"Marxist ideas have largely fallen out of public favor" Posts video explaining Marxism, gets six times likes versus dislikes. Yeah. Marxism must be really unpopular.
Brilliant stuff. It's what the world needs right now. I was, and still am, considering doing something similar. A series called Socialist Shorts. Short animations on Marx's analysis of Capitalism. If I do I'll be sure to link this series as I think what you've done will be far more detailed than what I've planned. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of your videos.
@LittleSn00py "Are you by any chance a degreed economist?"
No, he is not. I asked him the same question some time ago. When it comes to economics, Brendan is an autodidact. And quite good and creative at presenting Marx to a wide audience.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
I don't know why FringeElements is so condescending of BrendanMcooney. In fact, he started of as a Marxist, as most intellectuals do. As we learn more and see Marxist theory arguments dismantled and shown to be fallacious, we progress and evolve to more coherent and intelligent options. FringeElements is basically like the professor criticizing the student for believe basic ideas that the professor believe back when he was a student. You can't expect people to intellectually evolve immediately.
@brendanmcwilliams Perhaps the most ridiculous comment ever posted to one of my videos! Fringe elements knows nothing at all about marx as evidenced by his embarassing failures to understand my videos. This is why I have not bothered responding to any of them. he just creates strawman arguments of his own to attack. He's also a kid and I have no desire to embarass a kid publicly, even if he is rude and cocky.
As far as I have seen, he tears down your claims and points out your arguments are emotional and vague, rather than logical and precise. As far as I can tell, he is right. Fuzzy arguments with a lack of refinement are more on the kid level. Addressing each rebuttal is the adult way to argue, and I've only seen that on his side. If you start to do rebuttals of videos tearing down your points, then at least there would be something to scrutinize for validity or err. :)
@brendanmcwilliams FE hasn't addressed a single point in any of my videos. He just makes up his own strawmen to take down. He doesn't understand my videos and he has expressly stated that he doesn't want to understand them. He is not interested in a dialouge. Rather he acts like a school bully who wants to just make fun of people for his own ego-benefit. Obviously you are of the same childish calibre. Goodbye. Go somewhere else to play.
I will say this. Both you and FringeElements are speaking in a purely academic sense, as neither of these options will become a reality in our world. The other reason is that both of you ignore or deny human nature and sociology. Ironically, you both ignore the same elements, so you two are more alike than you know. I have assumed you are both speaking from the academic side of it in a philosophical and "what-if" type of discussion. Both of these systems have been tried multiple times and failed
But I will also say this. Even though Pure Libertarian and Pure Collectivism are pipe dreams, the world has had many major problems after straying from Free market capitalism to the pro-regulatory. Obviously, a "pure" system will never work, but I would believe leaning to the more capitalistic side is healthy for the economy, employment, and all the other issues people care about. Although environment and workers rights get trampled if you go to far with that.
Also, is it just me, or does Marx seem like a simpleton in a lot of ways. He seems to see the business owners as machines for the use of the people. When you own a business, you get no salary. Your salary comes from part of the profit, with the rest going back into the business in order to compete with other businesses.
It seems Marx believes the workers are entitled to a salary, but the business owner is evil, and therefore is there only to provide jobs and merchandise for the workers.
It sounds like if the business owners expects to make any income, they are evil. Although workers assume someone will risk their money, time, and patience creating a company that has more chance of failing than succeeding, they feel that being compensated for this venture the workers would never consider taking is a travesty.
I think that people like Marx identified with the lower IQ people, who can never succeed on their own, so try to destroy those who do.
@brendanmcwilliams If there was a law requiring 50% of every company to be owned directly by individual employees . We could have fair distribution of wealth without having to have huge taxes and a big wasteful government. The ideal is simple the implication would be huge. Think about it.
@brendanmcwilliams A moneyless,classless,stateless communities of humanity expressing our freedom in creative harmonious cooperation for a world that is so POTENTIALLY AND ACTUALLY nourishing. Capitalism in any form, Statist or Corporatist is the denial of our common humanity in a politically manipulated,tyrannical armed MARKET SYSYTEM OF ARTIFICIAL SARCITY and distortions that is designed to perpetuate the enslavement of the working class for material interest of the criminal ruling elite.
Your comment's on bourgeois economists at about 3:10 I'd like to respectfully say are factually incorrect, even at the time. Thomas Malthus, one of the leading classical economists, explicitly talked about general gluts, which refers to a general lack of optimal production. This is to ignore, Schumpater, Keynes, MIses (read his stuff on praxeolgy), and the mainstream acceptance that markets do have a habit of temporarily falling out of equilibrium all by themselves, and others i can't fit.
3:50 ---> "The classic vision of totalitarian movements goes like this: "America used to be a great country, and then the immigrants and the African-Americans and the feminists and the liberals and the intellectuals came and took it away from you, and we're going to get it back." That's the message by all totalitarian movements: to find scapegoats." ~ Chris Hedges 4/10
Capitalism is the final chapter in historic evolution of THE TYRANNY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY RELATIONSHIP of alienation,exploitation and suffering of humanity, a Market mechanism where minority interest is the NEGATION OF OUR COMMON HUMANITY IN COOPERATION and HARMONY. We shall overcome the structure of minority power and oppression and reclaim our l planet for a world of cooperation for our common needs and well being, expressing our energetic creative expressions in freedom of being.
You have a lot of patience to decently sort out his ideas and analyze them. Not to mention most of the right wing libertarian free market-minded people. I still appreciate your channel
Paul Samuelson gurgled Soviet semen daily. On the precipice of the Soviet political-economic implosion, he said that living standards in the USSR would overtake that of the US within a few years. Similarly, Adam Smith and other "bourgeois economists" devised the incredibly retarded labor theory of value, not Marx. Marx simply re-branded it.
And to blame problems resulting from state controls and power, i.e. war and police brutality, on free markets is quite simply beyond absurd. "OMG there's an AH-64 Apache blowing some brown sand people to shit! BLAME THE MARKET!" No, that's a state military funded by statist extortion invading another state in the most statist way imaginable. Wars are not the result of the unimpeded interactions of individuals exchanging goods and services (a "free market").
@doucher337. I guess you didn't catch this very crucial part of the video:
"Marx doesn’t begin by talking about monopoly, poverty, exploitation, or state violence. He begins with this same realm of market freedom that his bourgeois critics are so enamored with, and then shows how all of these social antagonisms spring out of this basic productive relation." Now the explanation of this necessarily belongs to a future video. This is merely an introduction....
@doucher337. Wow... Samuelson did write the definitive textbook on mainstream econ and you say he "gurgled soviet semen"?
Where here do I claim that the LTV originated with Marx? I actually don't even use the phrase labor theory of value at all since Marx himself never used the phrase.
lulz. You need to learn about Samuelson. In that textbook, "Economics", 1989 or 1988 edition, he said what I had attributed to him. Many of these people are incredibly pro-central planning and are not advocates of a free market as I defined it above. The only free market economists I know of were the Austrians, and even they were minarchists (i.e. statists) until the 1970s with Rothbard. This information is not hard to uncover.
