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> This kind of shallow dismissal of my shallow dismissal of a frankly idiotic idea that doesn't deserve a deeper dismissal The labor theory of value was accept
by consilient 3y ago
> This kind of shallow dismissal of my shallow dismissal of a frankly idiotic idea that doesn't deserve a deeper dismissal
The labor theory of value was accepted wisdom prior to the late 19th century: it originates with Adam Smith and David Ricardo. It's wrong (or more accurately, not a good conceptual framework) but it's not obviously wrong, let alone "idiotic".
- HDThoreaun 3y agofair enough. Maybe my dismissal was too shallow
- legitster 3y agoThis is misleading. Adam Smith presented this as a possible solution to an economic paradox at the time. But later philosophers came up with much better solutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value There's no reason to believe that Smith wouldn't have latched onto the much better solution. So being hell-bent on the incomplete answer from the 1700s is a unique peculiarity of Marxist theory.
- consilient 3y ago> But later philosophers came up with much better solutions Yes, later than both Smith and Marx. Marginalism didn't go mainstream until the 1890s, though the necessary pieces were there waiting to be assembled from about 1870.