Brendan and Andrew welcome Patrick Murray, the noted value-form theorist, onto the podcast. (The value-form paradigm is a Marx-inspired strand of political economy that focuses on the market.) Patrick responds to the recent, two-episode RFH discussion––“The Value-Form Paradigm vs. Marx’s ‘Capital’”––and enters into extended dialogue with the co-hosts. Much of the discussion focuses on whether, in Marx’s theory, a commodity’s value is only potential before it is sold; whether “co-constitutive” value-form theory collapses into a more extreme version in which actual values are ultimately determined only in exchange; and whether Marx held that the magnitude of a commodity’s value is determined exclusively by the amount of labor that is socially necessary to produce it. (Part 2 of this discussion will be released in the near future.)
Throughout the discussion, frequent reference is made to: a published symposium on the value-form paradigm, in which Andrew and others criticized the paradigm, while Patrick responded to them; Part 1and Part 2 of the recent RFH discussion, in which Andrew replied to Patrick; and Marx’s Capital, especially chapter 1 and chapter 3 of volume 1.
Plus: current-events segment on the Republican and Democratic national conventions—or, perhaps, infomercials.
Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by MHI, but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.
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Kapitalism101 
Hey Brendan,
I was debating my friend Baker who’s a voluntarist/anarchocapitalist. He’s a fan of like Mises and Rothbard. Anyways I was debating him on the LTV and I did pretty well, but there was one point I was trouble on. He was bringing up the argument that things like Bourbon gain value without labor as they age in production. I argued that there are still some potential labor inputs involved in storing aging alcohol and what not. I also argued that this doesn’t disprove anything Marx argues about things coming out of production being sold on average at their prices of production or his arguments for his three aggregate equalities. However I’m not sure how sufficient these points are. What else do you think are good arguments against Böhm-Bawerk’s point that there things which gain “value” throughout the course of production without the need for labor?