There is no difference selling a commodity or selling labour. Otherwise there'd be a difference being an electrician for a businessman in a factory AND an electrician going door to door. You make the mistake of thinking that the market price one charges for something is determined by your individual costs. We call this Classical economics. People realized that this was in error and the price is set by Supply and Demand. This is called Neo-classical economics.
@dmg46664 That has nothing to do with the definition of classical or neoclassical econ. Both schools recognize the role of supply and demand in price formation. Also I do not think, nor have I ever said, that market price is determined by individual costs. Labor power is a commodity- this is a central part of marx's theory of exploitation, so I don't know what you mean by any of your "points".
@brendanmcooney 1) You seemed to be making a distinction between labour and capital in this video. And you asked the question about how labour settles on a price (based in your mind on living costs). If you weren't trying to say that commodities and labour prices are found by different mechanisms then I apologize BUT living COSTS don't directly define price! Only the costs of the cheapest participants are important in determing the SUPPLY SIDE ONLY of the market price, not everybody's costs.
@dmg46664 "how labor settles on a price" doesn't even make sense. The cost of reproducing the worker must be contained in the wage or else workers won't be able to survive and capital won't be able to reproduce itself. This wage is the price of labor power. The wage forms part of the cost of a commodity. I don't understand what you find problematic about these simple statements. "only the cost of the cheapest participants..." yes, duh. See my video on socially necessary labor time.
@brendanmcooney What isn't clear about my wording 'settles on a price'? If I rephrase : the mechanism by which the market price clears...OR the price at which buyers and sellers of a good or labour agree to contract on. Does that make more sense? My problem is that you assume a fixed living cost, but don't concede that if there isn't enough demand for your labour (i.e not enuf money/capital/food), then I don't see how it's possible for the price not to drop below the living cost. In any system.
@brendanmcooney 2) You are wrong that the Classical school (Adam Smith&Ricardo) up until about 1823 used supply and demand. They didn't. It wasn't until the Marginilists like Marshal in the 1890s that theses concepts became common place. This is part of the fundamental distinction. Although Neoclassical is considered mainstream today (and included Keynesian and Supply side etc), it is called this to distinguish itself from what came before.
@dmg46664. Vol. 3 of Marx's Das Kapital contains an entire chapter on supply and demand. Furthermore he discusses the concept in all of his economic works. Ricardo and Smith are also both aware of supply and demand. The difference is in the role that the classical school, marx, and the neoclassical school give to S and D. But it is ignorant to state that previous thinkers were unaware of the role of S and D in price formation.
@brendanmcooney It is harsh to call my ignorance on the subject. Do you have evidence/links that Smith&Ricardo used the concept of S&D to determine price? Utility of valuation is credited to Daniel Bernoulli's solving of the St Petersberg Paradox... but this didn't affect Smith & Ricardo's distribution theories as far as I can tell. And Marshall is credited with drawing the first supply and demand curves 1890. Das Kapital vol 3 published in 1893, 3 years after Marshall... so suspect.
@brendanmcooney NO! (Sorry about the caps :) Marginal utility is CRITICAL in understanding demand. You cannot construct a model of of realistic price changes if you assume FIXED/BINARY demand. The idea that for every additional item produced and available, the consumer is prepared to pay less is VITAL. (Downward sloping demand curve!). It also shows how wealth affects valuation (demand). See St Petersburg paradox. Also Friedman's consumption function.
@dmg46664. See Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations" Book one Chapter 7: "The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity".
@brendanmcooney Thanx for finding the quote! But you censored it, because the sentence continues ", or the whole value of the rent, labour, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither." Read on the same paragrph about Absolute vs Effectual demand. This shows he didn't understand demand! You have to have Bernoulli's concept of MARGINAL UTILITY to do justice to the concept of demand. Smith only knows 'want' and 'can buy'... so he has a poor understanding of price.
@dmg46664. Now you are changing the argument. Now that I've shown that the classicals all talked about supply and demand you are arguing that their discussion of demand didn't involve the concept of marginal utility. Duh. Everyone knows that. Demand and Supply are not the same as MU. You may think that MU gives a better explanation of demand but that is a different claim then what you originally argued.
@brendanmcooney Actually, the argument stands. I never meant to say that they never used terms supply and demand. If that's what it seemed, I apologize. The key I've been trying to convey is that if demand drops below what it COSTS to produce, then PRICES go downwards, irrespective if costs aren't covered. If you have a theory of prices as Smith did that relies on costs only you won't get this. He did know about economies of scale, which is why quantity of supply would interest him. Irrelevant.
@dmg46664. Yes of course a fall in demand causes a drop in prices, potentially below cost. Everyone knows that. I don't think Adam Smith would have been shocked by such an argument. It also has no relevance to Marx's theory of value which is what I am interested in these videos. Marx talks about the devaluation of commodities all the time, in fact it is a central part of his theory of value.
@brendanmcooney "the standard of living has fallen in the last 30 years making labour cheaper for capitalists to buy". Regarding your last comment. Precisely if you admit that demand falls, then then the statement quoted from the video is irrelevant. It's the combination which makes labour cheaper. More-over... that statement is false. Take a look at en(.)wikipedia(.)org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1947-2007.svg Income has risen. House prices same. StandardOfLivingImproved
@brendanmcooney BUT You are right that I shouldn't have dwelled on the FIXED nature of the classical demand, but their BINARY nature. Thank you for that, that's why we enter into discussions, to improve our understanding :-) "...PRICES go downwards, irrespective if costs" of my previous comment still stands. Until the costs can permeate to lower supplies which will drive the price up. But that takes time. THAT IS ALL IM TRYING TO GET U TO ACKNOWLEDGE :-)
@brendanmcooney 3) Further, it's not true that Labour doesn't make a profit. If you offer your labour you are giving up something like time at the beach. Opportunity cost! Given a particular task, you can find a price that you would rather be at the beach. The difference between these two prices is profit. Labour and Capitalists make profit, or they wouldn't continue doing what they were doing.
@dmg46664. That is just some subjective measure of some fictional mental util/profit and has nothing to do with actual profits which don't occur in the head, the heart or in useless econ textbooks, but rather in the accounting logs of the capitalist class. Your definition of profit just conflates all classes into one and thus just becomes a useless ideological device for obscuring reality rather than illuminating it.
@brendanmcooney You wouldn't argue that such a price governed by opportunity cost exists... I.e. it's not fictional. If your employer proceeded to cut your salary there WOULD be a point at which you left. It happens all the time. Alternatively I could say profit is everything you make over the cost of 3 happy meals per day (to stay alive). But since one could always add 'essentials' in the mix then Opportunity cost is a better model. Technical defn... the next best alternative. Everyone has one.
@dmg46664.Profit is the self-expansion of value: when you invest money into something and you get more money back. This is an entirely different phenomenon than the unmeasurable subjective gain one may experience from buying something. To use the same term for both is just pure ideology.
@brendanmcooney "when you invest money into something and you get more money back." That's an incredible assumption. U might lose! Regardless, I understand your frustration in comparing opportunity & product costs in transctions, but U r thinking about costs in the wrong way. The important similarity between the two scenarios is you gain something and give up something. The difference between the two is profit. If you are obliged to give up more (by contract), a person feels they've lost.
Quite honestly i have no idear how you can still fall for marxism. I think you just stop thinking at some point. Because you do unterstand that there are market rules but you just apply them to bad things. If you woulld continue thinking what competion and liberty leeds to you would unterstand while marxism is deadly wrong morally and of course practically. Btw Nice pipe but as a capitalist pig I prever Habanos ;)
This is the first series of videos I have seen of yours. I must say that at least your videos appear to be well thought out. I'm not sure I agree with a couple of points you made in this series. 1. You said in order for a capitalist to have an unequal exchange of value one must have a monopoly. Not true. The selling of information requires a subjective opinion of that informations value to the user. Likewise, I have never exploited an employee to produce information I've sold.
@SoooooRich. Selling any commodity requires that there is a subjective 'value' to the consumer. This is not what I mean by 'value'. All information commodities require monopolies. That's why we have copyright law and intellectual patents.
If you are selling a commodity above its value through a monopoly then the extra profit does not come from exploiting your employee. It comes from unequal exchange.
@brendanmcooney Perhaps then you have a different definition of what a monopoly is, because I surely do not have a monopoly on how to invest in real estate. The internet and television are replete with how to buy properties with no money down, and yet I profit. I profit not because I hold a monopoly on the information. I profit because it doesn't cost me anything to just know this. It's what I do - so any price above nothing is a profit.
@SoooooRich. I'm not sure what you do for a living so I can't actually respond to this. If you perform a service in the real estate business then you are not making any profit. You are just a self-employed worker who charges a fee for your work. This is not the same as profit in the sense that I am using the term. This has nothing to do with an information monopoly.
@brendanmcooney I understand what you mean about copyrights and intellectual property, but I think you're trying to think too deeply. No one patronizes me because they can't get the information somewhere else - which is what you imply by saying I have a monopoly on the subject.
>> there is no other system proven to be more productive than capitalism, especially when it comes to eliminating abject poverty.<<
How do you figure that? There are tens of millions of people mired in inescapable poverty in America's inner cities. Rural poverty is widespread, too. There are more socialist-oriented nations with less abject poverty than The US.
The gap between the super-rich and everybody else is rapidly widening in the US.
