> you're making the normative and tautological argument that values are what they are because that's what (you think) they should be, not that there is any intrinsic reason for value to be defined only by a market. markets are great theoretical constructs, but real-world markets don't behave the way we always envision they ought to. they're subject to all sorts of external forces.
It isn't about what I think. When people make purchases they will typically try to buy as cheaply as possible. If someone is looking to make a purchase they will typically go to whoever is offering it cheapest, if other people want to compete they will either have to offer it at the same price or cheaper.
Are you claiming this isn't true? Because I have witnessed it with my own eyes. I used to work in a Petrol Station we were ones of the cheapest places around and we had a lot of custom.
Other places that were more expensive were empty at the same time on the same days because they were more expensive. There is of course exceptions to this (Head and Shoulders Shampoo being the classic example) but they are outliers.
The same with a labour market. The market rate for a C# programmer is approximately £350-450 a day in the UK. More specialist development roles pay more e.g. Angular JS developers which are typically £500-750 a day (the last time I looked). There is less Angular JS developers that are available (low supply) so to attract talent companies that wish to hire need to raise the rate. However C# developers in the UK are much more common (higher supply) so companies won't pay those high prices.
Are you telling me this isn't happening? Because you can go to total jobs yourself and put C# developer Manchester and you will see difference in market rate yourself.
> beyond market settling times, what the delta between labor value and market value very likely indicates is some sort of mispricing in the market, often due to some external, malign manipulation (i.e., an application of force, or power). efficient markets should tend toward the labor value of production, that is, profits are minimized to that of idiosyncratic risk (like pandemics).
Not true. You are making several assumptions:
1) That there is abundance of said product (high supply).
2) People are wanting or needing to make a purchase.
3) That there isn't other competitors which have improved their processes or paying their employees less.
Number 2 being the most important IMO as everything else is normally equal. If nobody wants to buy it at the cost (or higher) you will be selling it at a loss.