Smith did not hold a labor theory of value.


It's worth noting that passage...when quoted in full, explicitly involves a qualification that shows a circumstance prior to the invention of money and the development of property/rent: "IN that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land." (WN 1.6.1, 65) So, [it] involves a situation where nominal prices are absent, and where capital and rent are absent! It's akin to an early Lockean state of nature. In Marxist terms, if Smith holds a strict labor theory of value [LTV] as a measure of exchange value, then it is only well before the stage of primitive accumulation not in a capitalist economy. This illustrates my claim that the LTV gets introduced only in the context of thought experiments that go on to make more complex claims.--Eric Schliesser "Smith's Labor Theory Thought Experiment," @AdamSmithWorks



I don't have a lot of time for blogging this week. But, coincidentally, a relatively short essay appeared (here) in which I explain why it is a mistake to attribute to Adam Smith a Labor Theory of Value. (It's based on a twitter thread that went viral over the Summer, but  slightly refined and more carefully argued.) 

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Published on October 13, 2022 14:50
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