Wikipedian Edit War Over Labor Theory Of Value

This last week has seen an edit war over the Wikipedia Entry On The Labor Theory Of Value (LTV). The warriors are one "Cplot" and "Economizer". I helped write an earlier entry. It was not me, however, who introduced the link to my LTV FAQ. The ostensive issue in this argument is how the first paragraph of the entry should define the LTV.

I don't have a decided opinion on either side in this controversy. Economizer does cite the first sentence in my FAQ. On the other hand, Economizer cites only published literature almost half a century old. I'm grateful to have Donald Gordon's 1959 AER article, "What Was the Labor Theory of Value?" brought to my attention. Cplot is correct that this article could be cited on either side of the issue. It draws on what was recent work by Stigler at the time. Sraffa only appears in a footnote as an editor of Ricardo's collected works.

Cplot is correct in noting that some use the word value to mean the labor embodied in a commodity, with no claim that this quantity is proportional to prices. And one is incorrect to hold both of the following simultaneously:

• The LTV is the theory that prices tend to be proportional to quantities of embodied labor
• Marx and the major classical economists believed in the LTV

Cplot might acknowledge, though, that some thought the LTV was a useful simplification. I can see the point, if you want to argue about how central the LTV is to Marx, not to define the theory as a person of straw that Marx explicitly repudiated.

I think the point of the LTV is not to explain prices. It can be used to emphasize:

• The division of labor, not only within a factory, but among all industries or sectors of an economy
• Some of the conditions for smooth reproduction of an economy
• The claim that the source of the returns to capital and land is value added by labor not paid out to workers.

The technical name for the latter claim, that workers are not fully renumerated for their value-added, is exploitation. Marx seemed to be proud of his introduction of the distinction between "labor" and "labor power" in articulating this theory.

The Wikipedia entry on LTV illustrates an issue with Wikipedia. I have seen how this entry is always being changed, sometimes drastically. It will never approach a steady state.

Update (18 August): For general, mostly negative, comments on Wikipedia, listen to Jason Scott's talk, "The Great Failure of Wikipedia".