It’s late and I’m about to head to bed, but to quickly reply: this is ultimately just a categorical discussion, so if you feel ltv is a necessary quality to the essence of Marxism that’s fine, I just think the label can be used in plenty of ltv-agnostic ways. To me the useful essence of a label like that is to describe an intensity of associations that can be directed or used to direct energy effectively, rather than a strict categorical structure. There’s simply no context where I’ll dismiss or disassociate from a person or idea that doesn’t claim one facet of Marxism, in theory or in practise, due to a categorical claim.
You bring up some good points which I’ll engage with later if I remember.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you on almost all of that. I think the main difference here is that I see the labor theory of value as being much more fundamental to Marxism than just, as you put it, one facet of it. It’s very difficult to keep Marxism as a whole if you toss out the LToV, since the whole structure would begin to crumble. It may be possible for similar models to be put in its place to prevent the crumble, but I think that those models would have to be close enough to the LToV that the distinctions wouldn’t really matter except to academics. (edit, fixed a word)
It’s late and I’m about to head to bed, but to quickly reply: this is ultimately just a categorical discussion, so if you feel ltv is a necessary quality to the essence of Marxism that’s fine, I just think the label can be used in plenty of ltv-agnostic ways. To me the useful essence of a label like that is to describe an intensity of associations that can be directed or used to direct energy effectively, rather than a strict categorical structure. There’s simply no context where I’ll dismiss or disassociate from a person or idea that doesn’t claim one facet of Marxism, in theory or in practise, due to a categorical claim.
You bring up some good points which I’ll engage with later if I remember.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you on almost all of that. I think the main difference here is that I see the labor theory of value as being much more fundamental to Marxism than just, as you put it, one facet of it. It’s very difficult to keep Marxism as a whole if you toss out the LToV, since the whole structure would begin to crumble. It may be possible for similar models to be put in its place to prevent the crumble, but I think that those models would have to be close enough to the LToV that the distinctions wouldn’t really matter except to academics. (edit, fixed a word)