Alt Text
Show parent replies
The post below is a reply to another user
even qualitatively different use-values have a common element to them - value. no one is saying you can equate the distinct use-values, even if you multiply. no matter how many iPhones you accumulate, you can’t eat one. but you can sell it and use the equivalent amount of money to buy food.
in the case that the two algorithms are trying to achieve the same goal and one is simply worse, that will significantly reduce the “socially necessary” bit of its SNLT (the measure of value), and thus a more steep exchange ratio incurs.
the concept socially necessary labor time also captures your intuition that marginal improvements are more valuable than a relative % improvement might imply.
also, we’re not talking about wages here:
in this passage, marx is simply making the point that value is measured by abstract labor, and therefore the level of complexity of its concrete manifestation is irrelevant. programming is not an expenditure of muscle, but it is still labor, and can be measured and compared as such.