@ijust1, Karl Marx observations is this: Moral Philosophy versus Scarcity economics. Otherwords, Karl Marx was saying - MORAL obligations > Scarcity economics. The problem concerning Marx theory is that when the state dissolves when there is no High technology introduced into society results in the creation of State Capitalism(State monopoly of resources) when the Proletariat removes the Corporate entity.
Nitpicking point: wages are the price of reproducing the worker's labor power, not the cost of reproducing the worker. The worker is not a commodity consumed by the labor process at a workplace. It's the difference between labor and labor power, a distinction that Marx began to make after he really began delving into the mechanics of capitalism.
No, The reason the means of production tend to concentrate into a capitalist class is because it is worth more to them, and the members of the capitalist class voluntarily exchange other goods with the owners of the means of production, who do so voluntarily as well.
This is because the knowledge required to operate a system of production is unevenly distributed, and people that search for knowledge are able to produce more with the given means than the original lay owners are.
Labour power is a commodity that has the special ability to expand value. Machines, technology doesnt produce value. They need labourers to operate them. Without them they are useless. Value = the socially necessary labour time. All the concepts are specific for the capitalist era (not universal). This is in very crude lines this very small part of Marx his argument (without the historical examples and further argumentation)
First, capital is not a process. It is material, machinery, automation, software, a website, etc. These things require money to be developed. Since these are not consumer goods, they must be paid for via savings.
Secondly, what makes you think money is not a commodity? Money is a commodity like anything else. The unique quality in a commodity we call a car is the ability to drive. The unique quality in money is exchangeability, value storage, and resiliance to wear (a creased dollar).
Offcourse money is a commodity. But it is the commodity that figures as the universal equivalent as a means of circulation, store of value, means of payment, measure of value. These functions are not present in normal commodities. A commodity as the universal commodity is the consequence of exchange as a normal social act. I suggest davidharveyorg. All the elements you mention are phases in the process. They are all called "constant capital".
Not the shovel but the value of the shovel. For example I buy a shovel with money. Both have value. For me as the buyer, the value of the money is metamorphosed in the value of the shovel (remember our assumption here is price = value and that there is equivalent exchange). You exchange the money for the shovel. The value takes different forms (commodity form, money form) in this process
Yes. The movement is the process of an economy - exchange and production - not the capital itself.
And in the situation you cited, the buyer sees more "value" in the shovel than "value" stored in the money the shovel costs. Similarly, the seller sees more "value" in the money used to pay for the shovel than the "value" in the shovel itself.
Buying and selling is just trading. "Buying" is the exchange of a liquid commodity for an illiquid one (product/service). "Selling" is just the opposite.
You are using the marginal utility argument. It is based on circular reasoning (price based on marginal utility, marginal utility on subjective psychology and subjective psychology is quantified in price). I don't like tautological reasoning. For me the LTV is much more convincing + it explains more and better. But that's my (educated) opinion.
My (rudimentary) system would be without wage labourers, money or markets but with a strong state based on pure Athenian democracy on all issues possible. The goal would be to develop technology that emancipates the total human population. That's the first step. We do not have such technology. The small amount of people that works can be regulated through democracy (not full time). People will be skilled in many things. The law of value would not operate in my society as a consequence.
I do not like to repeat myself. You do not understand basic Marxist economics and i m not willing to use bourgeois conception. There are many projects. For example the utopia project of Wright (multi volume project). I have some ideas myself. The goal would be to keep the standard of living, transforming the system without much physical violence.
@MrEverpresent My I ask where the heck do you think capital comes from?
Capital comes from people who underconsume (often for years)to build savings (or borrow from a bank) & take the risk of losing said savings on an INVESTMENT.
This is how capital is formed. And it requires an incentive. The greater the risk (multi-million $ or larger projects) require great potential rewards. Or else the investment wont be made and we won't have the capital or its added productivity in our society.
I think we have different definitions. Capital is a process not a thing. It is a transformation from money into commodities into money. Money is the material representation of value. Therefore: capital is the process of the expansion of value (surplus value). This is part of a larger argument with many side arguments. This looks abstract and is part of much larger argument.
Capital takes many forms (things) in this process. If we operate on the assumption that all commodities trade at their values (no distinction between prices and values and no violation of equivalence) then: the profit doesnt come from exchange but from production and the social relations there. Deviations of price and value is no explanation of the profit here. It is the use value of the capacity to work that produces more value than it is worth. The worker ony gets the exchange value of the LP.
Even if we relax this assumption (there is cheating, stealing etc.) we see that profit isnt realized in exchange. One individuals loss is the other ones profit. It doesnt give the basis for a society in which producers are supposed to make a fair profit without destroying each other. Notice also the ideology of equality, inequality, fairness, freedom in their specific bourgeois form.
Notice also the following (still incomplete) simple sequence:
Money - commodity (labour power, other necessary elements to make the commodity) - commodity - money + surplus value. The money, commodities are all capital (money capital, commodities capital). Only when they circulate in this process of expanding value are they capital.
Btw, I just wanted to point out that YouTube is exploiting you, Brandan! Your videos are producing more advertising $ for Google than you are receiving, if any.
Why are you allowing them to do this to you? You could build your own server, purchase your own bandwidth, and run your own site. Why are you using this capital investment named YouTube?
Chances are it's because you get more out of this "exploitative" exchange than you would get by doing it solo.
My opinion on this: you cannot undermine capitalism in a space devoid of capitalism. Its simple really. The irrational system of capitalism is our current context of action and it gives us possibilities to undermine it.
You continue to operate under the fallacy that exploitation is somehow relative to choice. It is an objective feature of profit regardless of the subjective choices people make in the market. See my video Manufacturing Consent.
@brendanmcooney And you continue to operate under the fallacy that "exploitation" is inherently a negative feature of an economy. This is wrong. An employer "exploits" a willing employee in the same way as an athlete "exploits" his talents.
Utilizing something is exploiting it.
Firstly, there is nothing immoral about voluntary exchange & secondly, there is no other system proven to be more productive than capitalism, especially when it comes to eliminating abject poverty.
So, for the record, you agree that a worker produces more value in their working time than the value of their wage? I think, prior to moral judgments, we need to establish if exploitation is the source of profit or not.
2ndly, you can't use an analogy of an athlete "exploiting" their talents. This is a different use of the word exploit. One doesn't pay one's talent a wage.
@brendanmcooney Of course. Investors would have no reason to create capital if they weren't allowed to at least SPLIT the additional productive output with those people they hire to operate said capital(workers). A naked worker's labor is worth very little. Hence why he'll seek using capital. & since our economy is so advanced & competitive, capital investments are huge, in most cases requiring more savings than A man can afford.
2) they do not 'split the additional productive output', they only pay the price of the labour power which is not always equal to the value of the labour power.
3) the question you do not ask is the fact of the unequal possession of the means of production. You ignore it, you apologize it.
4) 'sharing'? No, the wage labourer has forged a golden chain for himself.
By definition investors DO create capital. They underconsume or borrow and use savings to build or buy capital. And yes, the added productivity IS shared. Laborers earn more $ by working with an employer's capital than working alone. Where do you think the $ to pay these higher wages comes from? It's a % of the additional productivity.
Unequal ownership results from many things. Among them is unequal investing. Not everyone wants to take the risk of investing. And nothing is wrong with that.
Imagine a factory of one of your beloved capitalist with fancy machines and gigantic buildings but without labourers. Who creates valorizes the surplus value? Not capitalists. The 'added productivity' doesnt need to be shared. It doesnt have to raise wages. It can lower them aswell. Your comment on 'unequal ownership' is Adam Smith his argument. There were some lazy people and others were hard workers. You forget primitive accumulation.
1) Imagine those same workers without the factory. How productive would they be? The truth is, TOGETHER, capitalist's investments and worker's labor reach maximum production. As such, it is proper and just for said production to be shared.
2) Don't put words in my mouth. I said SOME people choose to invest and SOME do not. And that in general those who make wise investments do the best, those who make poor investments do the worst, and those who don't invest end in the middle.
1) Productive for whom? Not necessarily for labourers. Carrefour erased many jobs. The workers were more productive in the past years. Did they enjoy a higher wage or did they share surplus value? I do not think so.
2) Your argument is the same. Some invest and were super men, some other were too lazy or dumb or whatever. Let's celebrate the genius of capitalists or read Adam Smith!
1) Productive for the society as a whole, including laborers. Why would they work for an employer if they can get more $ selling products they make by hand? Because they're better off. And citing that some employees lose their jobs is a fallacy of emotional appeal. A bunch of saddlemakers erased many jobs as well. And we're all better off because of it.
2) Nothing to do with laziness. And why SHOULDN'T we celebrate those who invented the revolutionary capital that has produced great wealth?
Let me ask you, what system do you propose that will 1) incentivize people to underconsume their wealth to build a savings 2) will encourage people to use said savings to produce useful, revolutionary capital 3) will allow said capital to be used and operated in order to produce an abundance of goods and services for a society?
NO ONE will invest in a multi-million dollar factory if they can't earn more than the workers who didn't invest in it.
In other words, unless you are a great artist, a skilled athlete, a fantastic consultant, etc, you can only get very little for your labor by yourself.
Businesses allow workers to use their capital to enhance their labor. In the process they produce more, and the business keeps a % of that surplus production.
You can earn very little digging dirt with a shovel that you've made. You can earn much more operating a lift loader and loading it into a dump truck.
I totally agree. But why must we live in a society where it is required that we sell our labor to someone else in order to have access to the means of production?
@brendanmcooney Because if capital is socialized w/ formation, you will see capital formation dwindle to a fraction of what it is.
