American University has brought in an academic from the University of Washington-Tacoma with a curious mission for an academic institution: to teach academics not to grade on the writing ability of students as opposed to their “labor.” Professor Asao Inoue believes that writing ability should not be assessed to achieve “antiracist” objectives.
This is from Jonathan Turley, “American University Holds Training Session on Avoiding Single Standard Grading to Achieve ‘Antiracist’ Objectives,” August 15, 2019. HT2 Arnold Kling.
I wonder if American University created even more value by having Professor Inoue bicycle from Tacoma to D.C. instead of the much less labor-intensive means of transportation called taking an airline.
Note: For what’s wrong with the labor theory of value, see the biography of Carl Menger in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics and/or “We’re Still Haunted by the Labor Theory of Value” by Steven Horwitz.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Brady
Aug 27 2019 at 1:54pm
Whatever the shortcomings of Professor Asao Inoue’s approach, Jonathan Turley’s writing also falls short of clarity.
Turley writes, “Professor Asao Inoue believes that writing ability should not be assessed to achieve “antiracist” objectives.”
For a minute this threw me completely. I suggest that what Turley means is “Professor Asao Inoue believes that “antiracist” objectives are better achieved by not grading writing ability.” That said, I’m not persuaded that this is in fact what Inoue believes.
Turley also writes, “These students are not going to be evaluated in their careers by their “labor” or given tailored standards. They will be compared according to their objective abilities.”
What exactly does he mean by “objective abilities”? Those abilities on which Turley and most people agree? Or those abilities on which Turley and some people agree? Or those abilities on which Turley and most other academics agree? That said, abilities are not the same as measured achievements.
Alan Goldhammer
Aug 27 2019 at 2:53pm
I agree with Mark’s post and suggest that Mr. Turley needs to attend a writing seminar so that he can better express himself.
Mark Z
Aug 27 2019 at 4:14pm
If Jonathan Turley were an economist he might have said instead that they’d be judged based on consumers’ *subjective* valuation of the product of their labor. Prof. Inoue’s error is thinking effort is objectively valuable to others. Of course, one may feel an effort exerted has some intrinsic value irrespective of other’s unwillingness to pay one for the exertion. I believe this is called a hobby.
David Seltzer
Aug 27 2019 at 6:38pm
Really? Come on! When I was on faculty at Loyola of Chicago, I took points off papers and exams for poor writing. Poor writing often reflected muddle thinking for those whose first language is English. One of those annoyances, some wrote “the data is” instead of “the data are.” Data is plural. Datum is singular folks.
Steve Brecher
Aug 27 2019 at 8:28pm
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/data
See especially the usage notes.
David Seltzer
Aug 28 2019 at 2:54pm
Thanks Steve. I read it. Can we use data and datum in the same context as singular?
Alan Goldhammer
Aug 28 2019 at 10:18am
LOL. Back in 1970 when I started grad school, I was a TA for Freshman Chemistry. The first week’s lab reports were just awful with misspelled words and improper usage. I told the class that proper grammar would be part of their grade going forward and they if the English Dept. would not teach them how to write, I would. I had no further issues the remainder of the semester and used that approach with subsequent lab courses that I taught.
David Henderson
Aug 28 2019 at 12:41pm
Good for you, Alan. If I recall correctly, I tried that when I was a TA at UCLA (I tried it on the first set of midterms because this Canadian, who had graded in Canada, found myself appalled by much of the American student writing) but didn’t get a lot of faculty support. A lot of Bs would have been Cs.
David Seltzer
Aug 28 2019 at 2:48pm
Good for you Alan. Another annoyance, students who don’t know the difference between passive voice and strong voice.
d clark
Aug 27 2019 at 9:26pm
Listeners (poor or good) can at least say “What?” to a (poor or good) speaker who makes an incomprehensible utterance, giving the speaker another try at being understood. Readers (poor or good) most often can’t readily quiz the writer if what is written isn’t understood. All the more reason to insist on a minimum level of writing competence, regardless of the objection.
(By the way, good writing and good thinking aren’t that far apart. Another reason for good writing.)
john hare
Aug 28 2019 at 4:27am
My company does concrete work. We look for the easiest and fastest ways of getting the job done right. There have been some that work with or around us that claim some harder or more time consuming way is the right way. Stock answer: We get paid by the square foot, not the sweat gallon.
David Henderson
Aug 28 2019 at 10:18am
Great succinct way of critiquing the labor theory of value, John.
Gene Laber
Aug 28 2019 at 9:19am
Historian David McCullough said,
“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That is why it’s so hard.”
Makes a lot of sense to me.
Bill
Aug 28 2019 at 11:08am
Enjoyed reading the Horwitz essay. The section “Turning Marx Upside Down” brought to mind a poem that appeared in an early edition of Samuelson’s principles text.
The price of pig
Is something big
Because it’s corn, you’ll understand
Is high-priced too
Because it grew
Upon the high-priced farming land
But if you’d know why
That land is high
Consider this:
Its price is big
Because it pays
Thereon to raise
The costly corn,
The high-priced pig.
