A General Explanation of Marx's Value Category and the Labor Theory of Value

Marx was not born a labor theory of value advocate. The young Marx even opposed the labor theory of value for a time. The reason Marx ultimately accepted the labor theory of value and gave it a comprehensive overhaul was the final establishment of historical materialism. Without the establishment of historical materialism, there would be no Marxian labor theory of value, much less the discovery of surplus value. This historical and logical relationship must first be made clear.

Value is a historical category. Its essence is the totality of relations between people in the social structure. Any category can be examined from both qualitative and quantitative aspects. On the qualitative side, it is the intrinsic determinacy of relations between people in the social structure. On the quantitative side, it manifests in exchange as the exchange ratio between exchanged objects. The quantitative aspect of value is also called exchange value.

On the qualitative side of value, since it is the intrinsic determinacy of relations between people in the social structure, it reflects the relations between people in the social structure. The general relations between people correspond to abstract labor in the general human sense, while the particular relations between people (that is, activities between specific individuals, etc.) correspond to concrete labor in the particular sense. Abstract labor determines the general determinacy on the qualitative side of value, while concrete labor determines the particular determinacy on the qualitative side of value, which is use value.

Price is the monetization of value. Some may ask: wasn't there price before currency existed? In fact, currency is also a historical category. The historical process of value taking the price form is the historical process of monetization. There is no issue of "no price before currency existed." The so-called relationship of supply and demand is merely one of the relationships between people, and it cannot even determine price, let alone value, whose essence is the totality of relations between people in the social structure.

Marx's value structure is very clear. It examines the value category from the standpoint of social totality, not from isolated phenomena or certain a priori premises as ordinary people do. Without standing on the standpoint of social totality and historical categories, it is impossible to truly understand Marx's labor theory of value -- note, not the labor theory of value in general, but Marx's specifically. All attempts to negate Marx's labor theory of value result from taking some single relationship between people, magnifying it into the sole a priori relationship. As long as you grasp this key point, everything becomes readily solvable.