@doucher337 "The only free market economists I know of were the Austrians"... well I don't even know how to respond to this... try reading something besides Austrian econ? Get a grip on reality?
Neo-classicals (mainstream) support economic controls and central planning. That does not ring of the free market to me. Keynesians are obviously anti-free market statists of the nth degree. If you are defining a "free market" as anything other than the unimpeded interactions of individuals exchanging goods and services, then clearly there is ground to be made in our definitions in making them compatible or at least declaring them.
I certainly agree that society needs to be continually critiqued and examined. I suggest a change in your approach though. Antiquated terms like 'bourgeois' tend to disconnect your message from the modern situation. Less idolization of Marx would help the objectivity of your presentation (yes I know this is a series based on Marx).
What's your opinion on a Free Society based on Voluntarism, such as that advocated by stefbot (Freedomain Radio)?
I know that you didn't direct the question at me, but stefbot is incredibly intellectually dishonest. BrainPolice2 had a couple of videos on stefbot but unfortunately his account got hacked. Still there are a lot of videos on Youtube showing how stefbot is trying to deceive people.
As for the 'Free Society', I would first ask what makes this society free, how will the Voluntarist competition not lead to violence like it does now.
Like it says in the video, capitalism as we see it today was not constructed by blueprint, but it emerged from the antagonism between use-value and exchange-value, which created the antagonism between worker and capitalist and so on and so on.
I'm not saying this society is free. But would you rather put your trust in yourself or in the government? Surely you can't be so naive as to think that a central controlling agency would be any less corrupt than in our current system. Giving them more power would only further corrupt them and allow them to screw you over more. Power corrupts; absolute power currupts absolutely and all that. I've seen no plan for collectivism that doesn't inevitably lead to centralized power.
I didn't say you advocated centrally planned capitalism, I said communism on a large scale inherently requires a central planning agency. And I would like to know how that would not lead inevitably to corruption.
Also I would define a voluntary society as one in which all interactions are the result of the free will of the participants without the use of coercion or the initiation of force. Are you critiquing that on moral grounds or advocating for the initiation of violence?
Communism needs a central planning agency to control the use of resources. A bunch of workers can own a factory, but someone needs to be chosen to run it as a representative of the workers. Unless of course you operate as a hive mind like the Borg.
This might sound scary but a hive mind is actually something that might be used in the future. When our technology reaches the point that we are instantly able to communicate with the rest of the world anywhere, anytime it will be able to achieve communism of information.
"Robert K. Merton declared that there are four principles of good science: * Communism – ownership of knowledge is shared by all. * Universalism – according to which claims to truth are evaluated in terms of universal or impersonal criteria, and not on the basis of race, class, gender, religion, or nationality. * Disinterestedness * Organized skepticism
These fundamental principles should be utilized in the development of a evidence-based society."
Well I'm afraid when we start putting the hive mind before the individual you lose me :P
Those principles of good science (I count 3) are good things but despite the fact that knowledge may be available to everyone that does not mean they can all make every decision about the use of resources. Someone must be given authority to manage things.
Please point me to a source if I'm overlooking something. And please nothing that ignores reality by saying that people will spontaneously put the greater good ahead of their own interests.
"how will the Voluntarist competition not lead to violence like it does now"
You answered with: because people will be nicer to each other in my vision. That is kind of ignoring reality in my eyes.
Also please notice that without unemployment benefits, people will no longer have a safety net. This will insure that people will get even more competitive, since losing = starving to death.
Actually I responded to your question by saying we don't have a voluntarist system.
Voluntarism inherently forbids violence and force... and of course I'm not saying that we're anywhere near ready for a voluntaristic society yet. Education is a key factor as well as personal development. But I like it as an eventual goal.
Also please note that voluntarism does not forbid safety nets as long as they are not funded at gunpoint.
Yes voluntarism forbids violence, so does our current society. But when you have watched the videos of BrendanMCooney you will see that violence is the outcome of the antagonisms that are basic to capitalism.
Safety nets are always fund at gunpoint, that's why they are safety nets. A positive right for someone needs a negative right for someone else.
Our society does not forbid violence - do you not see the violence of the government against innocent people in the "war on terror" and the "war on drugs"? Neither of those are the result of free exchanges but rather of goverment power.
Yes but the ruling class (property owners) forbid the use of violence of the lower classes, something that is the outcome of the antagonisms of capitalism.
If I would continue on the last part that I said, property rights are positive rights. This means that someone else gets a negative right. If I want the positive right over a product, then other people will get the negative right of not being allowed to interact with the product.
All positive rights are accumulated at gunpoint. This means that property rights are nothing more than someone with a pistol telling person B that he cannot interact with the products.
Property rights are based on self-ownership and the extension of that being ownership of your actions and the products of your actions (ie. property). The right to own an object you obtained freely is as much an inherent right as the right to ownership of your body. Would you say that I am imposing a negative right on others by not allowing them to rape me?
I've not seen any plan for communism on a large scale that does not involve a central planning agency.
Yes and enforcing your ownership over those products requires violence. The very act of obtaining means that that object is no longer available for obtaining for other people. Property rights are positive rights, they require negative rights for other people.
No, claiming the right to rape you is a positive right. They are forcing the negative right on you of being allowed to rape you.
Yes I am imposing a negative right on someone not being allowed to use my body in the exact same way I am imposing a negative right on someone not being allowed to use the products of my mind and body: my property.
The society I advocate would have your rights end at another person's rights. This of course would require and educated populace with a strong dislike of violence.
The problem that I have with property rights based on interaction with raw materials is that you do not produce anything. Or like Marx says: you can only shape things that are already present in nature. When 6 billion people are all savaging for shit to interact with you will end up with a retarded society.
"The society ... dislike of violence."
Dream on. Our current society is the product of capitalism, you are just moving capitalism 10 steps back. You WILL end up with the same
I'm actually arguing for anarchy more than capitalism but of course capitalism is necessary for anarchy (at least in every version I've seen). Get rid of the institutionalized use of violence known as the government and I think a free society would have a decent shot at working and at least we'll all be free :P
BrendanMCooney has a video on anarchism. I used to call myself an anarchist, and sometimes I still do. But when a commodities are being produced for market exchange, that society is capitalist.
But how do you want to get rid of the government? The capitalist class WANTS a government, they want to use a government to oppress the working class. If you destroy government, but you don't destroy capitalism, you are just moving society 5 steps back.
Correction: the corporatist class wants a government because it allows them to initiate violence to maintain the status quo.
You've got several fallacies running through your arguments consistently. The zero-sum fallacy in that something someone has is taken from someone else, and the fallacy that there is a "capitalist class", ignoring the fact that capitalism is open to anyone with a good idea for providing or improving upon a good or service.
@thegillotine09 In feudal times, people could marry into the royal families and those of the landed gentry, is that to say that there was no landowning class then? Just because the capitalist class is technically open to everyone, doesn't discount the fact that it exists and shapes the way one thinks and acts. The one dealing in fallacies appears to be you.
