To add — for self-clarification as much as anything: Marx notes that even in “simple” seller-buyer exchanges, the seller “might” receive a surplus (an amount greater than what was socially necessary to replace the objectified labor in c & v.) However, this surplus accrues to the producer/ seller, without much if any, accounting, regularity or, in particular, intent. This, I believe, is key to understanding/defining “value” in pre-capitalist societies. Here, “s” (surplus value) is not separated from v and c+v as value is not “converted” to c+v+s in any regular or meaningful way. However, the production/ raison d’etat of “value” in capitalism is (increasingly) an interest in surplus value — not, as before, to merely replace socially necessary labor time and produce commodities/ “values” with a primary interest in exchanging for different use values.
Consequently, the value (including surplus value!) of a particular commodity pre and post capitalism could be the same (e.g. given stagnation in required labor), but the price of production has little or no meaning/ significance in terms of producing and exchanging commodities/ values in pre-capitalist societies; while it is central to the production and exchange of commodities/ values — and, indeed, essential to defining — the capitalist social form.
