I promise I'm not a wrecker, I just have trouble finding Marxist sources for these things that aren't big books on top of what I'm already reading. I think I understand that it says the exchange value of a product is proportionate to the labor time used to create it. Am I getting that correct? More labor-intensive commodities, or products requiring more specialized tools to make would cost more. And I know I've heard the criticism before. Heard it pretty much all my life. "Is a cookie still worth its labor if it's burnt? Is a pie worth the labor if it's a shit pie?" I have heard people say that Marx addresses such criticisms in Capital, but I haven't gotten around to those tomes yet. Could someone explain to me how they are addressed and maybe straighten out other things I may have gotten wrong?
The exchange value is low, because nobody wants burnt cookies or shit pies. But if people did want to buy burnt cookies and shit pies, the exchange value would correlate with the amount of labor required to produce them.