Presenting, the Capital Theory of Value (CTV):
The capital theory of value (CTV) is an economy theory that argues that the economic value of a good is determined by the total amount of socially necessary capital required to produce it, rather than by the use or pleasure its owner gets from it.
When speaking in terms of a capital theory of value, value, without any qualifying adjective should refer to the amount of capital necessary to the production of a marketable commodity, including the capital necessary to the development of any labor employed in the production (education involves capital necessary to the development of laborers.)
If Adam Smith were around, he'd probably word it something like this:
The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the opportunity cost of using the capital goods for other efforts, or replacing those capital goods with other forms of capital. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, or wants to exchange it, is the cost it can save himself, which it can impose upon other people.
Value "in use" is the usefulness of this commodity, its utility.
Value "in exchange" is the relative proportion with which this commodity exchanges for another commodity (in other words, its price in the case of money).
Value (without qualification) is the value of capital goods embodied in a commodity under a given structure of production. Value is the 'socially necessary abstract capital' embodied in a commodity.
Since the term "value" is understood in the CTV as denoting something created by capital, and its "magnitude" as something as proportional to the value of capital goods involved, it is important to expain how the capital process preserves and adds new value in the commoditis it creates.
The value of a commodity increases in proportion to the duration of the use of capital goods, quantity of capital goods involved, and productivity of those capital goods on average for its production. Part of what CTV means by "socially necessary" is that the value only increases in proportion to this capital as it is added with average complexity and average productivity. So though capital goods may vary with complexity and productivity, these more productive capital goods produce more value through the production of greater quantities of the finished commodity. Each unit still bears the same value as all the others of the same class of commodity. By being maintained poorly, some capital goods may drag down the average productivity of capital, thus increasing the average capital time necessary for hte production of each unit ommodity. But these damaged capital goods cannot produce goods valued at a higher price simply because they took longer than other capital goods producing the same kind of commodities.