/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>49639683
>the labor theory of value is a way of understanding how the value of an object is created
>value of an object is created

This pretty quickly moves into the realm of metaphysics (the nature of reality, perception), so here we go. I'm essentially paraphrasing Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason":

The "value" of an object is not created, it is inherent in the object itself - or, more precisely, our perception of that value is inherent in our representation of the object. We see an object and immediately recognize its value based on its relationship to our own perceived values and ideals. By projecting value onto objects, we risk making the mistake of associating our value of the object with the object itself - but, objectively speaking, the object has no value in and of itself. It just is.

From some guy's dissertation on Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason":
"Objects in themselves are objects apart from our representations of them. In spite of the fact that they cannot be known, objects in themselves are significant insofar as the false belief that we can know them is an inevitable result of the capacity of the subject to combine representations in different ways, including the combination of representations in the concept of an unknowable object."

There's many different ways to value an object based on subjective representation. There is no value of the object "in and of itself" to us, because our subjective representations are inherently, well, subjective. This also applies to labor and the fruits of one's labor - it has different values to different people, and none in and of itself which we can perceive, as our perception is limited to our own and not that of some void non-subjective observer.

The labor theory of value pretty completely falls apart as one comes to terms with the fact that labor in itself has no value. Hence why labor markets exist and the value of labor is determined by the subjective consensus of its utility.