Roger McKinney
Aug 28 2019 at 12:55pm
Bastiat had a labor theory of value that I haven’t seen elsewhere. He wrote that all value (prices) comes from labor. If someone lives next to a clear stream and can get water from it he won’t pay for water. But if he lives in the desert and wants someone to get the water and bring it he’ll have to pay for the labor. He’s not paying for the water; to say that water “costs” some amount is a metonym. We’re paying for the labor of the one who got the water and hauled it to us. This is not Adam Smith’s labor theory of value because Bastiat isn’t talking about the amount of labor determining the price level. Only that there is no price for things that we can get for ourselves. His theory is binary: without labor there is no price; prices arise only when the labor of another is involved. The amount of labor does not determine the price level. Scarcity, supply, demand, technology, etc., all go into determining the level of the price. But without the labor of another, there is no price.
Mark Brady
Aug 28 2019 at 3:31pm
Two thoughts on what Roger has written.
First, Bastiat’s approach illustrates how a labor theory of value should not be dismissed as easily as many people think. Although Steven Horwitz’s account of imputation works well, I think he’s unreasonably dismissive of a labor theory of value. I suggest that like many critics Horwitz conflates two ideas: (1) the idea that labor is entitled to the whole product of labor; and (2) that labor inputs can satisfactorily explain market prices (which I don’t think that it can).
Second, I suggest that Adam Smith did not adhere to a labor theory of value as historians of economic thought characterize the widely held view of British classical school economists. Yes, if trapping a deer takes twice as long as trapping a beaver, and that is all that we consider, a deer would fetch twice the price of a beaver. But the labor theory of value is more than that.
Mark Z
Aug 28 2019 at 5:42pm
But these theories of value seem to me to be essentially tautological. Or, put differently, they model value as a function of labor in such a way that labor adds nothing to explaining variation in value.
Mark Z
Aug 28 2019 at 5:59pm
Regarding Bastiat’s binary labor theory of value: it seems he’s saying that *prices* only exist for goods that are produced by labor, not value. And even that isn’t necessarily true: one pays an informal price in time and effort for the procurement of ‘free’ things.
That monetary prices only exist for things produced by labor seems kind of tautological. After all, if I’m paying someone, I’m doing so so they might produce or do (or not do; one can pay a price for inaction as well) something from which I get utility. And that’s labor; but then we’re defining labor something one does in exchange for money; that is, something one does that gives someone else utility. So of course, if labor is defined as anything one does or doesn’t do that someone else is willing to pay one to do or not do, then by definition anything one pays a monetary price for to someone else must’ve had labor as input.
Such tautological labor theories of value aren’t informative or explanatory, and so I think we are right to dispense with them. They’re not sufficient to prove what most labor value theorists want to prove. E.g. such a theory wouldn’t help Marx at all, because it would imply that profit is just the price paid to investors for foregoing consumption and taking on all the risks of production, which would meet the expanded definition of labor.
Roger D McKinney
Aug 28 2019 at 8:21pm
Bastiat uses the term value, but his explanation of it is value in exchange. I used “price” as my interpretation of it. Bastiat was explaining to socialists that things don’t have a price in exchange. Everything that is natural, the air and sun but also food and minerals like gold are gifts from God and therefore free and always remain free, without a price, as long as we expend our own labor. He explained opportunity cost, but noted that it doesn’t have a price or value in exchange. If a person picks up a gold nugget in a river bed, he didn’t have to pay a price for it. Only when he exchanges it with someone else does it attain a price. But the price isnt for the gold, it’s for the labor of the person who found it.
Roger D McKinney
Aug 28 2019 at 8:29pm
Well socialists were denying the right to property, as they do today. Bastiat is showing that the price of something is for the labor involved in making it available. The thing is actually free. Property doesn’t consist so much in the thing owned as the labor expended to make it available to others. It’s a theory of property as much as a theory of value in exchange, or price. But the amount of labor involved is unimportant. If someone finds a diamond on the ground and does nothing but pick it up, he has expended very little labor. Still, the value of the diamond in exchange, the price, will be very high. That’s because even though the finding of the diamond was pure luck and involved little labor, the buyer would probably expand an enormous amount of labor trying to replicate the seller’s luck because of the scarcity of diamonds. Socialists were saying that people don’t have the right to appropriate things that God gave to all humanity, such as diamonds.
His theory doesn’t advance economics. It responds to socialist misconceptions about property and prices.
Roger D McKinney
Aug 28 2019 at 8:16pm
Actually Bastiat was very critical of Smith’s theory and didn’t see any relationship between his and Smith’s theories.
Michael Pettengill
Aug 29 2019 at 2:25pm
If there is little to no labor value in aircraft and airports, why aren’t both in much greater abundance, and their use priced much lower?
As Keynes wrote:
Those arguing against labor value are seeking to create scarcity such that workers are charged prices far higher for their consumption than workers are paid to produce what they consume.
But that requires “getting government out of the way” by having government create debt that government gives to workers to pay the profits, profits being the part of revenue from workers that workers are not paid for producing, and capital is only produced by workers.
If capital is not produced by workers, than google, apple, etc with billions in “capital” would be producing and selling more cars than Tesla, launching more satellites than SpaceX. Who needs a gigafactory to produce stuff if you have a hundred billion in capital in bonds bought with money not paid to workers, if capital is not built by labor.
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