> The 'value' of a product is different for everyone, and it's what you (or anyone else) will pay for it.
Marx did not dispute that. His point, rather, was that workers are paid significantly less than the actual value of the work that they do (because said value is directly measured by how much their product sold for, minus all the non-labor expenses).
And from there he concluded that the difference is the economic rent that the owner of the means of production is effectively extracting from those workers, by virtue of his ownership giving him the monopoly on them (or rather, by virtue of the capitalist class collectively having a monopoly on the means of production).
And that, being pure rent, it does not serve any useful purpose in the economy, except for the one collecting it - i.e. things would be more efficient if people couldn't collect rent like that, which he proposed to achieve by rejecting the notion that means of production can be privately owned in a way that also bestows ownership of whatever is produced by them.
The part he missed was there was value in risk taking, innovation, experimentation. The profits aren’t always completely a rent (though they can be in an uncompetitive market). Profit often covers real costs in a dynamic economy.
“Profit motive” was bunk psychology created by 19th century economists to explain away this discrepancy.
Marx did not dispute that. His point, rather, was that workers are paid significantly less than the actual value of the work that they do (because said value is directly measured by how much their product sold for, minus all the non-labor expenses).
And from there he concluded that the difference is the economic rent that the owner of the means of production is effectively extracting from those workers, by virtue of his ownership giving him the monopoly on them (or rather, by virtue of the capitalist class collectively having a monopoly on the means of production).
And that, being pure rent, it does not serve any useful purpose in the economy, except for the one collecting it - i.e. things would be more efficient if people couldn't collect rent like that, which he proposed to achieve by rejecting the notion that means of production can be privately owned in a way that also bestows ownership of whatever is produced by them.