People need to be incentivized to underconsume to the point where they can create useful capital. Capital is what makes a society wealthy. And the most economically viable incentive to get people to save and produce capital is the right to the productivity that comes from the capital.
PS - You still haven't answered me. How is it exploitation when they earn more?
I don't understand anything you just wrote. It seems we have very different definitions and understandings of this topic.
Please explain "socialized w/ formation," and "incentivized to underconsume to the point where they can create useful capital".
Capital is not just means of production (MP). It's MP that expands in VALUE terms not just physical wealth. And it can only do so via exploitation. It's exploitation b/c you create more value than you receive. Very simple concept.
"It's exploitation b/c you create more value than you receive. Very simple concept."
This is a very narrow-minded way to look at it. You are ignoring the capital investment there.
It isn't "the worker produces more than he earns", its "the worker + an investor's capital" that produces value above the wage. This wage is almost always above what the worker could get by himself. And when he determines that he can earn more working w/ an investors capital than working alone, he will do so.
"its "the worker + an investor's capital" that produces value above the wage."
Like bourgeois ideologist you have a constant capital fetish. As if the capital investment produces value itself. Capital investment only produces relative surplus value not value. Therefore you cannot say that the investors capital produces the value. Dead labour doesnt produce value. You need the labourer for the value transfer.
@MrEverpresent "you have a constant capital fetish... you cannot say that the investors capital produces the value...You need the labourer for the value transfer. "
Of course I have a capital "fetish". Capital is the very source of abundance in a society. Your argument is absurd. It's amounts to "An airplane doesn't produce flight because it cannot fly without a pilot. The pilot produces flight."
No. The plane produces flight. The pilot operates it to do so. Likewise, workers operate capital.
Really, there is no point debating you because you havent read Marx, the videos you try to counter are Marxist and you do not understand my posts or strawman my posts.
I asserted that your argument "you can't say that the investors capital produces the value" is comparable to the absurdity that an airplane doesn't produce flight, since it needs labor.
No. The investor's capital (plane) produces flight. The worker (pilot) is hired to OPERATE the capital & in doing so earns a WAGE, which is a % of the total productivity of his labor + capital.. which is greater than his labor alone w/o the capital. He is better off
No, you did say I wrote it because you say it is comparable with my argument which it isnt. Your comparison is absurd.
And for the second time (ill put it in capital letters this time because you do not understand basic arguments): I AM NOT WRITING ABOUT LABOUR, I AM WRITING ABOUT THE PRODUCTION OF VALUE. This said, your comparison is not worth commenting as it is off topic.
All capitalism is, is an economic structure that allows the average man to become an investor by creating and/or buying means of production & gives him the incentive to do so. As more MoP are introduced into the society, total economic output increases. Investors generally keep a % of that increase (high % in a high profit market, low % in a low profit market) and the rest is distributed to workers in the form of wages.
"All phenomena have hidden substratum. the phenomenal form appears direct and spontaneously in current modes of thought. The hidden substratum needs to be discovered by science." This happens in natural science. Society, we partially make ourselves. That's the reason why scientific statements which go beyond common sense are viewed as ideologically offensive. Natural science doesnt have this problem
incentivized to underconsume.. = people don't automatically not spend their entire paycheck (underconsume) to build up a pile of savings that will afford them the ability to invest in capital. People need to have an incentive to do this. The incentive is the right to the production that results from said capital investment.
Most of the time that extra production is shared with non-investors (workers) in the form of wages
Capital is a social relation between one class that owns means of production and another that doesn't. Without a class of people that don't own MP capital wouldn't be able to recreate itself (make a profit.) If people owned their own means of production and produced surplus PRODUCT (rather than $ profit) for themselves this would not be capital.
Underlying your latest question are the appearances of the current economic system. You have to look closer to understand why only a small number people have the means of production to make iPods etc and why people want to sell their labour power to get a decent living.
Also, you need to keep the following in mind. Besides the production of value, the worker also preserves the value of the means of production.
The capitalist also becomes productive thanks to the social machine that are the workers together in his company. He doesnt pay for this productive effect.
I was so close to subscribing to your channel after watching your "What the _ is money" videos, but then I watched your exploitation ones. I've got a bone to pick with ya.
I see the situation differently. The average person can only make basic products, so he can only earn very little when selling them on the market.
Capitalists allow average workers to be MORE productive through their capital, and in the process, keep a % of their increased labor (profits).
You've just explained why it is exploitation. People require means of production to make their labor useful. They don't own these means of production, capitalists do. They must sell their labor to a capitalist who appropriates some of the value of that labor because he owns the product of that labor.
Is it really exploitation, though, when a worker can get more income for his/her labor by working for an employer rather than trying to produce and market commodities him/herself?
How many people really have the ability to produce iPods, laptops, deodorant, or even pencils?
Hordes of people in Mexico gain very little selling what they can at local markets. So little in fact that the migrate en masse to the US to work for an employer, whose capital will allow them to earn more.
The question we have to ask is: what has to happen in order to make the means of subsistence unattainable in society so that people are driven to seek their own exploitation in the market? The answer is primitive accumulation, an ongoing historical process of taking the means of production away form society and putting it in private hands through the power of the state and through the power of markets.
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Capitalists are "pirates" because they are entrepreneurs? How anti-intellectual can you get?
Are you telling me that if I start a business with my own ideas, money, and hard work, that I'm supposed to split the profits with someone I hire to answer the phones?
If that's how you think, doesn't that make communists parasites? They want to live of the production of others, don't they? They think they have a right to expropriate profit from actual owners and entrepreneurs?
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I read book on economics. This is not economics. This is Marxist propaganda where they tell you that trade is exploitation, business is exploitation, employment is exploitation. The only thing that isn't exploitation is a communist gulag slave labor camp or collective farm.
Learn some history, son. Communists killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century. Read Russian history. People starved, they waited in long lines for crap. They were made "equal" by being reduced to poverty.
You make a link with "communism" and Marx his work on economy. Marx his comments on "communism" are rare. People probably just told you what and how to read it. You have to dig deeper to see how many interpretations and strawman constructions on Marx are alive and kicking.
I have written a meanstream historical work on communist mass killing. I know my literature.
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"Who says that trade etc. is exploitation?"
The poster does. Look at my comments in the first video. I quoted him and marked the spots on the video.
And why are you acting dumb? You know very well that marxism regards trade as exploitation. If I hire you, I am "exploiting" you. It's the freaking central dogma for heaven's sake - and you feign surprise as if you'd never heard of it!
You are so convinced that you know what's wrong with marxism yet you think that Marx held that exploitation came from exchange. This idea was one of the most fundamental things that Marx argued against in all of his writing! He was very clear that exploitation happened in production. Now the sale of labor power as a commodity is a precondition for exploitation. But the exploitation doesn't happen by buying and selling commodities but exploiting the commodity labor-power in the workplace.
This makes you another in a long list of idiots who have attempted to argue against marx on my blog but can't actually articulate any of Marx's arguments. I see no reason to allow you to continue to post comments unless you are actually willing to educate yourself about the subject of your critique. I hold myself to this standard when making critiques of other theoretical traditions. All future comments of yours will be removed until you stop misrepresenting the arguments of your opponents.
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Marx is wrong because the laborer has a shorter time preference than the capitalist, and prefers the value of a regular paycheck NOW to the potential "full value" of his labor as an entrepreneur. It's an economic CHOICE.
The capitalist chooses to PAY now for a future return. He can because he has saved. Both are making choices and exchanges that suit their immediate purpose - which is always subject to change. They connect and each gets what they want at that moment.
The capitalist has no other choice than to reinvest. The coercive laws of competition obliges him to do this, otherwise he would be out of business and no capitalist. Marx handled this topic in an explicit way back in 1860 where he discusses capitalist rationalizations.
If the exchange value of labour power is the value of the means of subsistence of the worker then we are dealing with exploitation because the worker works longer after this value is reached.
This surplus value is created by the worker and is property of the capitalist. I'm writing about people in roles. The worker also transfers value of the means of production into the products. Without the worker the capitalist loses a lot of value.
Exploitation is not something to be conceived as absolute. Marx constructed a degree of exploitation. In Europe for example the degree of exploitation is much lower than in the USA. The surplus value is distributed through taxes and higher payments and stimulating demand. Marx acknowledged this possibility in volume I. Keynes studied Marx his work very well.
"The capitalist chooses to PAY now for a future return. He can because he has saved." Marx wrote about this: "He tries persuasion. "Consider my abstinence; I might have played ducks and drakes with the 15 shillings; but instead of that I consumed it productively, and made yarn with it." Very well, and by way of reward he is now in possession of good yarn instead of a bad conscience; and as for playing the part of a miser, it would never do for him to relapse into such bad ways as that;
we have seen before to what results such asceticism leads. Besides, where nothing is, the king has lost his rights; whatever may be the merit of his abstinence, there is nothing wherewith specially to remunerate it, because the value of the product is merely the sum of the values of the commodities that were thrown into the process of production.Let him therefore console' himself with the reflection that virtue is its own reward, But no, he becomes importunate. He says:
"The yarn is of no use to me: I produced it for sale." In that case let him sell it, or, still better, let him for the future produce only things for satisfying his personal wants, a remedy that his physician MacCulloch has already prescribed as infallible against an epidemic of over-production. He now gets obstinate. "Can the labourer," he asks, "merely with his arms and legs, produce commodities out of nothing? Did I not supply him with the materials, by means of which,
and in which alone, his labour could be embodied? And as the greater part of society consists of such ne'er-do-wells, have I not rendered society incalculable service by my instruments of production, my cotton and my spindle, and not only society, but the labourer also, whom in addition I have provided with the necessaries of life? And am I to be allowed nothing in return for all this service?""