@pulsatingremedy There can not be capitalism without the state. The focus on the rule of law and not kings in the modern republic (the most natural form of the capitalist metropolis) is evidence of this. Laws are not enforced by good nature my friend.
I don't advocate moving capitalism 10 steps back I advocate moving it 10 steps forward :P It's the whole Marxist evolution of society only with a tendency towards freedom rather than collectivism.
"6 billion people savaging for shit"
Which is a classic example of the zero-sum fallacy.
I think the fundamental difference between a knowledge based society and 'the Borg', is that the Borgs aim is to intervene into other peoples lives, while communists hold to the principle of nobody can liberate labor, labor must liberate itself.
So you're a Marxist but you agree that every state that's tride it has led to poverty, famine, starvation, genocide, and collapse or at least gross human rights violations.
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So what are you advocating than? A free and stateless society, but without property rights? You're getting more daffy by the minute.
@SpecialFester. I advocate studying Marx and exploring his contemporary relevance for the analysis of capitalism so that we might better understand the prospects for social change. I can't argue for the positions that you are attempting to foist upon me so if you want to argue with a strawman find somewhere else to do it.
Intresting how his Value Theory included the criticism of the relations between people. I have plenty of friends who I do not consider "Value relations" Perhaps if it were more democratic theory, someone might have opted to remove that element?
@DKPrepper. I'm not sure if I understand your comment. We are not talking about all social interactions, but economic ones- ones that involve the production and reproduction of social life through work. All societies involve economic interactions between people and any theory of society must explain the way this organization of relations effects the make up of society. You can't remove it.
2ndly, there's no such thing as a "democratic" theory. Is evolution or string theory democratic?
I think using the idea of hegemony, developed by Marx and later Gramsci, would also help explain why people are less inclined to ask tough questions about the nature of crisis in a capitalist system
Thank you Mr Mcconey, your video it is so interesting. We must think though that today the fordist era is gone. In post modernism many machines do the worker's job. Workers have flexible contracts and have therefore lost their power to collective bargaining. Countries' economies are mostly based on services. Since many of these changes could not be foreseen by Marx, do you think his theories could still be applied today?
@68generation. Machines replaced workers under Fordism as they did under Marx's time. Theorizing the relation of automation to value and capital is a core part of Marx's value theory. In Marx's time workers also had little power in the face of capital... so I don't see how this represents a qualitative change.
Services are still commodities. In fact Marx even gives the example of service as a commodity in the first chapter of Das Kapital.
I recently came across Bukharin's critique of Bohm-Bawerk, "Economic Theory of the Leisure Class", on the Marxists Internet Archive. From what I've read so far, it seems pretty good. Would you recommend it as a good Marxist critique of marginal utility and other Austrian/neoclassical concepts?
@LeftPolitiko I don't know about criticism of Austrians (neo-classical economics isn't necessarily the same as the Austrian school-Most Austrians didn't like math) but look up Sraffa's critique of neoclassical theory. It is THE critique that has yet to be answered. I personally think Sraffa-a self-proclaimed neo-ricardian-was a closet Marxist (he was great friends with Gramsci). Get E.K. Hunt's History of Economic Thought. Its the best survey I have read; great against neo-classicals
(0:55)The Marginal utility theorists did not write in response to Marx. They barly knew who he was. Mention labour theory of value they would have assumed you were talking about JS Mill.
Your characterization of markets as inherently leading to concentrated capital and great wealth disparities is not fair. Honest Marxists would use the market as a tool to select for the "good" traits, like companies that treat workers fairly or even worker-owned and that siphoned the LEAST money upwards to the rich elite. Governments fail because we can't choose for these things. All robust and lasting change must occur through an evolutionary and organic process, not via law or violence.
@adjohnson916. The market is upheld by law and violence. But this is not why they lead to concentration. Concentration is a result of socially necessary labor time and the accumulation of capital.
@brendanmcooney I'm not talking about state corporatism, which depends on law and violence, I'm talking about free market left anarchism, which is defined by non-aggression and voluntarism. You haven't read much Bakunin have you? What about mutualism, agorism, voluntaryism, geo-libertarianism, left-Rothbardianism, green libertarianism, dialectical anarchism, and all other schools of the libertarian left?
@adjohnson916 All markets rely on a state to enforce contracts, guarantee the sanctity of money, protect private property and regulate the inherent social antagonisms within the commodity form. Wage labor required a massive political project of primitive accumulation to create labor markets. Without labor markets we can't have generalized commodity production.
My current favorite mutualist thinker is Kevin Carson. I think he's a great writer. I just think everything he writes is mostly wrong.
Money -> A market of currencies like in the past and like global trade today.
Defense of Property -> Police companies, community watchdogs/militia, etc.
The alleged social antagonisms against capital, which we don't even really see in apathetic American anymore, could be easily resolved on the free market through worker-run firms, etc.
@adjohnson916. DRO's, Private cops, how are these not the same things a state: organizations backed by force that ensure the legal premise of property and trade?
When marx talks about social antagonisms he doesn't mean social movements. He's talking about the conflict between use-value and exchange value and how this underlies class antagonism. This antagonism would still exist in a society of worker cooperatives competing in the market.
@brendanmcooney If they got too large they might approximate the state, but the theory is that competition and informed consumers who know the dangers of concentrated private power wouldn't even risk allowing anywhere near a monopoly.
Social antagonism isn't a blight exclusive of markets. Humans will always have competitive egos and jealousies. There's no getting rid of markets... thoroughly planned economies just aren't robust because supply, demand, and choice can't be legislated away.
@adjohnson916. Concentration is a result of the accumulation of surplus value and the forces of socially necessary labor time, not consumer decisions or state forces. If there are organs in society regulating property and markets (and there must be) then these will inevitably be used to the advantage of some.
I don't think you understand what I mean by social antagonism. And when did I say anything about legislating away supply and demand and choice?
@brendanmcooney Yeah please excuse my not being entirely up on the terminology/catch-phrases/rhetoric... :P
I'm just not sure what you advocate, if anything. You've just asserted that concentration is inevitable in markets. Are we doomed then, or do you follow the standard Marxism conclusion that we need a worker's coup of the big state to overthrow the economic elite leading to socialism? I believe that was part of Marx's dialectical prediction, which I've assumed you'd stand by.
@adjohnson916 I don't think there are is a "standard marxism conclusion". I think that we can't even form an answer until we know what the question is. That is the point of my exploration of Marx's critique of capital.
In terms of social antagonisms: stay tuned to this video series as it hopes to make these things clearer than I can do in a comment box.
@brendanmcooney Generally most people who accept Marx's critique of capital also tend to accept his map of the path traced by his theory dialectical materialism which he concluded would lead to a worker coup of state power as a necessary step in the overthrowing of the economic elite that then capitalized the means of production.
I get the feeling you're being a bit too academically dispassionate in an attempt to appear unbiased so as to connect with a potentially sceptical audience.
