Page "Labor theory of value" Paragraph 42

The demonstration of the relation between commodities ' unit values and their respective prices is known in Marxian terminology as the transformation problem or the transformation of values into prices of production.

The transformation problem has probably generated the greatest bulk of debate about the LTV.

The problem with transformation is to find an algorithm where the magnitude of value added by labor, in proportion to its duration and intensity, is sufficiently accounted for after this value is distributed through prices that reflect an equal rate of return on capital advanced.

If there is an additional magnitude of value or a loss of value after transformation compared with before then the relation between values ( proportional to labor ) and prices ( proportional to total capital advanced ) is incomplete.

Various solutions and impossibility theorems have been offered for the transformation, but the debate has not reached any clear resolution.