A service is nothing more than the useful effect of a use-value, be it of a commodity, or be it of labour. [16] But here we are dealing with exchange-value. The capitalist paid to the labourer a value of 3 shillings, and the labourer gave him back an exact equivalent in the value of 3 shillings, added by him to the cotton: he gave him value for value. Our friend, up to this time so purse-proud, suddenly assumes the modest demeanour of his own workman, and exclaims:
Have I myself not worked? Have I not performed the labour of superintendence and of overlooking the spinner? And does not this labour, too, create value?" His overlooker and his manager try to hide their smiles. Meanwhile, after a hearty laugh, he re-assumes his usual mien.
Marx continues his brilliant analysis even further in more technical detail in chapter seven.
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I never said Marx said that. I quoted you in your own video. You were talking about "unequal exchanges". You implied that merchants did something wrong by traveling to find bargains to sell at home. It was YOU who said these things as if you hated the very fact of people trading and profiting.
Marx wrongly imputed "exploitation" to a mutually beneficial voluntary exchange. It is simply absurd! Claiming that people have no choice is also simply absurd (in the absence of actual coercion).
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Workers agree to work for "capitalists" for less than their labor is worth (aka, produce a profit for the company) because the paycheck they receive is greater than what they could produce themselves, working from home.
Period.
And capital is NOT owned by a few people in capitalist economies. Nearly every major "international corporation" is owned largely by millions of stock holders, who in most cases are people like you and me.
SMALL businesses are the largest employers in America.
ijust1 thinks in highly distorted terms. You have to know that "worker" and "capitalist" are roles. Most people are petty bourgeoisie in one way or another when they (in)directly flow value in the form of capital (M-C-M). People in the role of "worker" do not know when they have worked enough to reproduce themselves. Bourgeois ideologists like yourself do not know it either (like Senior and his last workhour).
second comment on the same reply. Capital is value in motion. It is a rather complicated matter to measure. We can measure the amount of money used to gain more money as a proxy variable. We can clearly see a rise of inequality since 1970 (start of neo liberalism as mainstream political thought)
Good question! People in the role of "worker" sell their labour power (or capacity for labour). The employer uses this capacity to produce commodities. Like all other commodities, labour power has a value. The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article.
Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.
The means of subsistence are food, shelter, etc. The fact is that our individual as worker works longer than is necessary. He works than his own value of labour power is worth. This excess of labour time is the source of what is called surplus value.
The necessary labour time is the labour time that is needed to buy the means of subsistence, namely the value of his labour power. If he produces this value after for example 3 hours and he continues to work another 5 hours he works 5 hours free for the employer. This is the basis of exploitation as is defined by Marx.
uuuummmm please Marry Me I LOVE YOU , I ACTUALLY undrestood everything you said , and it made perfect sense , now i can do my political science exam without memorizing the definition , I GET IT ;) ;)
The LTV is true yet prices can be below or above the intrinsic value? That's exactly the same thing as saying there is no objective correlation between prices of products and the amount of labor-time that when into making those products.
No. I think you don't understand some basic things about value as a mechanism. There must be a mechanism for determining how much social labor to devote to producing a commodity. If prices rise than more labor is devoted to this and prices fall back down to their equilibrium price. If prices fall less labor is devoted to their production and prices then adjust. This is the mechanism marx calls the "law of value". W/o a correlation of labor time and price value could not serve this function.
read some history of the industrial revolution. Read about the living standards of the working class. Look at the living standards of the working class in free market zones of china or in the new labor markets opened up by NAFTA. When capital has free reign wages go down, poverty rises, profits rise. This is a basic tendency of the nature of wage-labor.
the state- as in the capitalist class acting collectively in its interest? Of course the capitalist class acts as a class. How does this change the wage-relation?
The capitalist class can only be enabled to its destructive ends with state assistance. If you remove state-provided barriers to entry, to capitalist competition, then the working class would be able to sell its labor with new found discretion, as the market for capitalist employers is no longer protected.
The resultant increase in the demand for labor would dissolve the capitalist stranglehold on business, and wages/conditions would necessarily become more equitable.
How does this change my analysis of the wage-relation or the circuit of capital?
More importantly, how can you have private property or markets without a state? And once you have a state isn't it obvious that it will act in the interest of property? What is so deep about saying that the state protects capital? Every social order relies on some sort of coercive force. But this coercive force doesn't define the nature of capital. Capital itself is what needs to be demystified and understood.
That in itself doesn't indict those two specifically. I do, however, find the LTV to be silly, as value is subjective. As for profit vs. wages: Labor + Raw Material > Labor. It's pretty simple. The worker gets rewarded for their subjectively priced labor, and the capitalist keeps what is left over for his own wages as well as for capital investments.
The circuit of capital is overcomplicated. Money isn't necessarily horded for the sake of hording. If people earn more than they spend, do you consider them horders? Oftentimes, people decide to accumulate capital by forgoing current spending in favor of larger purchases in the future, or in case of emergencies, or for investment (in the case of the capitalist).
Private property and markets emerge naturally as a result of uninhibited human action, a state isnt required. States do tend to act in favor of bribing, lobbying capitalists by providing unfair advantages to the politically connected, which is why I advocate their dissolution. Capital in a market system is simple. Profitable (good) ideas/practices receive capital investments and patronage naturally. Unprofitable (bad) ideas/practices are punished with bankruptcy. Capital follows profit.
If it's not private property, then it's public property. Public property belongs to the state. No state, no public property, everything is private. Obviously I believe that private property is automatic.
Medieval Ireland is a good example to look at. Totally anarchic and private.
What socialists call "personal property" is more private then what they call "private property". What you really need to ask is "How can absentee ownership exist in the absence of a state?"
M-C-M1. Money invested in commodity production. Commodities emerge with greater value due to the difference between the use-value and exchange-value of labor. Commodities are sold for M1- more money than the initial investment. Thus value is expanded and profit is produced.
No hoarding. Hoarding is just saving money and not investing it- the opposite of capital.
Like I said, value is subjective. If someone is able to buy a commodity and sell it to someone else for a higher price, then that means that a great desire has been satisfied. This was a voluntary exchange, so the final buyer wouldn't have bought if he/she didn't value the commodity more than the stock of money offered.
This argument only makes sense if value is purely subjective and we reject the reality that market prices act to coordinate the distribution of labor in society and therefore must measure real things, not just phantasmal quantum of subjective desire.
production undertaken for the purpose of exchange rather than for personal consumption, therefore causing one to relate and value ones personal labor time in relation to the labor time of all other producers.
But the structure of production for market exchange gives an objective context to this subjectivity: that we want to maximize our gain for minimal labor. This creates socially necessary labor-time which regulates price. This is the only way in which labor can be allocated in a market society. Your concept of isolated subjectivity does not explain how labor is apportioned. If prices do not relate to labor time then how is the division of labor coordinated in a market?
There is no difference selling a commodity or selling labour. Otherwise there'd be a difference being an electrician for a businessman in a factory AND an electrician going door to door. You make the mistake of thinking that the market price one charges for something is determined by your individual costs. We call this Classical economics. People realized that this was in error and the price is set by Supply and Demand. This is called Neo-classical economics.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664 That has nothing to do with the definition of classical or neoclassical econ. Both schools recognize the role of supply and demand in price formation. Also I do not think, nor have I ever said, that market price is determined by individual costs. Labor power is a commodity- this is a central part of marx's theory of exploitation, so I don't know what you mean by any of your "points".
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney 1) You seemed to be making a distinction between labour and capital in this video. And you asked the question about how labour settles on a price (based in your mind on living costs). If you weren't trying to say that commodities and labour prices are found by different mechanisms then I apologize BUT living COSTS don't directly define price! Only the costs of the cheapest participants are important in determing the SUPPLY SIDE ONLY of the market price, not everybody's costs.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664 "how labor settles on a price" doesn't even make sense. The cost of reproducing the worker must be contained in the wage or else workers won't be able to survive and capital won't be able to reproduce itself. This wage is the price of labor power. The wage forms part of the cost of a commodity. I don't understand what you find problematic about these simple statements. "only the cost of the cheapest participants..." yes, duh. See my video on socially necessary labor time.
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney What isn't clear about my wording 'settles on a price'? If I rephrase : the mechanism by which the market price clears...OR the price at which buyers and sellers of a good or labour agree to contract on. Does that make more sense? My problem is that you assume a fixed living cost, but don't concede that if there isn't enough demand for your labour (i.e not enuf money/capital/food), then I don't see how it's possible for the price not to drop below the living cost. In any system.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney 2) You are wrong that the Classical school (Adam Smith&Ricardo) up until about 1823 used supply and demand. They didn't. It wasn't until the Marginilists like Marshal in the 1890s that theses concepts became common place. This is part of the fundamental distinction. Although Neoclassical is considered mainstream today (and included Keynesian and Supply side etc), it is called this to distinguish itself from what came before.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664. Vol. 3 of Marx's Das Kapital contains an entire chapter on supply and demand. Furthermore he discusses the concept in all of his economic works. Ricardo and Smith are also both aware of supply and demand. The difference is in the role that the classical school, marx, and the neoclassical school give to S and D. But it is ignorant to state that previous thinkers were unaware of the role of S and D in price formation.