@adjohnson916 "capitalized the means of production"? The point is to get rid of capital. "worker's coup"? the point is to have a mass movement. I do agree that we can't reorganize society without some sort of overthrow of the state. But again, I think that this discussion is premature. The first step is know what is wrong with society before we can begin to imagine what sort of better society can emerge from it.
@brendanmcooney. And again, I think it's crucial for people to know that there are widely divergent ideas amongst marxists as to what it means to overthrow capital. For lenin it meant the conquest of state power by the working class. But marx had argued that state forms grow from the mode of production not vice versa. For lenin the class nature of the state was all that mattered. But for marx it was getting rid of value production that was crucial.
@adjohnson916 "people who accept Marx's critique of capital also tend to accept his map of the path traced by his theory dialectical materialism"
Not true, anarcho-communists use Marx's theoretical critique of capitalism without necessarily following Marx's normative approach. As surprising as it sounds, yes you can be a communist and an anarchist at the same time. And as brendan said, Marx's point was to get rid of capital altogether and collectivize the means of production.
Frankly, I do not get this antagonism with the word "socialism" in today's economic discussion. Just because Soviet style socialism (which was hardly socialist to begin with) propped up does not mean that socialism will end up like that. On the contrary, anarchist communities have positively portrayed how a socialist/communistic society would work without any for of state or government controlling the means of production.
@Sniper2008009 I know this, and as a free market anarchist I do support a more equal distribution of capital and/or the means of production. The point is that you can't do this by force, it must emerge naturally from voluntary interactions. If you enact this collectivization using violence then you become a state, since a state is defined by "a monopoly on the use of force".
@barrymarshall Where in rationality did you think I would have time to see all or even half of his videos, and what's wrong with critiquing a common stance held by self-described Marxists even if Brendan doesn't hold it?
@adjohnson916 because it's a way of derailing the argument. Instead of talking about how or why labour takes the form of value in commodity producing society, we have a pointless straw-man discussion about violence
@barrymarshall I don't believe I was derailing the argument. I understand that wage labor can be spun into value (however value ultimately lies in the utility value of the product, since one could work hard doing jumping jacks all day and few would pay for it). I providing a solution to rid ourselves of the "stolen" value under wage labor by proposing the promotion of free consumer selection of pro-worker firms that had more equal pay schemes, and the market as a means to make these selections.
@adjohnson916 i fail to see how your theory differs from the "fair trade" movement, ie charity. Anyway, "a fair day's pay" is a conservative slogan. "Abolition of the wages system" is our aim. That is the only way to re-appropriate the unpaid labour which constitutes the basis of profit, interest and rent.
@adjohnson916, Having a goal of abolishing wage labor, etc. is different from realizing that a movement proceeds from minor victory to minor victory in the course of building power.
On another note... a fantasy of mine is that holding to a rational, non-ideological tone in my videos will foster honest dialogue. Part of this fantasy is that we will not impose boring strawmen or jump to the conclusion that we know what the other person is "really saying". It is a fantasy, but I have it anyway.
@brendanmcooney It's hard to have a discussion about nothing. Sometimes you need more than one fact to really understand someone's perspective, and I apologize if I've deconstructed any fantasies by fishing for that level of understanding. Note that I never made any declarative strawmans, but simple asked questions.
"If you enact this collectivization using violence then you become a state, since a state is defined by "a monopoly on the use of force"
True, but I never proposed use of violence or force to enact socialist/communistic measures. And frankly I fail to see your point about how labor is expressly in benefit through a capitalistic wage system. If you have no more strawman arguments to add, then it will be pleasure to terminate this conversation, thanks.
I do not subscribe to any political or economic label as of yet, and I'm still learning. You are doing a fantastic job with that (helping me to learn). Thank you, and please continue these videos.
YAY!!! Finally someone is doing a detailed video series on Marx's Labor Theory of Value. Good luck and much thanks! When should we expect the next video?
impersonal? values are impersonal? or will you argue that humans can maintain civility after dispensing all values? and can you maintain that value can be so entirely eradicated that none will possess any value, so as not to potentially exploit those without any values?
@egoistorms. Not subjective consumer preferences (the bourgeois definition of value) but an objective value: labor time objectified as exchange values. These are two different things. You must separate them in your mind and not confuse one for the other. An amount of labor is an objective thing as is the expression of that labor in the exchange ratio between commodities.
@egoistorms... consumers decide what commodities to buy. In so doing they send signals back to production which apportion labor. This works because commodity prices are expressions of socially necessary labor time. The socially necessary labor time is objective. The ratio of labor inputs between commodities is objective. The only role for subjective valuations is in selecting one type of labor over another. This can only happen with this larger objective context.
"Marxist ideas have largely fallen out of public favor" Posts video explaining Marxism, gets six times likes versus dislikes. Yeah. Marxism must be really unpopular.
N7a7v7i 4 days ago
Brilliant stuff. It's what the world needs right now. I was, and still am, considering doing something similar. A series called Socialist Shorts. Short animations on Marx's analysis of Capitalism. If I do I'll be sure to link this series as I think what you've done will be far more detailed than what I've planned. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of your videos.
Na11y 1 month ago
@Na11y I'd love to see what you come up with. Please let me know when you've posted something!
brendanmcooney 1 month ago
At the risk of sounding like a fan-boy; you're the shit brendan.
RedJacobin 2 months ago
Many people watch your videos, why not post your link to EZHUH.COM get paid for the people watch and make videos.
congchuavideo 8 months ago
You need to make videos faster! :P Love the series, keep it up!
cogar48 10 months ago
another amazing video!!!
jeanpaulfelix 11 months ago
Woe!!!! props on getting the books to stack up like that with out falling
Dec986 11 months ago
Are you by any chance a degreed economist?
LittleSn00py 11 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@LittleSn00py "Are you by any chance a degreed economist?"
No, he is not. I asked him the same question some time ago. When it comes to economics, Brendan is an autodidact. And quite good and creative at presenting Marx to a wide audience.
bapyou 11 months ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I don't know why FringeElements is so condescending of BrendanMcooney. In fact, he started of as a Marxist, as most intellectuals do. As we learn more and see Marxist theory arguments dismantled and shown to be fallacious, we progress and evolve to more coherent and intelligent options. FringeElements is basically like the professor criticizing the student for believe basic ideas that the professor believe back when he was a student. You can't expect people to intellectually evolve immediately.
brendanmcwilliams 11 months ago
@brendanmcwilliams Perhaps the most ridiculous comment ever posted to one of my videos! Fringe elements knows nothing at all about marx as evidenced by his embarassing failures to understand my videos. This is why I have not bothered responding to any of them. he just creates strawman arguments of his own to attack. He's also a kid and I have no desire to embarass a kid publicly, even if he is rude and cocky.
