ok i wanna just do a miniature reference thread abt the labour theory of value, since ppl often have issues understanding it or defending it. gnna try to avoid normative assumptions as much as possible

ok, let's say you're an employer and your factory produces a product. you have workers obvs; but in order to get them to work, *even absent a minimum wage*, you have to provide some amt of money or equivalent in return

due to competition (e.g., if some1 can quit and work the same job for better wages at a different factory, they will, so i want to offer a decent enough deal), the average wages for a given industry tend to converge on a particular point

as such, if i am going to sell a product, in the short run i may be able to raise or lower prices based on market demands, but *in the long run* i must keep my prices around a specific point that corresponds to how much it cost me to make the product

this is ofc due to two pressures: if i sell below the cost of production, my net profit will be negative; if i sell above it, i'll be outcompeted

(and also note that all firms are subject to the same pressures, so the cost of my capital is around the cost the sources of my capital paid to produce/obtain it, etc. etc.; if you go far back enough in any supply chain, you'll find labour at the root)

it is simply that point around which prices converge that we (LTVers) call value. and you might think, "ok, that's theoretically coherent, but there's no empirical basis; it can't be used to make predictions". well you're in luck:
http://users.wfu.edu/cottrell/eea97.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/50df/717e676f9cdfd0c6476c8777a76038ba9e07.pdf

that's just the simplest elaboration possible ofc; this is highly oversimplified. but this is just to demonstrate that the concept of labour-value is no more metaphysical than any theoretical construct