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney It is harsh to call my ignorance on the subject. Do you have evidence/links that Smith&Ricardo used the concept of S&D to determine price? Utility of valuation is credited to Daniel Bernoulli's solving of the St Petersberg Paradox... but this didn't affect Smith & Ricardo's distribution theories as far as I can tell. And Marshall is credited with drawing the first supply and demand curves 1890. Das Kapital vol 3 published in 1893, 3 years after Marshall... so suspect.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664. Marginal utility and supply/demand are two different concepts.
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney NO! (Sorry about the caps :) Marginal utility is CRITICAL in understanding demand. You cannot construct a model of of realistic price changes if you assume FIXED/BINARY demand. The idea that for every additional item produced and available, the consumer is prepared to pay less is VITAL. (Downward sloping demand curve!). It also shows how wealth affects valuation (demand). See St Petersburg paradox. Also Friedman's consumption function.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664. See Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations" Book one Chapter 7: "The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity".
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney Thanx for finding the quote! But you censored it, because the sentence continues ", or the whole value of the rent, labour, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither." Read on the same paragrph about Absolute vs Effectual demand. This shows he didn't understand demand! You have to have Bernoulli's concept of MARGINAL UTILITY to do justice to the concept of demand. Smith only knows 'want' and 'can buy'... so he has a poor understanding of price.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664. Now you are changing the argument. Now that I've shown that the classicals all talked about supply and demand you are arguing that their discussion of demand didn't involve the concept of marginal utility. Duh. Everyone knows that. Demand and Supply are not the same as MU. You may think that MU gives a better explanation of demand but that is a different claim then what you originally argued.
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney Actually, the argument stands. I never meant to say that they never used terms supply and demand. If that's what it seemed, I apologize. The key I've been trying to convey is that if demand drops below what it COSTS to produce, then PRICES go downwards, irrespective if costs aren't covered. If you have a theory of prices as Smith did that relies on costs only you won't get this. He did know about economies of scale, which is why quantity of supply would interest him. Irrelevant.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664. Yes of course a fall in demand causes a drop in prices, potentially below cost. Everyone knows that. I don't think Adam Smith would have been shocked by such an argument. It also has no relevance to Marx's theory of value which is what I am interested in these videos. Marx talks about the devaluation of commodities all the time, in fact it is a central part of his theory of value.
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney "the standard of living has fallen in the last 30 years making labour cheaper for capitalists to buy". Regarding your last comment. Precisely if you admit that demand falls, then then the statement quoted from the video is irrelevant. It's the combination which makes labour cheaper. More-over... that statement is false. Take a look at en(.)wikipedia(.)org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1947-2007.svg Income has risen. House prices same. StandardOfLivingImproved
dmg46664 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney BUT You are right that I shouldn't have dwelled on the FIXED nature of the classical demand, but their BINARY nature. Thank you for that, that's why we enter into discussions, to improve our understanding :-) "...PRICES go downwards, irrespective if costs" of my previous comment still stands. Until the costs can permeate to lower supplies which will drive the price up. But that takes time. THAT IS ALL IM TRYING TO GET U TO ACKNOWLEDGE :-)
dmg46664 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney 3) Further, it's not true that Labour doesn't make a profit. If you offer your labour you are giving up something like time at the beach. Opportunity cost! Given a particular task, you can find a price that you would rather be at the beach. The difference between these two prices is profit. Labour and Capitalists make profit, or they wouldn't continue doing what they were doing.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664. That is just some subjective measure of some fictional mental util/profit and has nothing to do with actual profits which don't occur in the head, the heart or in useless econ textbooks, but rather in the accounting logs of the capitalist class. Your definition of profit just conflates all classes into one and thus just becomes a useless ideological device for obscuring reality rather than illuminating it.
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney You wouldn't argue that such a price governed by opportunity cost exists... I.e. it's not fictional. If your employer proceeded to cut your salary there WOULD be a point at which you left. It happens all the time. Alternatively I could say profit is everything you make over the cost of 3 happy meals per day (to stay alive). But since one could always add 'essentials' in the mix then Opportunity cost is a better model. Technical defn... the next best alternative. Everyone has one.
dmg46664 7 months ago
@dmg46664.Profit is the self-expansion of value: when you invest money into something and you get more money back. This is an entirely different phenomenon than the unmeasurable subjective gain one may experience from buying something. To use the same term for both is just pure ideology.
brendanmcooney 7 months ago
@brendanmcooney "when you invest money into something and you get more money back." That's an incredible assumption. U might lose! Regardless, I understand your frustration in comparing opportunity & product costs in transctions, but U r thinking about costs in the wrong way. The important similarity between the two scenarios is you gain something and give up something. The difference between the two is profit. If you are obliged to give up more (by contract), a person feels they've lost.
dmg46664 7 months ago
Quite honestly i have no idear how you can still fall for marxism. I think you just stop thinking at some point. Because you do unterstand that there are market rules but you just apply them to bad things. If you woulld continue thinking what competion and liberty leeds to you would unterstand while marxism is deadly wrong morally and of course practically. Btw Nice pipe but as a capitalist pig I prever Habanos ;)
cyberlibertarian 7 months ago
This is the first series of videos I have seen of yours. I must say that at least your videos appear to be well thought out. I'm not sure I agree with a couple of points you made in this series. 1. You said in order for a capitalist to have an unequal exchange of value one must have a monopoly. Not true. The selling of information requires a subjective opinion of that informations value to the user. Likewise, I have never exploited an employee to produce information I've sold.
SoooooRich 1 year ago
@SoooooRich. Selling any commodity requires that there is a subjective 'value' to the consumer. This is not what I mean by 'value'. All information commodities require monopolies. That's why we have copyright law and intellectual patents.
If you are selling a commodity above its value through a monopoly then the extra profit does not come from exploiting your employee. It comes from unequal exchange.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney Perhaps then you have a different definition of what a monopoly is, because I surely do not have a monopoly on how to invest in real estate. The internet and television are replete with how to buy properties with no money down, and yet I profit. I profit not because I hold a monopoly on the information. I profit because it doesn't cost me anything to just know this. It's what I do - so any price above nothing is a profit.
SoooooRich 1 year ago
@SoooooRich. I'm not sure what you do for a living so I can't actually respond to this. If you perform a service in the real estate business then you are not making any profit. You are just a self-employed worker who charges a fee for your work. This is not the same as profit in the sense that I am using the term. This has nothing to do with an information monopoly.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney I understand what you mean about copyrights and intellectual property, but I think you're trying to think too deeply. No one patronizes me because they can't get the information somewhere else - which is what you imply by saying I have a monopoly on the subject.
SoooooRich 1 year ago
>> there is no other system proven to be more productive than capitalism, especially when it comes to eliminating abject poverty.<<
How do you figure that? There are tens of millions of people mired in inescapable poverty in America's inner cities. Rural poverty is widespread, too. There are more socialist-oriented nations with less abject poverty than The US.
The gap between the super-rich and everybody else is rapidly widening in the US.
pyannaguy 1 year ago
@ijust1, Karl Marx observations is this: Moral Philosophy versus Scarcity economics. Otherwords, Karl Marx was saying - MORAL obligations > Scarcity economics. The problem concerning Marx theory is that when the state dissolves when there is no High technology introduced into society results in the creation of State Capitalism(State monopoly of resources) when the Proletariat removes the Corporate entity.
cris750 1 year ago
lawl. Milton Friedman would pwn this man.
shoesmusic 1 year ago
Funny how pro-capitalists hardly ever seem to talk about wage-labour
UdamnedFOOL 1 year ago
such nonsense! how can you determine what the value of the worker's power? I say you overestimated the value.
ed9s 1 year ago
Nitpicking point: wages are the price of reproducing the worker's labor power, not the cost of reproducing the worker. The worker is not a commodity consumed by the labor process at a workplace. It's the difference between labor and labor power, a distinction that Marx began to make after he really began delving into the mechanics of capitalism.
binhthanhvo 1 year ago
No, The reason the means of production tend to concentrate into a capitalist class is because it is worth more to them, and the members of the capitalist class voluntarily exchange other goods with the owners of the means of production, who do so voluntarily as well.
This is because the knowledge required to operate a system of production is unevenly distributed, and people that search for knowledge are able to produce more with the given means than the original lay owners are.
Skyler827 1 year ago
Labour power is a commodity that has the special ability to expand value. Machines, technology doesnt produce value. They need labourers to operate them. Without them they are useless. Value = the socially necessary labour time. All the concepts are specific for the capitalist era (not universal). This is in very crude lines this very small part of Marx his argument (without the historical examples and further argumentation)
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
First, capital is not a process. It is material, machinery, automation, software, a website, etc. These things require money to be developed. Since these are not consumer goods, they must be paid for via savings.
Secondly, what makes you think money is not a commodity? Money is a commodity like anything else. The unique quality in a commodity we call a car is the ability to drive. The unique quality in money is exchangeability, value storage, and resiliance to wear (a creased dollar).
ijust1 2 years ago
It is a movement, a circulatory process through different
stages, which itself in turn includes three different forms of the circulatory
process. Hence it can only be grasped as a movement, and not as
a static thing. Those who consider the autonomization of value as a mere abstraction forget that the movement of industrial
capital is this abstraction in action. Here value passes through
different forms, different movements in which it is both preserved and
increases, is valorized
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Offcourse money is a commodity. But it is the commodity that figures as the universal equivalent as a means of circulation, store of value, means of payment, measure of value. These functions are not present in normal commodities. A commodity as the universal commodity is the consequence of exchange as a normal social act. I suggest davidharveyorg. All the elements you mention are phases in the process. They are all called "constant capital".