brendanmcooney 11 months ago 9
@brendanmcooney
As far as I have seen, he tears down your claims and points out your arguments are emotional and vague, rather than logical and precise. As far as I can tell, he is right. Fuzzy arguments with a lack of refinement are more on the kid level. Addressing each rebuttal is the adult way to argue, and I've only seen that on his side. If you start to do rebuttals of videos tearing down your points, then at least there would be something to scrutinize for validity or err. :)
brendanmcwilliams 11 months ago
@brendanmcwilliams FE hasn't addressed a single point in any of my videos. He just makes up his own strawmen to take down. He doesn't understand my videos and he has expressly stated that he doesn't want to understand them. He is not interested in a dialouge. Rather he acts like a school bully who wants to just make fun of people for his own ego-benefit. Obviously you are of the same childish calibre. Goodbye. Go somewhere else to play.
brendanmcooney 11 months ago 6
I will say this. Both you and FringeElements are speaking in a purely academic sense, as neither of these options will become a reality in our world. The other reason is that both of you ignore or deny human nature and sociology. Ironically, you both ignore the same elements, so you two are more alike than you know. I have assumed you are both speaking from the academic side of it in a philosophical and "what-if" type of discussion. Both of these systems have been tried multiple times and failed
crazytown232001 11 months ago
@crazytown232001. way to not understand anything at all about any of my video. in fact it sounds like you haven't even watched any of it. go away.
brendanmcooney 11 months ago 9
But I will also say this. Even though Pure Libertarian and Pure Collectivism are pipe dreams, the world has had many major problems after straying from Free market capitalism to the pro-regulatory. Obviously, a "pure" system will never work, but I would believe leaning to the more capitalistic side is healthy for the economy, employment, and all the other issues people care about. Although environment and workers rights get trampled if you go to far with that.
crazytown232001 11 months ago
Also, is it just me, or does Marx seem like a simpleton in a lot of ways. He seems to see the business owners as machines for the use of the people. When you own a business, you get no salary. Your salary comes from part of the profit, with the rest going back into the business in order to compete with other businesses.
It seems Marx believes the workers are entitled to a salary, but the business owner is evil, and therefore is there only to provide jobs and merchandise for the workers.
crazytown232001 11 months ago
@crazytown232001 sounds like you need to either read Marx or go back to crazytown!
thebenallen 10 months ago
It sounds like if the business owners expects to make any income, they are evil. Although workers assume someone will risk their money, time, and patience creating a company that has more chance of failing than succeeding, they feel that being compensated for this venture the workers would never consider taking is a travesty.
I think that people like Marx identified with the lower IQ people, who can never succeed on their own, so try to destroy those who do.
crazytown232001 11 months ago
@crazytown232001 You're a complete idiot.
bapyou 11 months ago
@brendanmcwilliams If there was a law requiring 50% of every company to be owned directly by individual employees . We could have fair distribution of wealth without having to have huge taxes and a big wasteful government. The ideal is simple the implication would be huge. Think about it.
williamb293 5 months ago in playlist More videos from brendanmcooney
@brendanmcwilliams A moneyless,classless,stateless communities of humanity expressing our freedom in creative harmonious cooperation for a world that is so POTENTIALLY AND ACTUALLY nourishing. Capitalism in any form, Statist or Corporatist is the denial of our common humanity in a politically manipulated,tyrannical armed MARKET SYSYTEM OF ARTIFICIAL SARCITY and distortions that is designed to perpetuate the enslavement of the working class for material interest of the criminal ruling elite.
arzoyan 3 months ago
Your comment's on bourgeois economists at about 3:10 I'd like to respectfully say are factually incorrect, even at the time. Thomas Malthus, one of the leading classical economists, explicitly talked about general gluts, which refers to a general lack of optimal production. This is to ignore, Schumpater, Keynes, MIses (read his stuff on praxeolgy), and the mainstream acceptance that markets do have a habit of temporarily falling out of equilibrium all by themselves, and others i can't fit.
SpockisGreat 11 months ago
3:50 ---> "The classic vision of totalitarian movements goes like this: "America used to be a great country, and then the immigrants and the African-Americans and the feminists and the liberals and the intellectuals came and took it away from you, and we're going to get it back." That's the message by all totalitarian movements: to find scapegoats." ~ Chris Hedges 4/10
bapyou 1 year ago
You have a very nice voice Brendan. Is it from Philadelphia?
TheCommunard 1 year ago
Thanks for the post
GoldeneyePwner 1 year ago
Interesting video.
GoldeneyePwner 1 year ago
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Capitalism is the final chapter in historic evolution of THE TYRANNY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY RELATIONSHIP of alienation,exploitation and suffering of humanity, a Market mechanism where minority interest is the NEGATION OF OUR COMMON HUMANITY IN COOPERATION and HARMONY. We shall overcome the structure of minority power and oppression and reclaim our l planet for a world of cooperation for our common needs and well being, expressing our energetic creative expressions in freedom of being.
arzoyan 1 year ago
You have a lot of patience to decently sort out his ideas and analyze them. Not to mention most of the right wing libertarian free market-minded people. I still appreciate your channel
seigneurvoland666 1 year ago
Banjo intro.
Solemn sounds starting at marginal utility theory.
Goovin’ keys striking a hopeful note near the end.
Good score.
Keep making more.
kaosmostly 1 year ago
"YOU MAY BE LIKE... NOT ALL THERE..." - somebody who is like... not all there.
LeftPolitiko 1 year ago
LOL
Paul Samuelson gurgled Soviet semen daily. On the precipice of the Soviet political-economic implosion, he said that living standards in the USSR would overtake that of the US within a few years. Similarly, Adam Smith and other "bourgeois economists" devised the incredibly retarded labor theory of value, not Marx. Marx simply re-branded it.
doucher337 1 year ago
@doucher337
And to blame problems resulting from state controls and power, i.e. war and police brutality, on free markets is quite simply beyond absurd. "OMG there's an AH-64 Apache blowing some brown sand people to shit! BLAME THE MARKET!" No, that's a state military funded by statist extortion invading another state in the most statist way imaginable. Wars are not the result of the unimpeded interactions of individuals exchanging goods and services (a "free market").
doucher337 1 year ago
@doucher337. I guess you didn't catch this very crucial part of the video:
"Marx doesn’t begin by talking about monopoly, poverty, exploitation, or state violence. He begins with this same realm of market freedom that his bourgeois critics are so enamored with, and then shows how all of these social antagonisms spring out of this basic productive relation." Now the explanation of this necessarily belongs to a future video. This is merely an introduction....
brendanmcooney 1 year ago 7
@doucher337 lol youve been indoctrinated by fringeelements!
Eldel15 1 year ago
@Eldel15 Or the mises "institute".
juliaisafilmbuff123 1 year ago
@doucher337 "brown sand people"? Thanks for that, racist.
Redjavaad 1 year ago
@doucher337. Wow... Samuelson did write the definitive textbook on mainstream econ and you say he "gurgled soviet semen"?
