value (in the Contradictions) -- just one of the places you could have looked for clarification of the issues -- and it's so freaking good. And it's an analysis which, while clarifying the various aspects of value, focuses on the real problems of privilege and unearned increase, avoiding all the mechanical interpretations of labor-value, and the problems inherent in them.

The notion that people you dislike shouldn't respond to you in public forums is silly. Perhaps you would like to wish away everyone who disagrees with you, but it ain't that simple. And, after all, you say such silly things...

Perhaps "innate worth" or "innate utility" might work better? I'm still trying to wrap my head around some of this myself, though.

But Zhwazi worded it quite well once when he stated it as "The reasons why people value things the way they do are distinctly objective. Subjective values have objective causes."

And yes, Franc I know you can't stand Z. Which is why I shall quote him all day.

Since when did the ancaps have some kind of exclusive monopoly on the STV such that STV implies ancap and non-ancap implies non-STV? STV is a plain fact of reality. Rejecting it because ancaps believe it is like rejecting 2+2=4 because Stalin believed it.

If I'm not mistaken, Kevin Carson's version of the LTV is set up to be compatible with the STV (since STV is a statement about what value is, and the LTV is a statement about the tendency of prices.) IIRC, his argument is that in a free market, if prices and labor-disutility are out of proportion, then workers will be drawn to producing the "overpriced" goods and will shift professions, causing a supply-curve shift and bringing the price back down. In short, the desire for the product really only affects the quantity, and the labor-disutility of producing it is what affects the price.

If I understand correctly, Franc doesn't argue that moral values are not subjective, he just argues that the material value (based on the non-subjective properties/attributes) is not relative to anyone.

I like Carson's version of the LTV (which reminds me of Adam Smith's?), although I've had ancaps use examples of people buying designer stuff as a counter-example.

Francois Tremblay wrote:As some of you know, Noor and I have been busy attacking STV. We wrote a FAQ about it:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhbvr2gz_506v2f83dh

I also recently wrote an entry against an attack on LTV on Jew Rockwell's site:
http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2 ... v-i-reply/

The ancaps are cutting quite a weak, pathetic figure through all this. It only reminds me of how vacuous the ideology is. Even when I was an ancap, I'd have had no argument against this. I just believed in STV out of pure dogma, and so do they.

tl;dr

Noor wrote:If I understand correctly, Franc doesn't argue that moral values are not subjective, he just argues that the material value (based on the non-subjective properties/attributes) is not relative to anyone.

Eh? What? "Material value" is nonsense. There is no indwelling "value" as a physical property of an object.

Francois Tremblay wrote:Noor hit the nail on the head exactly. We probably need another term, in order to clarify our position away from the nonsensical usages of STV proponents.

I'm having trouble grasping what you mean by "value of a product". What is it, and how is it separate from any value judgments?

It has to be separate, since the value-judgments are relative to the individuals, and as such are no help when trying to determine the attributes of an object. If there is no "value of a product" (as an attribute of the product) independent from value-judgments, then it doesn't exist at all, and value theory is pointless.

Well, OK. But what is a "value of a product" then? You haven't defined it. You need to explain how something can have worth or utility without "of use to who?" coming into the question. If worth/utility is what you're even talking about.

I know I sound like I'm just repeating myself but you really haven't answered my questions.

... Which is why I'm going to bug Franc on Skype tonight until he thoroughly explains what he means by the "innate value" stuff. I understand his argument but not very sure about that one premise.

I for sure agree with the LTV in other senses such as "subjective values have objective causes" and "in a market the subjective value will tend to be more proportional to labor."

Noor wrote:FYI, I let Franc write up the entirety of the STV/LTV stuff, so blame him for that one.

lol. Don't worry, I already have.

I also disagree slightly with his answer to question #3, but I don't want to be too controlling over the products of his labor.

I don't really know who's saying what here, but isn't the claim that labor gives some objective, metaphysical value to an object a red herring -- something that nobody has ever really said? What makes the most sense to me is that while value is subjective, one's subjective evaluation of something is going to be based on the cost of reproduction, which in the absence of monopolies approaches/becomes the cost of production, so it is appropriate to speak of the much-mocked concept of the "labor embedded in an object", even though value is social, and thus subjective. So the LTV/STV debate seems mostly irrelevant, and at any rate I don't buy the argument that STV justifies capitalism, or that that follows inevitably from it.

As such, I think the Glenn Jacobs article was garbage and ripe for attack from a lot of different angles--but it doesn't need to be about LTV/STV per se.

manbear2pig wrote:the claim that labor gives some objective, metaphysical value to an object

Replace "labor" with "subjective values of various people" and you've got what I think Tremblay claims the STV is saying. Which isn't true at all.

The standard LTV claim is that products represent a certain quantity of labor. And they "represent" that "quantity of labor" is the sense of actually being its product. But there is nothing that inheres in the object that tells us what that "quantity" amounts to. We know how to roughly measure its utility to a potential consumer, its most likely price, given particular conditions of supply and demand, its cost in labor to the producer, and the cost of the materials involved. But all of these measures are relational, either subjective or intersubjective. Every measure of potential "units of labor" will vary significantly between laborers, making "equal" units inherently incommensurable. We can measure any number of other qualities that do inhere in the object, but there doesn't seem to be any standard labor-measure that is possible.

The claim floating around in some of the debate is that it is necessary to favor the LTV over the STV, so that the latter isn't used to cheat the workers, by justifying prices, for labor or products, below the inherent "value" of the products. But the real issue seems to be the usual one: the non-productivity of capital. But attacking subjective valuation as a proxy for the privileges of capital and for unearned increase just confuses the issue. It leads to empty comments about how this ALLy is an "an-cap" or that one is more "to the right."

Francois has said that "If there is no "value of a product" (as an attribute of the product) independent from value-judgments, then it doesn't exist at all, and value theory is pointless." This is either circular, self-refuting or just a weird personal preference.

I think that both "LTV" and "STV" are valid and compatible truisms when clarified. The problem comes in when proponents of one or the other draw non-sequitors from them (such as when Austrians use the STV in a psychologistic manner and as if the norms of "capitalism" necessarily follow, and when LTV is used as some sort of absolutist ethical claim). My objection is not the the fundamental premises of the STV so much as the way it is often used by Austrian economists - as a way to immunize preferences from criticism, as an assumption of the "homo economicus" and as a justification for current conditions without taking the social context and bargaining power into consideration.

I don't think the aknowlegment, in a descriptive sense, that people's demands as consumers are "subjective", means that their preferences cannot be critisized on other grounds. Neither do I think that praxeology is a be-all-end-all description of how people make decisions, since people are not walking and talking economic utility calculators. I most certainly do not think that prices, if we want to be technical, are an accurate reflection of the demand of consumers, or that they necessarily come about as the result of some sort of purely explicit mutual agreement between buyer and seller - the ignoring of the scales of bargaining power and the various distorting factors that exist in reality is fatal to how many Austrians tend to treat the matter. Hence, I think that one can accept the fundamentals of the STV without endorsing the cliche "capitalistic" conclusions.