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Please explain to me how a shovel is a movement...
ijust1 2 years ago
Not the shovel but the value of the shovel. For example I buy a shovel with money. Both have value. For me as the buyer, the value of the money is metamorphosed in the value of the shovel (remember our assumption here is price = value and that there is equivalent exchange). You exchange the money for the shovel. The value takes different forms (commodity form, money form) in this process
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Yes. The movement is the process of an economy - exchange and production - not the capital itself.
And in the situation you cited, the buyer sees more "value" in the shovel than "value" stored in the money the shovel costs. Similarly, the seller sees more "value" in the money used to pay for the shovel than the "value" in the shovel itself.
Buying and selling is just trading. "Buying" is the exchange of a liquid commodity for an illiquid one (product/service). "Selling" is just the opposite.
ijust1 2 years ago
You are using the marginal utility argument. It is based on circular reasoning (price based on marginal utility, marginal utility on subjective psychology and subjective psychology is quantified in price). I don't like tautological reasoning. For me the LTV is much more convincing + it explains more and better. But that's my (educated) opinion.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
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My (rudimentary) system would be without wage labourers, money or markets but with a strong state based on pure Athenian democracy on all issues possible. The goal would be to develop technology that emancipates the total human population. That's the first step. We do not have such technology. The small amount of people that works can be regulated through democracy (not full time). People will be skilled in many things. The law of value would not operate in my society as a consequence.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
I do not like to repeat myself. You do not understand basic Marxist economics and i m not willing to use bourgeois conception. There are many projects. For example the utopia project of Wright (multi volume project). I have some ideas myself. The goal would be to keep the standard of living, transforming the system without much physical violence.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
@MrEverpresent My I ask where the heck do you think capital comes from?
Capital comes from people who underconsume (often for years)to build savings (or borrow from a bank) & take the risk of losing said savings on an INVESTMENT.
This is how capital is formed. And it requires an incentive. The greater the risk (multi-million $ or larger projects) require great potential rewards. Or else the investment wont be made and we won't have the capital or its added productivity in our society.
ijust1 2 years ago
I think we have different definitions. Capital is a process not a thing. It is a transformation from money into commodities into money. Money is the material representation of value. Therefore: capital is the process of the expansion of value (surplus value). This is part of a larger argument with many side arguments. This looks abstract and is part of much larger argument.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Capital takes many forms (things) in this process. If we operate on the assumption that all commodities trade at their values (no distinction between prices and values and no violation of equivalence) then: the profit doesnt come from exchange but from production and the social relations there. Deviations of price and value is no explanation of the profit here. It is the use value of the capacity to work that produces more value than it is worth. The worker ony gets the exchange value of the LP.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Even if we relax this assumption (there is cheating, stealing etc.) we see that profit isnt realized in exchange. One individuals loss is the other ones profit. It doesnt give the basis for a society in which producers are supposed to make a fair profit without destroying each other. Notice also the ideology of equality, inequality, fairness, freedom in their specific bourgeois form.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Notice also the following (still incomplete) simple sequence:
Money - commodity (labour power, other necessary elements to make the commodity) - commodity - money + surplus value. The money, commodities are all capital (money capital, commodities capital). Only when they circulate in this process of expanding value are they capital.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Btw, I just wanted to point out that YouTube is exploiting you, Brandan! Your videos are producing more advertising $ for Google than you are receiving, if any.
Why are you allowing them to do this to you? You could build your own server, purchase your own bandwidth, and run your own site. Why are you using this capital investment named YouTube?
Chances are it's because you get more out of this "exploitative" exchange than you would get by doing it solo.
Curious (honestly) for your response.
ijust1 2 years ago
My opinion on this: you cannot undermine capitalism in a space devoid of capitalism. Its simple really. The irrational system of capitalism is our current context of action and it gives us possibilities to undermine it.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
You continue to operate under the fallacy that exploitation is somehow relative to choice. It is an objective feature of profit regardless of the subjective choices people make in the market. See my video Manufacturing Consent.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago 4
@brendanmcooney And you continue to operate under the fallacy that "exploitation" is inherently a negative feature of an economy. This is wrong. An employer "exploits" a willing employee in the same way as an athlete "exploits" his talents.
Utilizing something is exploiting it.
Firstly, there is nothing immoral about voluntary exchange & secondly, there is no other system proven to be more productive than capitalism, especially when it comes to eliminating abject poverty.
Why change this?
ijust1 2 years ago
So, for the record, you agree that a worker produces more value in their working time than the value of their wage? I think, prior to moral judgments, we need to establish if exploitation is the source of profit or not.
2ndly, you can't use an analogy of an athlete "exploiting" their talents. This is a different use of the word exploit. One doesn't pay one's talent a wage.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago 4
@brendanmcooney Of course. Investors would have no reason to create capital if they weren't allowed to at least SPLIT the additional productive output with those people they hire to operate said capital(workers). A naked worker's labor is worth very little. Hence why he'll seek using capital. & since our economy is so advanced & competitive, capital investments are huge, in most cases requiring more savings than A man can afford.
This is NOT "exploitation". It is sharing.
How is this wrong?
ijust1 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
1) it is not the investors who create capital.
2) they do not 'split the additional productive output', they only pay the price of the labour power which is not always equal to the value of the labour power.
3) the question you do not ask is the fact of the unequal possession of the means of production. You ignore it, you apologize it.
4) 'sharing'? No, the wage labourer has forged a golden chain for himself.
Let's read Friedman and other apologists works.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
By definition investors DO create capital. They underconsume or borrow and use savings to build or buy capital. And yes, the added productivity IS shared. Laborers earn more $ by working with an employer's capital than working alone. Where do you think the $ to pay these higher wages comes from? It's a % of the additional productivity.
Unequal ownership results from many things. Among them is unequal investing. Not everyone wants to take the risk of investing. And nothing is wrong with that.
ijust1 2 years ago
Imagine a factory of one of your beloved capitalist with fancy machines and gigantic buildings but without labourers. Who creates valorizes the surplus value? Not capitalists. The 'added productivity' doesnt need to be shared. It doesnt have to raise wages. It can lower them aswell. Your comment on 'unequal ownership' is Adam Smith his argument. There were some lazy people and others were hard workers. You forget primitive accumulation.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
@MrEverpresent
1) Imagine those same workers without the factory. How productive would they be? The truth is, TOGETHER, capitalist's investments and worker's labor reach maximum production. As such, it is proper and just for said production to be shared.
2) Don't put words in my mouth. I said SOME people choose to invest and SOME do not. And that in general those who make wise investments do the best, those who make poor investments do the worst, and those who don't invest end in the middle.
ijust1 2 years ago
1) Productive for whom? Not necessarily for labourers. Carrefour erased many jobs. The workers were more productive in the past years. Did they enjoy a higher wage or did they share surplus value? I do not think so.
2) Your argument is the same. Some invest and were super men, some other were too lazy or dumb or whatever. Let's celebrate the genius of capitalists or read Adam Smith!
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
1) Productive for the society as a whole, including laborers. Why would they work for an employer if they can get more $ selling products they make by hand? Because they're better off. And citing that some employees lose their jobs is a fallacy of emotional appeal. A bunch of saddlemakers erased many jobs as well. And we're all better off because of it.
2) Nothing to do with laziness. And why SHOULDN'T we celebrate those who invented the revolutionary capital that has produced great wealth?
ijust1 2 years ago
For a response: see my other posts. Repeating myself is boring.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
lmao at how much of a prick you're being.
Let me ask you, what system do you propose that will 1) incentivize people to underconsume their wealth to build a savings 2) will encourage people to use said savings to produce useful, revolutionary capital 3) will allow said capital to be used and operated in order to produce an abundance of goods and services for a society?
NO ONE will invest in a multi-million dollar factory if they can't earn more than the workers who didn't invest in it.
ijust1 2 years ago
@brendanmcooney what an excellent response.
seigneurvoland666 1 year ago
@ijust1 That's not exploitation in the Marxist sense. Sorry. A for effort though.
binhthanhvo 1 year ago
are you implying that capitalism is worse then fudalism???
jacobsiwers 2 years ago
no.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
In other words, unless you are a great artist, a skilled athlete, a fantastic consultant, etc, you can only get very little for your labor by yourself.
Businesses allow workers to use their capital to enhance their labor. In the process they produce more, and the business keeps a % of that surplus production.
You can earn very little digging dirt with a shovel that you've made. You can earn much more operating a lift loader and loading it into a dump truck.
ijust1 2 years ago
I totally agree. But why must we live in a society where it is required that we sell our labor to someone else in order to have access to the means of production?
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
@brendanmcooney Because if capital is socialized w/ formation, you will see capital formation dwindle to a fraction of what it is.
People need to be incentivized to underconsume to the point where they can create useful capital. Capital is what makes a society wealthy. And the most economically viable incentive to get people to save and produce capital is the right to the productivity that comes from the capital.
PS - You still haven't answered me. How is it exploitation when they earn more?
ijust1 2 years ago
I don't understand anything you just wrote. It seems we have very different definitions and understandings of this topic.
Please explain "socialized w/ formation," and "incentivized to underconsume to the point where they can create useful capital".
Capital is not just means of production (MP). It's MP that expands in VALUE terms not just physical wealth. And it can only do so via exploitation. It's exploitation b/c you create more value than you receive. Very simple concept.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
"It's exploitation b/c you create more value than you receive. Very simple concept."