Where here do I claim that the LTV originated with Marx? I actually don't even use the phrase labor theory of value at all since Marx himself never used the phrase.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago 15
@brendanmcooney
lulz. You need to learn about Samuelson. In that textbook, "Economics", 1989 or 1988 edition, he said what I had attributed to him. Many of these people are incredibly pro-central planning and are not advocates of a free market as I defined it above. The only free market economists I know of were the Austrians, and even they were minarchists (i.e. statists) until the 1970s with Rothbard. This information is not hard to uncover.
doucher337 1 year ago
@doucher337 "The only free market economists I know of were the Austrians"... well I don't even know how to respond to this... try reading something besides Austrian econ? Get a grip on reality?
brendanmcooney 1 year ago 13
@brendanmcooney
Neo-classicals (mainstream) support economic controls and central planning. That does not ring of the free market to me. Keynesians are obviously anti-free market statists of the nth degree. If you are defining a "free market" as anything other than the unimpeded interactions of individuals exchanging goods and services, then clearly there is ground to be made in our definitions in making them compatible or at least declaring them.
doucher337 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney
I certainly agree that society needs to be continually critiqued and examined. I suggest a change in your approach though. Antiquated terms like 'bourgeois' tend to disconnect your message from the modern situation. Less idolization of Marx would help the objectivity of your presentation (yes I know this is a series based on Marx).
What's your opinion on a Free Society based on Voluntarism, such as that advocated by stefbot (Freedomain Radio)?
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
I know that you didn't direct the question at me, but stefbot is incredibly intellectually dishonest. BrainPolice2 had a couple of videos on stefbot but unfortunately his account got hacked. Still there are a lot of videos on Youtube showing how stefbot is trying to deceive people.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
As for the 'Free Society', I would first ask what makes this society free, how will the Voluntarist competition not lead to violence like it does now.
Like it says in the video, capitalism as we see it today was not constructed by blueprint, but it emerged from the antagonism between use-value and exchange-value, which created the antagonism between worker and capitalist and so on and so on.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
I'm not saying this society is free. But would you rather put your trust in yourself or in the government? Surely you can't be so naive as to think that a central controlling agency would be any less corrupt than in our current system. Giving them more power would only further corrupt them and allow them to screw you over more. Power corrupts; absolute power currupts absolutely and all that. I've seen no plan for collectivism that doesn't inevitably lead to centralized power.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
I don't advocate centrally planned capitalism, I advocate communism.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
I didn't say you advocated centrally planned capitalism, I said communism on a large scale inherently requires a central planning agency. And I would like to know how that would not lead inevitably to corruption.
Also I would define a voluntary society as one in which all interactions are the result of the free will of the participants without the use of coercion or the initiation of force. Are you critiquing that on moral grounds or advocating for the initiation of violence?
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
How does communism need a central planning agency? You are thinking about capitalist societies. Communism is a classless and stateless society.
Well keep on dreaming for that voluntarist society, I wish you the best of luck.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Communism needs a central planning agency to control the use of resources. A bunch of workers can own a factory, but someone needs to be chosen to run it as a representative of the workers. Unless of course you operate as a hive mind like the Borg.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
This might sound scary but a hive mind is actually something that might be used in the future. When our technology reaches the point that we are instantly able to communicate with the rest of the world anywhere, anytime it will be able to achieve communism of information.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
"Robert K. Merton declared that there are four principles of good science: * Communism – ownership of knowledge is shared by all. * Universalism – according to which claims to truth are evaluated in terms of universal or impersonal criteria, and not on the basis of race, class, gender, religion, or nationality. * Disinterestedness * Organized skepticism
These fundamental principles should be utilized in the development of a evidence-based society."
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Well I'm afraid when we start putting the hive mind before the individual you lose me :P
Those principles of good science (I count 3) are good things but despite the fact that knowledge may be available to everyone that does not mean they can all make every decision about the use of resources. Someone must be given authority to manage things.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
4 Principles:
Communism - ownership of knowledge is shared by all.
Universalism - no personal criteria.
Disinterestedness - no personal motives, motivated by the will to advance mankind.
Organized skepticism - all ideas must be tested and are subject to rigorous, structured community scrutiny.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
I'm not putting the hive mind before the individual. The individual is the hive mind. The hive mind are just other individuals.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Please point me to a source if I'm overlooking something. And please nothing that ignores reality by saying that people will spontaneously put the greater good ahead of their own interests.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
"how will the Voluntarist competition not lead to violence like it does now"
You answered with: because people will be nicer to each other in my vision. That is kind of ignoring reality in my eyes.
Also please notice that without unemployment benefits, people will no longer have a safety net. This will insure that people will get even more competitive, since losing = starving to death.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Actually I responded to your question by saying we don't have a voluntarist system.
Voluntarism inherently forbids violence and force... and of course I'm not saying that we're anywhere near ready for a voluntaristic society yet. Education is a key factor as well as personal development. But I like it as an eventual goal.
Also please note that voluntarism does not forbid safety nets as long as they are not funded at gunpoint.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
Yes voluntarism forbids violence, so does our current society. But when you have watched the videos of BrendanMCooney you will see that violence is the outcome of the antagonisms that are basic to capitalism.
Safety nets are always fund at gunpoint, that's why they are safety nets. A positive right for someone needs a negative right for someone else.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Our society does not forbid violence - do you not see the violence of the government against innocent people in the "war on terror" and the "war on drugs"? Neither of those are the result of free exchanges but rather of goverment power.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
Yes but the ruling class (property owners) forbid the use of violence of the lower classes, something that is the outcome of the antagonisms of capitalism.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
If I would continue on the last part that I said, property rights are positive rights. This means that someone else gets a negative right. If I want the positive right over a product, then other people will get the negative right of not being allowed to interact with the product.
All positive rights are accumulated at gunpoint. This means that property rights are nothing more than someone with a pistol telling person B that he cannot interact with the products.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Property rights are based on self-ownership and the extension of that being ownership of your actions and the products of your actions (ie. property). The right to own an object you obtained freely is as much an inherent right as the right to ownership of your body. Would you say that I am imposing a negative right on others by not allowing them to rape me?
I've not seen any plan for communism on a large scale that does not involve a central planning agency.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
Yes and enforcing your ownership over those products requires violence. The very act of obtaining means that that object is no longer available for obtaining for other people. Property rights are positive rights, they require negative rights for other people.
No, claiming the right to rape you is a positive right. They are forcing the negative right on you of being allowed to rape you.
Then you've not seen communism.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Show me communism :P
Yes I am imposing a negative right on someone not being allowed to use my body in the exact same way I am imposing a negative right on someone not being allowed to use the products of my mind and body: my property.
The society I advocate would have your rights end at another person's rights. This of course would require and educated populace with a strong dislike of violence.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
The problem that I have with property rights based on interaction with raw materials is that you do not produce anything. Or like Marx says: you can only shape things that are already present in nature. When 6 billion people are all savaging for shit to interact with you will end up with a retarded society.
"The society ... dislike of violence."
