As the Wikipedia article states, the labour theory of value (LTV) was replaced by the theory of marginal utility in mainstream economics due to its major inconsistencies.

> Take Google as another example. The profit per employee has famously been (at times) over $1 million per year.

So, are you saying that the employees were exploited in some way? I could give you examples of how value is created without any work at all.

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overfeed 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> So, are you saying that the employees were exploited in some way?

Google ads "extracted" value from traditional advertising in newspapers and magazines, so the "exploitation" (or efficiency gains, if you're charitable) came at the expense of employees at other organizations worldwide.

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jmyeet 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> As the Wikipedia article states, the labour theory of value (LTV) was replaced by the theory of marginal utility in mainstream economics due to its major inconsistencies.

"Mainstream economics" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It didn't "replace" LTV. Marginal utility is simply an an ideological rejection of it with the confusion of price vs value that ignores class exploitation. The proponents of this were the gensis of the so-called "Austrian school" [1] and thus the fathers of neoliberalism [2].

> So, are you saying that the employees were exploited in some way?

Yes, objectively, as measured by profit. The counterargument is that many were well-paid compared to their non-tech colleagues. While true, they still created way more value than what they were paid.

> I could give you examples of how value is created without any work at all.

I'm all ears.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_school_of_economics

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

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taffer 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> > I could give you examples of how value is created without any work at all.

> I'm all ears.

Ageing whisky.

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blocko 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's a great deal of labor involved in building+preparing casks, storing them, monitoring, maintaining the temp/humidity of a space. Additionally, a good chunk of the price of aged whisky is just due to the fact that the product is constantly evaporating and you're getting a lower yield on the same initial input. Price increase != value created

	▲	taffer 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You're missing the point. The difference between three-year-old and fifteen-year-old whisky is mainly due to capital costs, not labour costs. According to the LVT, capital costs are not real. > product is constantly evaporating and you're getting a lower yield on the same initial input This so-called 'angel's share' accounts for ~2% per year, not 10%.

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overfeed 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Some laboror has to cask it first.

	▲	taffer 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You're missing the point

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taffer 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> "Mainstream economics" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

As is "mainstream medicine" or "mainstream climate science". If you don't trust mainstream science, you must be either extremely smart or just delusional.

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demorro 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Surely you can see that not trusting mainstream economics shouldn't be as controversial as the hard sciences. Mainstream economics consistently fails to make correct or replicatable predictions.

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andrekandre 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

economics isn't a hard science though; and there is a lot of politics underlying a lot of theory there (see the laffer curve/trickle down etc)

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_DeadFred_ 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Soft sciences are not at all the same thing as hard science.

	▲	taffer 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Neither is medicine, climate science, nor the marxist interpretation of the labor theory of value I was replying to.