This is a very narrow-minded way to look at it. You are ignoring the capital investment there.
It isn't "the worker produces more than he earns", its "the worker + an investor's capital" that produces value above the wage. This wage is almost always above what the worker could get by himself. And when he determines that he can earn more working w/ an investors capital than working alone, he will do so.
ijust1 2 years ago
"its "the worker + an investor's capital" that produces value above the wage."
Like bourgeois ideologist you have a constant capital fetish. As if the capital investment produces value itself. Capital investment only produces relative surplus value not value. Therefore you cannot say that the investors capital produces the value. Dead labour doesnt produce value. You need the labourer for the value transfer.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
@MrEverpresent "you have a constant capital fetish... you cannot say that the investors capital produces the value...You need the labourer for the value transfer. "
Of course I have a capital "fetish". Capital is the very source of abundance in a society. Your argument is absurd. It's amounts to "An airplane doesn't produce flight because it cannot fly without a pilot. The pilot produces flight."
No. The plane produces flight. The pilot operates it to do so. Likewise, workers operate capital.
ijust1 2 years ago
I mean constant capital not capital in general.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Really, there is no point debating you because you havent read Marx, the videos you try to counter are Marxist and you do not understand my posts or strawman my posts.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Ijust1: "An airplane doesn't produce flight because it cannot fly without a pilot. The pilot produces flight. The plane produces flight"
I didnt write such things. Do not strawman me. I am writing about VALUE not the substance of the labour process.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@MrEverpresent I didn't say you wrote it.
I asserted that your argument "you can't say that the investors capital produces the value" is comparable to the absurdity that an airplane doesn't produce flight, since it needs labor.
No. The investor's capital (plane) produces flight. The worker (pilot) is hired to OPERATE the capital & in doing so earns a WAGE, which is a % of the total productivity of his labor + capital.. which is greater than his labor alone w/o the capital. He is better off
ijust1 2 years ago
No, you did say I wrote it because you say it is comparable with my argument which it isnt. Your comparison is absurd.
And for the second time (ill put it in capital letters this time because you do not understand basic arguments): I AM NOT WRITING ABOUT LABOUR, I AM WRITING ABOUT THE PRODUCTION OF VALUE. This said, your comparison is not worth commenting as it is off topic.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
1. Do you distinguish between capital and means of production?
2. Do you distinguish between economic value (measured in money) and physical wealth (measured in quantities of commodities)?
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
@brendanmcooney
Yes. Hence my use of "savings"
All capitalism is, is an economic structure that allows the average man to become an investor by creating and/or buying means of production & gives him the incentive to do so. As more MoP are introduced into the society, total economic output increases. Investors generally keep a % of that increase (high % in a high profit market, low % in a low profit market) and the rest is distributed to workers in the form of wages.
Pirating? I think not
ijust1 2 years ago
You are using a basic Stuart Mill argument which Marx refuted in chapter 16 of volume 1. I suggest you go read some books.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
...yet is supported by everything we see in everyday life
ijust1 2 years ago
"All phenomena have hidden substratum. the phenomenal form appears direct and spontaneously in current modes of thought. The hidden substratum needs to be discovered by science." This happens in natural science. Society, we partially make ourselves. That's the reason why scientific statements which go beyond common sense are viewed as ideologically offensive. Natural science doesnt have this problem
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Sorry. 200char cnt
socialized w/ formation = socialized once created
incentivized to underconsume.. = people don't automatically not spend their entire paycheck (underconsume) to build up a pile of savings that will afford them the ability to invest in capital. People need to have an incentive to do this. The incentive is the right to the production that results from said capital investment.
Most of the time that extra production is shared with non-investors (workers) in the form of wages
ijust1 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Capital is a social relation between one class that owns means of production and another that doesn't. Without a class of people that don't own MP capital wouldn't be able to recreate itself (make a profit.) If people owned their own means of production and produced surplus PRODUCT (rather than $ profit) for themselves this would not be capital.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Underlying your latest question are the appearances of the current economic system. You have to look closer to understand why only a small number people have the means of production to make iPods etc and why people want to sell their labour power to get a decent living.
Also, you need to keep the following in mind. Besides the production of value, the worker also preserves the value of the means of production.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
The capitalist also becomes productive thanks to the social machine that are the workers together in his company. He doesnt pay for this productive effect.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
I was so close to subscribing to your channel after watching your "What the _ is money" videos, but then I watched your exploitation ones. I've got a bone to pick with ya.
I see the situation differently. The average person can only make basic products, so he can only earn very little when selling them on the market.
Capitalists allow average workers to be MORE productive through their capital, and in the process, keep a % of their increased labor (profits).
How is this exploitation?
ijust1 2 years ago
You've just explained why it is exploitation. People require means of production to make their labor useful. They don't own these means of production, capitalists do. They must sell their labor to a capitalist who appropriates some of the value of that labor because he owns the product of that labor.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Is it really exploitation, though, when a worker can get more income for his/her labor by working for an employer rather than trying to produce and market commodities him/herself?
How many people really have the ability to produce iPods, laptops, deodorant, or even pencils?
Hordes of people in Mexico gain very little selling what they can at local markets. So little in fact that the migrate en masse to the US to work for an employer, whose capital will allow them to earn more.
ijust1 2 years ago
The question we have to ask is: what has to happen in order to make the means of subsistence unattainable in society so that people are driven to seek their own exploitation in the market? The answer is primitive accumulation, an ongoing historical process of taking the means of production away form society and putting it in private hands through the power of the state and through the power of markets.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Capitalists are "pirates" because they are entrepreneurs? How anti-intellectual can you get?
Are you telling me that if I start a business with my own ideas, money, and hard work, that I'm supposed to split the profits with someone I hire to answer the phones?
If that's how you think, doesn't that make communists parasites? They want to live of the production of others, don't they? They think they have a right to expropriate profit from actual owners and entrepreneurs?
That's disgusting.
MillionthUsername 2 years ago
@ MillionthUsername
You think with entirely wrong conceptions. I suggest you read some books on the topic.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I read book on economics. This is not economics. This is Marxist propaganda where they tell you that trade is exploitation, business is exploitation, employment is exploitation. The only thing that isn't exploitation is a communist gulag slave labor camp or collective farm.
Learn some history, son. Communists killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century. Read Russian history. People starved, they waited in long lines for crap. They were made "equal" by being reduced to poverty.
MillionthUsername 2 years ago
Who says that trade etc. is exploitation?
You make a link with "communism" and Marx his work on economy. Marx his comments on "communism" are rare. People probably just told you what and how to read it. You have to dig deeper to see how many interpretations and strawman constructions on Marx are alive and kicking.
I have written a meanstream historical work on communist mass killing. I know my literature.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
"Who says that trade etc. is exploitation?"
The poster does. Look at my comments in the first video. I quoted him and marked the spots on the video.
And why are you acting dumb? You know very well that marxism regards trade as exploitation. If I hire you, I am "exploiting" you. It's the freaking central dogma for heaven's sake - and you feign surprise as if you'd never heard of it!
Funny.
MillionthUsername 2 years ago
You are so convinced that you know what's wrong with marxism yet you think that Marx held that exploitation came from exchange. This idea was one of the most fundamental things that Marx argued against in all of his writing! He was very clear that exploitation happened in production. Now the sale of labor power as a commodity is a precondition for exploitation. But the exploitation doesn't happen by buying and selling commodities but exploiting the commodity labor-power in the workplace.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
This makes you another in a long list of idiots who have attempted to argue against marx on my blog but can't actually articulate any of Marx's arguments. I see no reason to allow you to continue to post comments unless you are actually willing to educate yourself about the subject of your critique. I hold myself to this standard when making critiques of other theoretical traditions. All future comments of yours will be removed until you stop misrepresenting the arguments of your opponents.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Marx is wrong because the laborer has a shorter time preference than the capitalist, and prefers the value of a regular paycheck NOW to the potential "full value" of his labor as an entrepreneur. It's an economic CHOICE.
The capitalist chooses to PAY now for a future return. He can because he has saved. Both are making choices and exchanges that suit their immediate purpose - which is always subject to change. They connect and each gets what they want at that moment.
There is no exploitation.
MillionthUsername 2 years ago
The capitalist has no other choice than to reinvest. The coercive laws of competition obliges him to do this, otherwise he would be out of business and no capitalist. Marx handled this topic in an explicit way back in 1860 where he discusses capitalist rationalizations.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
If the exchange value of labour power is the value of the means of subsistence of the worker then we are dealing with exploitation because the worker works longer after this value is reached.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
This surplus value is created by the worker and is property of the capitalist. I'm writing about people in roles. The worker also transfers value of the means of production into the products. Without the worker the capitalist loses a lot of value.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Exploitation is not something to be conceived as absolute. Marx constructed a degree of exploitation. In Europe for example the degree of exploitation is much lower than in the USA. The surplus value is distributed through taxes and higher payments and stimulating demand. Marx acknowledged this possibility in volume I. Keynes studied Marx his work very well.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
"The capitalist chooses to PAY now for a future return. He can because he has saved." Marx wrote about this: "He tries persuasion. "Consider my abstinence; I might have played ducks and drakes with the 15 shillings; but instead of that I consumed it productively, and made yarn with it." Very well, and by way of reward he is now in possession of good yarn instead of a bad conscience; and as for playing the part of a miser, it would never do for him to relapse into such bad ways as that;
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
we have seen before to what results such asceticism leads. Besides, where nothing is, the king has lost his rights; whatever may be the merit of his abstinence, there is nothing wherewith specially to remunerate it, because the value of the product is merely the sum of the values of the commodities that were thrown into the process of production.Let him therefore console' himself with the reflection that virtue is its own reward, But no, he becomes importunate. He says:
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
"The yarn is of no use to me: I produced it for sale." In that case let him sell it, or, still better, let him for the future produce only things for satisfying his personal wants, a remedy that his physician MacCulloch has already prescribed as infallible against an epidemic of over-production. He now gets obstinate. "Can the labourer," he asks, "merely with his arms and legs, produce commodities out of nothing? Did I not supply him with the materials, by means of which,
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
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MrEverpresent 2 years ago
and in which alone, his labour could be embodied? And as the greater part of society consists of such ne'er-do-wells, have I not rendered society incalculable service by my instruments of production, my cotton and my spindle, and not only society, but the labourer also, whom in addition I have provided with the necessaries of life? And am I to be allowed nothing in return for all this service?""