Dream on. Our current society is the product of capitalism, you are just moving capitalism 10 steps back. You WILL end up with the same
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
I'm actually arguing for anarchy more than capitalism but of course capitalism is necessary for anarchy (at least in every version I've seen). Get rid of the institutionalized use of violence known as the government and I think a free society would have a decent shot at working and at least we'll all be free :P
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
BrendanMCooney has a video on anarchism. I used to call myself an anarchist, and sometimes I still do. But when a commodities are being produced for market exchange, that society is capitalist.
But how do you want to get rid of the government? The capitalist class WANTS a government, they want to use a government to oppress the working class. If you destroy government, but you don't destroy capitalism, you are just moving society 5 steps back.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Correction: the corporatist class wants a government because it allows them to initiate violence to maintain the status quo.
You've got several fallacies running through your arguments consistently. The zero-sum fallacy in that something someone has is taken from someone else, and the fallacy that there is a "capitalist class", ignoring the fact that capitalism is open to anyone with a good idea for providing or improving upon a good or service.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@thegillotine09
"ignoring the fact that capitalism is open to anyone with a good idea for providing or improving upon a good or service"
Tell that to the kids in Africa.
Also, social mobility does not mean that there are no classes, rather it confirms the existence of classes.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@thegillotine09 In feudal times, people could marry into the royal families and those of the landed gentry, is that to say that there was no landowning class then? Just because the capitalist class is technically open to everyone, doesn't discount the fact that it exists and shapes the way one thinks and acts. The one dealing in fallacies appears to be you.
ipwnorcs 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Right I'm off to the gym. Thanks for giving me some stuff to think about :)
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy There can not be capitalism without the state. The focus on the rule of law and not kings in the modern republic (the most natural form of the capitalist metropolis) is evidence of this. Laws are not enforced by good nature my friend.
ipwnorcs 1 year ago
@ipwnorcs
I am going to assume that this was a reply to me saying that anarchism uses the capitalist mode of production?
With anarchism I meant the classical 'market socialist' anarchism. With market socialism being an oxymoron.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
I don't advocate moving capitalism 10 steps back I advocate moving it 10 steps forward :P It's the whole Marxist evolution of society only with a tendency towards freedom rather than collectivism.
"6 billion people savaging for shit"
Which is a classic example of the zero-sum fallacy.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
I recently had a discussion about collectivism, I'll send you the PMs. If anyone who is reading this also wants the PMs, message me.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy I do, please, if you can.
eah777 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
"Which is a classic example of the zero-sum fallacy."
Like I said:
"Or like Marx says: you can only shape things that are already present in nature."
We only have one earth, that sounds like a zero-sum game to me.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
@pulsatingremedy
Well if we're going to be going into the future with the Borg then we might as well open ourselves up to other planets lol.
And technology increases the utility of resources. Also anyone who works with ideas creates things that are not already present in nature.
thegillotine09 1 year ago
@thegillotine09
I think the fundamental difference between a knowledge based society and 'the Borg', is that the Borgs aim is to intervene into other peoples lives, while communists hold to the principle of nobody can liberate labor, labor must liberate itself.
pulsatingremedy 1 year ago
So you're a Marxist but you agree that every state that's tride it has led to poverty, famine, starvation, genocide, and collapse or at least gross human rights violations.
-
So what are you advocating than? A free and stateless society, but without property rights? You're getting more daffy by the minute.
SpecialFester 1 year ago
@SpecialFester. I advocate studying Marx and exploring his contemporary relevance for the analysis of capitalism so that we might better understand the prospects for social change. I can't argue for the positions that you are attempting to foist upon me so if you want to argue with a strawman find somewhere else to do it.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
Comment removed
SpecialFester 1 year ago
Intresting how his Value Theory included the criticism of the relations between people. I have plenty of friends who I do not consider "Value relations" Perhaps if it were more democratic theory, someone might have opted to remove that element?
DKPrepper 1 year ago
@DKPrepper. I'm not sure if I understand your comment. We are not talking about all social interactions, but economic ones- ones that involve the production and reproduction of social life through work. All societies involve economic interactions between people and any theory of society must explain the way this organization of relations effects the make up of society. You can't remove it.
2ndly, there's no such thing as a "democratic" theory. Is evolution or string theory democratic?
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
Brendan,
I think using the idea of hegemony, developed by Marx and later Gramsci, would also help explain why people are less inclined to ask tough questions about the nature of crisis in a capitalist system
thegreattravo 1 year ago
Thank you for helping others understand what the basis of our lives is about. Much talk but not enough to understand the talk until now. Excellent!
caj51fish 1 year ago
Thank you Mr Mcconey, your video it is so interesting. We must think though that today the fordist era is gone. In post modernism many machines do the worker's job. Workers have flexible contracts and have therefore lost their power to collective bargaining. Countries' economies are mostly based on services. Since many of these changes could not be foreseen by Marx, do you think his theories could still be applied today?
68generation 1 year ago
@68generation. Machines replaced workers under Fordism as they did under Marx's time. Theorizing the relation of automation to value and capital is a core part of Marx's value theory. In Marx's time workers also had little power in the face of capital... so I don't see how this represents a qualitative change.
Services are still commodities. In fact Marx even gives the example of service as a commodity in the first chapter of Das Kapital.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
Well done, Brendan! This looks like a very thought-provoking series.
TheCeltiberian 1 year ago
excellent! Trying to get through Das Kapital right now, not going so well.
stripe66506 1 year ago
Nice animations bro
royallthefourth 1 year ago
thanks for the video.
mcgrawtim123 1 year ago
I recently came across Bukharin's critique of Bohm-Bawerk, "Economic Theory of the Leisure Class", on the Marxists Internet Archive. From what I've read so far, it seems pretty good. Would you recommend it as a good Marxist critique of marginal utility and other Austrian/neoclassical concepts?
LeftPolitiko 1 year ago
@LeftPolitiko Yes I think it a great book. Another one is "Anti-Samuelson" by Marc Linder.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@LeftPolitiko I don't know about criticism of Austrians (neo-classical economics isn't necessarily the same as the Austrian school-Most Austrians didn't like math) but look up Sraffa's critique of neoclassical theory. It is THE critique that has yet to be answered. I personally think Sraffa-a self-proclaimed neo-ricardian-was a closet Marxist (he was great friends with Gramsci). Get E.K. Hunt's History of Economic Thought. Its the best survey I have read; great against neo-classicals
JP2times2007 1 year ago
(0:55)The Marginal utility theorists did not write in response to Marx. They barly knew who he was. Mention labour theory of value they would have assumed you were talking about JS Mill.
