Let's talk Marxian philosophy. I can't be the only

Pic related (yes I know Marx had views on the reduction of skilled to unskilled labor that would allow an explanation of why six hours of sex might fetch different prices even if six hours was the socially necessary labour time, even so take a joke strawman).

P.S. that is a good example of how natural talent can render the LTV useless in some fringe cases, the size of one's dong can hardly be regarded as being able to generate value because some kind of common "labour" were previously applied on it, luckily jelqing works and it's the motion of the ocean not the size of the wave so the LTV is still largely applicable even in this fringe exception.

>>8369976
Either I construed Marx's labor theory in a fundamentally flawed way, or you started tailing off with preferred penis enlargement techniques.

>>8369989
I'll quote Marx:

>But the value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general. And just as in society, a general or a banker plays a great part, but mere man, on the other hand, a very shabby part,14 so here with mere human labour. It is the expenditure of simple labour power, i.e., of the labour power which, on an average, apart from any special development, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual. Simple average labour, it is true, varies in character in different countries and at different times, but in a particular society it is given. Skilled labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multiplied simple labour, a given quantity of skilled being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labour. Experience shows that this reduction is constantly being made. A commodity may be the product of the most skilled labour, but its value, by equating it to the product of simple unskilled labour, represents a definite quantity of the latter labour alone.15 The different proportions in which different sorts of labour are reduced to unskilled labour as their standard, are established by a social process that goes on behind the backs of the producers, and, consequently, appear to be fixed by custom. For simplicity’s sake we shall henceforth account every kind of labour to be unskilled, simple labour; by this we do no more than save ourselves the trouble of making the reduction.

That's from Capital V 1 pg.11-12.

More importantly, from pg. 150ish

>In order to modify the human organism, so that it may acquire skill and handiness in a given branch of industry, and become labour-power of a special kind, a special education or training is requisite, and this, on its part, costs an equivalent in commodities of a greater or less amount. This amount varies according to the more or less complicated character of the labour-power. The expenses of this education (excessively small in the case of ordinary labour-power), enter pro tanto into the total value spent in its production.

And more on this, p.g. 179-80:

(cont.)

>>8370009
(cont.)

>
>We stated, on a previous page, that in the creation of surplus-value it does not in the least matter, whether the labour appropriated by the capitalist be simple unskilled labour of average quality or more complicated skilled labour. All labour of a higher or more complicated character than average labour is expenditure of labour-power of a more costly kind, labour-power whose production has cost more time and labour, and which therefore has a higher value, than unskilled or simple labour-power. This power being higher-value, its consumption is labour of a higher class, labour that creates in equal times proportionally higher values than unskilled labour does. Whatever difference in skill there may be between the labour of a spinner and that of a jeweller, the portion of his labour by which the jeweller merely replaces the value of his own labourpower, does not in any way differ in quality from the additional portion by which he creates surplus-value. In the making of jewellery, just as in spinning, the surplus-value results only from a quantitative excess of labour, from a lengthening-out of one and the same labour-process, in the one case, of the process of making jewels, in the other of the process of making yarn.18 But on the other hand, in every process of creating value, the reduction of skilled labour to average social labour, e.g., one day of skilled to six days of unskilled labour, is unavoidable. 19We therefore save ourselves a superfluous operation, and simplify our analysis, by the assumption, that the labour of the workman employed by the capitalist is unskilled average labour.

Ignore numbers, fucking footnotes I tell ya'.

>>8370010
>>8370009
As he himself stated Marx just assumed all labour equal for simplicity, and really this is not something I'd rail on him for, compared to the likes of the transformation problem his theory of reducing skilled to unskilled labour is near flawless.

Simply putting my statement in context, if more valuable labour is truly distinguishable from common value labour due to the training cost (which are of course in terms of labour) then the LTV runs into a slight problem when tackling particular industries where talent and high value comes naturally, so there is no embodied labour that has made high value labour high value.

An Anon made me realize that the sex trade is a perfect example of such an industry (these examples being rare) where this happens. His argument was that his girlfriend would fetch a much higher price sucking dick then him, for the same amount of labour time, and the LTV was BTFO as such.

Of course Marx would by and large consider this industry an exception and, in line with the Smithsian tradition, consider all men otherwise equal (as you might have guessed, equality was kind of a big deal for Marx with some revisionists even suggesting the LTV is nothing more than a natural rights theory that emphasizes more than anything else the equality of people).

Here's Smith on equality, Marx would have of course come across this quote before:

>The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause as the effect of the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature as from habit, custom, and education. When they came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were, perhaps, very much alike, and neither their parents nor playfellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to be employed in very different occupations. The difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance.

Yes I know, 'aint he just a sweetheart?

>>8370038
>His argument was that his girlfriend would fetch a much higher price sucking dick then him, for the same amount of labour time, and the LTV was BTFO as such.

Tsk. Marx would probably argue that the property of being woman in that situation is just another example of exchange value, analogous to diamonds or art being more valuable to water.

>>8370052
Hmm...Good point, perhaps. How did he explain the exchange value deviations from value for diamonds and art anyway?

Regardless, you can replace that example with the example of, say, an engineer who has trained rigorously all his life having one hour of his labour able to contribute more to the value of a good than one hour of the labour of an uneducated labourer.

>>8370062
>How did he explain the exchange value deviations from value for diamonds and art anyway?

He differentiated them between aesthetic value and utility I believe.

Water is useful, diamonds are not, but diamonds are scarce and water is not.

I think he made an argument that exchange value comes about as an expression bourgeois culture, essentially that rich people have nothing better to do than use their money on things that are scarce in order to appear more powerful or rich(in some cases richer and more powerful than they are).

>>8369976
lol

Bump for an answer to OT help me out Marxists of lit.