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
A service is nothing more than the useful effect of a use-value, be it of a commodity, or be it of labour. [16] But here we are dealing with exchange-value. The capitalist paid to the labourer a value of 3 shillings, and the labourer gave him back an exact equivalent in the value of 3 shillings, added by him to the cotton: he gave him value for value. Our friend, up to this time so purse-proud, suddenly assumes the modest demeanour of his own workman, and exclaims:
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Have I myself not worked? Have I not performed the labour of superintendence and of overlooking the spinner? And does not this labour, too, create value?" His overlooker and his manager try to hide their smiles. Meanwhile, after a hearty laugh, he re-assumes his usual mien.
Marx continues his brilliant analysis even further in more technical detail in chapter seven.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I never said Marx said that. I quoted you in your own video. You were talking about "unequal exchanges". You implied that merchants did something wrong by traveling to find bargains to sell at home. It was YOU who said these things as if you hated the very fact of people trading and profiting.
Marx wrongly imputed "exploitation" to a mutually beneficial voluntary exchange. It is simply absurd! Claiming that people have no choice is also simply absurd (in the absence of actual coercion).
MillionthUsername 2 years ago
I'm not talking about "people". I'm talking about people in ROLES. Huge difference.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Question: do you think that the bible is an evil work?
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Workers agree to work for "capitalists" for less than their labor is worth (aka, produce a profit for the company) because the paycheck they receive is greater than what they could produce themselves, working from home.
Period.
And capital is NOT owned by a few people in capitalist economies. Nearly every major "international corporation" is owned largely by millions of stock holders, who in most cases are people like you and me.
SMALL businesses are the largest employers in America.
ijust1 2 years ago
ijust1 thinks in highly distorted terms. You have to know that "worker" and "capitalist" are roles. Most people are petty bourgeoisie in one way or another when they (in)directly flow value in the form of capital (M-C-M). People in the role of "worker" do not know when they have worked enough to reproduce themselves. Bourgeois ideologists like yourself do not know it either (like Senior and his last workhour).
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
second comment on the same reply. Capital is value in motion. It is a rather complicated matter to measure. We can measure the amount of money used to gain more money as a proxy variable. We can clearly see a rise of inequality since 1970 (start of neo liberalism as mainstream political thought)
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
What do you mean by, "People in the role of "worker" do not know when they have worked enough to reproduce themselves."
ijust1 2 years ago
Good question! People in the role of "worker" sell their labour power (or capacity for labour). The employer uses this capacity to produce commodities. Like all other commodities, labour power has a value. The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
The means of subsistence are food, shelter, etc. The fact is that our individual as worker works longer than is necessary. He works than his own value of labour power is worth. This excess of labour time is the source of what is called surplus value.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
The necessary labour time is the labour time that is needed to buy the means of subsistence, namely the value of his labour power. If he produces this value after for example 3 hours and he continues to work another 5 hours he works 5 hours free for the employer. This is the basis of exploitation as is defined by Marx.
MrEverpresent 2 years ago
uuuummmm please Marry Me I LOVE YOU , I ACTUALLY undrestood everything you said , and it made perfect sense , now i can do my political science exam without memorizing the definition , I GET IT ;) ;)
LOVEDOVEBo0 2 years ago 2
So capitalism is bad? right because you get ripped off.....right? iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidk
dreminem313 2 years ago
The LTV is true yet prices can be below or above the intrinsic value? That's exactly the same thing as saying there is no objective correlation between prices of products and the amount of labor-time that when into making those products.
DaveDoggOwns 2 years ago
No. I think you don't understand some basic things about value as a mechanism. There must be a mechanism for determining how much social labor to devote to producing a commodity. If prices rise than more labor is devoted to this and prices fall back down to their equilibrium price. If prices fall less labor is devoted to their production and prices then adjust. This is the mechanism marx calls the "law of value". W/o a correlation of labor time and price value could not serve this function.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Low wages are only a problem if there's a lack of competition among capitalists. This lack of competition can only be caused by the state.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
Then why does history show low wages in the most competitive eras of capitalist history?
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Cost of living.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
read some history of the industrial revolution. Read about the living standards of the working class. Look at the living standards of the working class in free market zones of china or in the new labor markets opened up by NAFTA. When capital has free reign wages go down, poverty rises, profits rise. This is a basic tendency of the nature of wage-labor.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
I was hoping that response would get some examples out of you.
For each example given, can you honestly say that the state didn't have a hand in any of what went on?
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
the state- as in the capitalist class acting collectively in its interest? Of course the capitalist class acts as a class. How does this change the wage-relation?
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
The capitalist class can only be enabled to its destructive ends with state assistance. If you remove state-provided barriers to entry, to capitalist competition, then the working class would be able to sell its labor with new found discretion, as the market for capitalist employers is no longer protected.
The resultant increase in the demand for labor would dissolve the capitalist stranglehold on business, and wages/conditions would necessarily become more equitable.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
How does this change my analysis of the wage-relation or the circuit of capital?
More importantly, how can you have private property or markets without a state? And once you have a state isn't it obvious that it will act in the interest of property? What is so deep about saying that the state protects capital? Every social order relies on some sort of coercive force. But this coercive force doesn't define the nature of capital. Capital itself is what needs to be demystified and understood.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
That in itself doesn't indict those two specifically. I do, however, find the LTV to be silly, as value is subjective. As for profit vs. wages: Labor + Raw Material > Labor. It's pretty simple. The worker gets rewarded for their subjectively priced labor, and the capitalist keeps what is left over for his own wages as well as for capital investments.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
The circuit of capital is overcomplicated. Money isn't necessarily horded for the sake of hording. If people earn more than they spend, do you consider them horders? Oftentimes, people decide to accumulate capital by forgoing current spending in favor of larger purchases in the future, or in case of emergencies, or for investment (in the case of the capitalist).
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
Private property and markets emerge naturally as a result of uninhibited human action, a state isnt required. States do tend to act in favor of bribing, lobbying capitalists by providing unfair advantages to the politically connected, which is why I advocate their dissolution. Capital in a market system is simple. Profitable (good) ideas/practices receive capital investments and patronage naturally. Unprofitable (bad) ideas/practices are punished with bankruptcy. Capital follows profit.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
How can you have private property without a state? Please give an historical example of capitalism emerging naturally w/o a state.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
If it's not private property, then it's public property. Public property belongs to the state. No state, no public property, everything is private. Obviously I believe that private property is automatic.
Medieval Ireland is a good example to look at. Totally anarchic and private.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
How does private property exist without a state? You didn't answer my question.
Was medieval Ireland capitalist, ie was there wage labor? Or was there just a society of small, independent producers?
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
What socialists call "personal property" is more private then what they call "private property". What you really need to ask is "How can absentee ownership exist in the absence of a state?"
It wouldn't of course.
DaveDoggOwns 2 years ago
the circuit of capital doesn't involve hoarding.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Sorry, I must have confused circuit of capital with something else. Could you give a brief explanation that I may rebut?
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
M-C-M1. Money invested in commodity production. Commodities emerge with greater value due to the difference between the use-value and exchange-value of labor. Commodities are sold for M1- more money than the initial investment. Thus value is expanded and profit is produced.
No hoarding. Hoarding is just saving money and not investing it- the opposite of capital.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Like I said, value is subjective. If someone is able to buy a commodity and sell it to someone else for a higher price, then that means that a great desire has been satisfied. This was a voluntary exchange, so the final buyer wouldn't have bought if he/she didn't value the commodity more than the stock of money offered.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
This argument only makes sense if value is purely subjective and we reject the reality that market prices act to coordinate the distribution of labor in society and therefore must measure real things, not just phantasmal quantum of subjective desire.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Market prices are formed through compromises of competing subjective valuations.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
conditioned by the objective structure of production for exchange.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Elaborate on what you mean by "structure of production"
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
production undertaken for the purpose of exchange rather than for personal consumption, therefore causing one to relate and value ones personal labor time in relation to the labor time of all other producers.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
There's nothing objective about this. Every valuation involved is still subjective.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
But the structure of production for market exchange gives an objective context to this subjectivity: that we want to maximize our gain for minimal labor. This creates socially necessary labor-time which regulates price. This is the only way in which labor can be allocated in a market society. Your concept of isolated subjectivity does not explain how labor is apportioned. If prices do not relate to labor time then how is the division of labor coordinated in a market?
brendanmcooney 2 years ago
Labor is also valued subjectively.
KagarBeardtooth 2 years ago
time is not subjective. I don't think you understand what I wrote above.
brendanmcooney 2 years ago