In possessing use value a commodity is in no way peculiar. Objects of human consumption in every age and in every form of society likewise possess us… - Paul Sweezy

Society is more than a number of individuals. It is a number of individuals among whom certain definite and more or less stable relations exist.

Supply and demand will be in equilibrium only when the price of every commodity is proportional to the labor time required to produce it. Conversely prices proportional to labor times will be established only if the forces of competitive supply and demand are allowed to work themselves out freely. The competitive supply-and-demand theory of price determination is hence not only not inconsistent with the labor theory; rather it forms an integral, if sometimes unrecognized, part of the labor theory.

Discussions of methodology in economics, as in other fields, are likely to be tiresome and unrewarding. Nevertheless, to avoid the problem altogether is to risk serious misunderstanding.