Unpopular Opinion
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Economics is a science that studies distribution of resources. All approaches using an LTV methodology of calculating the value of a product have failed throughout history. Do you think Chinese and Vietnamese economists use LTV to calculate the value of stuff?
You can have the leftist of leftist governments. They still use modern and more proven models derived from the marginalist revolution.
economics is a field with the aesthetic of science which produces conclusions favorable to capital then retroactively justifies them with models.
'marginalist revolution' is a response to the political implications of marxist lines of thought
socialist states that 'failed' were subjected to constant economic warfare, sanctions and sabotage. i would ascribe most failures to being under siege from all directions rather than capitalist economics being 'right'
Misunderstanding of economics. The economics I've encountered is spinning up economic models, running simulations and so on. Saying stuff like this is very akin to anti vaxxers (they say doctors produce conclusions that favor drug manufacturers).
China lives. It competes head on with the US. Vietnam lives. Again, this is not me endorsing China. It's just that China shifted to economic models free emerging from marginalist ideas.
It seems like you don't understand the difference between use value and exchange value (price).
LTV is concerned primarily with use value, i.e. the substantive qualities which make a commodity useful. Marginalism is concerned exclusively with exchange value, i.e. the subjective price associated with that commodity in the market.
Marginalism is a circular argument: value is determined by price, price comes from value. It doesn't replace LTV, it just ignores use value.
And really, when you look under the hood, the "scarcity" it uses to justify prices is just labor in disguise. Why do diamonds sell at a higher price than water even though water is more valuable? Because diamonds are more scarce than water. Why are diamonds more scarce than water? Because it takes more labor to locate, extract, and refine diamonds than it does to find water.
Price is not value. Price is a signal associated with value. Marginalism doesn't describe value, it describes price. It has no ability to explain the origin of value, it simply ignores that question because the answer is inconvenient, and tries to hide that fact with sanitized obfuscating words like "scarcity".
Value ≠ price. Agreed.
Disagree. Imagine I'm on an island. I have a stream with running water. However, every time I need to take a sip, I have to bend down.
The price of taking a sip = bending down once.
The value of taking that sip has diminishing returns. I might be very thirsty. Hence, I would readily take 10 sips. However, with every sip, my thrist reduces. Hence, the value of that additional sip reduces. The price however stays the same (bending down once per sip). Eventually, the value becomes too little for the price. I stop.
LTV's math would tell me that the value of that sip is equal to the amount of labor I put into it. Meaning, its value stays the same and increases over time as bending down repeatedly means more exhaustion, hence more labor. You can't invoke socially necessary labor here either. There's no society. There's just me. Economics is the study of resource distribution. The amount of agents working and wanting is irrelevant.
My previous example shows why this is a misunderstanding.
Sometimes, yes (determined by labor costs).
Valuable according to whom? Using what math?
No. You also need to specify units of both. How much water? How many diamonds?
I spent one hour extracting an ugly diamond. I spent another hour extracting a beautiful diamond. I spent one hour for both. The labor for both was the same. Is the value for both the same?
No. My poop (poop generated only by me, nobody else) is way more scarce than diamonds. Is it priced in the millions? Sadly, no. Scarcity doesn't alone decide both value and price. Value is decided subjectively. I love coffee. I value it highly. My friend hates coffee. She doesn't value it. Price is determined by what needs to be sacrificed to obtain what is valued.
Economics isn't a science at all.
Plus, you guys get your independent and Dependant axis mixed up.