Abstract:

The law of value in modern cultural commodities is not only a primary issue to be considered by scholars of cultural economy, but also a thorny issue that has long been misunderstood. Given the popular views that the amount of value of cultural commodities is determined by the individual labor time, and that the price is not determined by the amount of value, the value and price of cultural commodities are shrouded in the mist of agnosticism. Therefore, it is urgently necessary to take the principles of Marxist economics as a logical starting point and follow the materialistic rationale of“production method-value content-price mechanism”to clarify and reinterpret this issue. Specifically, firstly, when examining the  relationship between the value of cultural commodities and labor, concrete labor should be completely transformed into abstract labor, complex labor into simple labor, and individual labor into social labor. Secondly, the cultural blueprint should be regarded as intellectual objects similar to land, so as to examine the process of production of cultural commodities. Thirdly, the calculation of the value of cultural commodities should be based on the socially necessary labor time for the production of a specific use value at the time of exchange, and the value of physical goods should be calculated based on the time required to produce a specific use value. Thirdly, the calculation of the amount of value of cultural goods should be based on the socially necessary labor time for the production of a specific use value at the time of exchange, and the principle of value formation differs between physical goods and service goods. Fourthly, under the conditions of a developed market economy, the law of value can be expanded into a constraint that determines the rate of profit and the amount of labor for a particular type of cultural good and for the cultural production sector as a whole.

Key words: cultural goods, law of value, cultural production, cultural economics, the theory of labor value