Nevertheless , according to Marx , market value , that is price of production , is generally stable , solid and constant over time . It is so because over time and across all spheres , “ competition brings about … the establishment of a uniform market value and market price out of the various individual values of commodities ”[ 53 ], which is articulated in individual prices of production for individual spheres and a general totalizing price of production for all spheres of production combined . For Marx , eventually , “ the laws of the capitalist mode of production develop in their pure form , [ with ] the approximations [ becoming ] all the more exact , the more the capitalist mode of production is developed ”[ 54 ], ultimately resulting in all commodities being “ sold at their actual values ”[ 55 ], i . e ., at their singular , unifying , generalized price of production . In sum , it is Marx ’ s belief , that the anarchy of market prices eventually come to represent , with exactitude , their inherent market values , i . e . their prices of productions , due to the fact that if supply and demand regulate market price , or rather the departures of market price from market value [ i . e . price of production ],… market value [ i . e . price of production ] in turn regulates the relationship between demand and supply or the center around which fluctuations of demand and supply make the market price oscillate .[ 56 ]
As a result , for Marx , market prices are increasingly regulated to conform to their inherent market values as market values exert pressure on supply and demand , within the spheres of production , to remain as close as possible to the particular orbits of market values , i . e . prices of production . This intensifying pressure applied to supply and demand by market values , as well , increasingly tethers anarchic market prices to the market values themselves , as market values , i . e . prices of production , over time come to eventually regulate and accurately reflect these unpredictable market prices . Ultimately , for Marx , the result is the unification of market price and market value across all spheres of production under the regulating mechanism of one generalized price of production , which itself accurately reflects an overarching law of value and its inner generalized regulating mechanism of socially necessary labor-time .
Consequently , overarching this ever-intensifying unification process of market prices and prices of production , according to Marx , is the regulating mechanism of socially necessary labor-time , i . e . the law of value , which underpins , controls and regulates , in general , prices of production , i . e . market values . In keeping with Marx ’ s analysis , the law of value , that is , generalized socially necessary labor-time , is able to regulate and control prices of production by pressuring labor-power , commodity-markets and , in general , all spheres of production to conform to certain social average standards ; social average standards , which in turn influence prices of production , prices of production , which in turn influence market prices . According to Marx ,
this is in fact the law of value as it makes itself felt , not in relation to the individual commodities or articles , but rather to the total products at a given time of particular spheres of … production … [ The law stipulates ] that not only is no more labor-time devoted to each individual commodity than necessary , but out of the total social labor-time only the proportionate quantity needed [ necessary labor-time ] is devoted to the various types of commodity .[ 57 ]
This determination of the appropriate quantity of finite necessary labor-time applied to each type of commodity production within a and between specific spheres of production is dictated by social need , namely , according to Marx , the individual commodity ’ s ability in “ satisfying in and of itself a social need ”[ 58 ]. And on a broader scale this “ social need , i . e . the use-value on the social scale ,… appears decisive for the quota of total social labor-time that falls to the share of the various particular spheres of production ”[ 59 ].