Burger flippers demanding $15/hr

I've already explained that it is in the terms I outlined.

 

I've been at pains to explain it's not as simple as that. The employee has about as much real objective choice as somebody who has 200 channels of rubbish on his TV has.

 

You have tried to explain so, but it is blatantly obvious that everyone knows that employers make us of (i.e. exploit) workers. It doesn't take any deep analysis to recognize this simple fact.

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Of course he has a choice. Everyone has the choice of working for either himself or working for someone else.

 

But it was you who claimed the exchange between them was fair.

 

This sounds like you are saying that I can't know how much I value something unless I know how much labor went into it. Such a proposition is ridiculous on its face.

 

You've demonstrated on more than one occasion that nuance is something that you cannot deal with in our exchanges. And this is no exception.

 

It's not unfair in any way for an employer to make use (i.e. exploit) a worker. The worker is offering a service, and the employer is making use of (i.e. exploiting) that service.

 

Again nuance is not your forte.

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This is a contradiction in terms. Exploitation is by definition unfair.

 

Your criticism of me rather than my argument does nothing to disprove the fact that a person has the choice of working for himself or working for someone else.

 

But it's not a real choice in the sense that somebody who has 200 channels of junk has a real choice.

 

I see you yet again choose to criticize me rather than my argument.

Let me ask you once again: Am I able to determine how much I value a thing without knowing how much human labor went into producing it?

 

It's my understanding that the word exploit mean to make productive us of or to utilize. As in "exploiting your talents".

It is well known that employers utilize workers, and there is nothing unfair about this arrangement. A worker offers to perform a task, and the employer utilized him to do so.

 

It is a real choice in that it is "an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities."

 

Ones "choice" to be a self-employed sole trader is mitigated by various factors, the potential lack of ones access to capital being one of them.

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Well, we have a different understanding of what constitutes exploitation.

 

No in terms of ascertaining objective value.

 

If one chose a capital intensive business perhaps. However, many businesses can be started on a shoestring, if one chooses to do so.

 

There is no such thing as objective value. How much you value something is up to you, and how much I value something is up to me.

 

But you still need money.

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I've already provided the relevant wiki link which indicates you are wrong.

 

Okay, so, using your knowledge of objective value, please tell me which I value more: a motorcycle or a rifle.

 

Yes, you need money for everything. However, this doesn't mean a person can't choose to start a business on a budget.

 

But with no access to money you can't so the "choice" under such circumstances is a non-starter.

 

That's irrelevant in that it is not pertinent as far as the labour theory of valueis concerned which is what is being discussed.

 

One could choose many different ways to earn or borrow some seed money, including working for any number of employers. Again, it's all about the choices a person makes.

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If the labor theory of value is unable to explain how much people value a particular thing, then what exactly does it purport to explain?

 

Without access to money you cannot start a business. Therefore your assumption that people without money have a choice is negated by the fact that they don't. Try telling a wage slave who can barely afford to live from week to week but who nevertheless has aspirations to go into business, that he has a real choice other than to work for his exploiter and he will laugh in your face.

 

In capitalism, the general rate of profit can only be understood by using the labour theory of value to explain it. Labour power is a commodity and like all commodities it has a value and a use value. It's value is determined by the socially necessary labour time involved in keeping the worker alive, and bringing up the children to replace him or her. As Marx said in Capital, "Its value, like that of every other commodity, is already determined before it enters into circulation, for a definite quantity of social labour has been spent on the production of that labour power. But its use value consists in the subsequent exercise of that power."

Labour power's use value is labour, and once the worker has been employed, the employer sets him or her to work. But labour is the source of value. The worker will normally create during a working day more value than the daily wages with which the employer purchased his or her labour power.