Malthus0 1 year ago
@Malthus0. But why did those theories become dominant after Marx? B/c they offered an alternative to marx.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
great vid brendan, actually understood a fair portion of it for a change.
i dont trust libertarianism, seems like anarchy leading to tyranny.
hawkpork 1 year ago
Your characterization of markets as inherently leading to concentrated capital and great wealth disparities is not fair. Honest Marxists would use the market as a tool to select for the "good" traits, like companies that treat workers fairly or even worker-owned and that siphoned the LEAST money upwards to the rich elite. Governments fail because we can't choose for these things. All robust and lasting change must occur through an evolutionary and organic process, not via law or violence.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916. The market is upheld by law and violence. But this is not why they lead to concentration. Concentration is a result of socially necessary labor time and the accumulation of capital.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney I'm not talking about state corporatism, which depends on law and violence, I'm talking about free market left anarchism, which is defined by non-aggression and voluntarism. You haven't read much Bakunin have you? What about mutualism, agorism, voluntaryism, geo-libertarianism, left-Rothbardianism, green libertarianism, dialectical anarchism, and all other schools of the libertarian left?
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916 All markets rely on a state to enforce contracts, guarantee the sanctity of money, protect private property and regulate the inherent social antagonisms within the commodity form. Wage labor required a massive political project of primitive accumulation to create labor markets. Without labor markets we can't have generalized commodity production.
My current favorite mutualist thinker is Kevin Carson. I think he's a great writer. I just think everything he writes is mostly wrong.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney Many of those alleged state-dependencies of the market already have solutions proposed:
Contracts -> Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs).
Money -> A market of currencies like in the past and like global trade today.
Defense of Property -> Police companies, community watchdogs/militia, etc.
The alleged social antagonisms against capital, which we don't even really see in apathetic American anymore, could be easily resolved on the free market through worker-run firms, etc.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916. DRO's, Private cops, how are these not the same things a state: organizations backed by force that ensure the legal premise of property and trade?
When marx talks about social antagonisms he doesn't mean social movements. He's talking about the conflict between use-value and exchange value and how this underlies class antagonism. This antagonism would still exist in a society of worker cooperatives competing in the market.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney If they got too large they might approximate the state, but the theory is that competition and informed consumers who know the dangers of concentrated private power wouldn't even risk allowing anywhere near a monopoly.
Social antagonism isn't a blight exclusive of markets. Humans will always have competitive egos and jealousies. There's no getting rid of markets... thoroughly planned economies just aren't robust because supply, demand, and choice can't be legislated away.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916. Concentration is a result of the accumulation of surplus value and the forces of socially necessary labor time, not consumer decisions or state forces. If there are organs in society regulating property and markets (and there must be) then these will inevitably be used to the advantage of some.
I don't think you understand what I mean by social antagonism. And when did I say anything about legislating away supply and demand and choice?
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney Yeah please excuse my not being entirely up on the terminology/catch-phrases/rhetoric... :P
I'm just not sure what you advocate, if anything. You've just asserted that concentration is inevitable in markets. Are we doomed then, or do you follow the standard Marxism conclusion that we need a worker's coup of the big state to overthrow the economic elite leading to socialism? I believe that was part of Marx's dialectical prediction, which I've assumed you'd stand by.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916 I don't think there are is a "standard marxism conclusion". I think that we can't even form an answer until we know what the question is. That is the point of my exploration of Marx's critique of capital.
In terms of social antagonisms: stay tuned to this video series as it hopes to make these things clearer than I can do in a comment box.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney Generally most people who accept Marx's critique of capital also tend to accept his map of the path traced by his theory dialectical materialism which he concluded would lead to a worker coup of state power as a necessary step in the overthrowing of the economic elite that then capitalized the means of production.
I get the feeling you're being a bit too academically dispassionate in an attempt to appear unbiased so as to connect with a potentially sceptical audience.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916 "capitalized the means of production"? The point is to get rid of capital. "worker's coup"? the point is to have a mass movement. I do agree that we can't reorganize society without some sort of overthrow of the state. But again, I think that this discussion is premature. The first step is know what is wrong with society before we can begin to imagine what sort of better society can emerge from it.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney. And again, I think it's crucial for people to know that there are widely divergent ideas amongst marxists as to what it means to overthrow capital. For lenin it meant the conquest of state power by the working class. But marx had argued that state forms grow from the mode of production not vice versa. For lenin the class nature of the state was all that mattered. But for marx it was getting rid of value production that was crucial.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@adjohnson916 "people who accept Marx's critique of capital also tend to accept his map of the path traced by his theory dialectical materialism"
Not true, anarcho-communists use Marx's theoretical critique of capitalism without necessarily following Marx's normative approach. As surprising as it sounds, yes you can be a communist and an anarchist at the same time. And as brendan said, Marx's point was to get rid of capital altogether and collectivize the means of production.
Sniper2008009 1 year ago
Frankly, I do not get this antagonism with the word "socialism" in today's economic discussion. Just because Soviet style socialism (which was hardly socialist to begin with) propped up does not mean that socialism will end up like that. On the contrary, anarchist communities have positively portrayed how a socialist/communistic society would work without any for of state or government controlling the means of production.
Sniper2008009 1 year ago
@Sniper2008009 I know this, and as a free market anarchist I do support a more equal distribution of capital and/or the means of production. The point is that you can't do this by force, it must emerge naturally from voluntary interactions. If you enact this collectivization using violence then you become a state, since a state is defined by "a monopoly on the use of force".
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916 where in Brendan's videos has there been any call for violently enforced collectivisation by a state or indeed anyone else?
barrymarshall 1 year ago
@barrymarshall Where in rationality did you think I would have time to see all or even half of his videos, and what's wrong with critiquing a common stance held by self-described Marxists even if Brendan doesn't hold it?
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916 because it's a way of derailing the argument. Instead of talking about how or why labour takes the form of value in commodity producing society, we have a pointless straw-man discussion about violence
barrymarshall 1 year ago
@barrymarshall I don't believe I was derailing the argument. I understand that wage labor can be spun into value (however value ultimately lies in the utility value of the product, since one could work hard doing jumping jacks all day and few would pay for it). I providing a solution to rid ourselves of the "stolen" value under wage labor by proposing the promotion of free consumer selection of pro-worker firms that had more equal pay schemes, and the market as a means to make these selections.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916 i fail to see how your theory differs from the "fair trade" movement, ie charity. Anyway, "a fair day's pay" is a conservative slogan. "Abolition of the wages system" is our aim. That is the only way to re-appropriate the unpaid labour which constitutes the basis of profit, interest and rent.
barrymarshall 1 year ago
@barrymarshall Your rejection of realistic progress, while noble in theory, is why your movement may practically never get anywhere.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916, Having a goal of abolishing wage labor, etc. is different from realizing that a movement proceeds from minor victory to minor victory in the course of building power.
On another note... a fantasy of mine is that holding to a rational, non-ideological tone in my videos will foster honest dialogue. Part of this fantasy is that we will not impose boring strawmen or jump to the conclusion that we know what the other person is "really saying". It is a fantasy, but I have it anyway.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney It's hard to have a discussion about nothing. Sometimes you need more than one fact to really understand someone's perspective, and I apologize if I've deconstructed any fantasies by fishing for that level of understanding. Note that I never made any declarative strawmans, but simple asked questions.
adjohnson916 1 year ago
@adjohnson916. A conversation about nothing? How about the law of value- the subject of this video...?
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@adjohnson916
"If you enact this collectivization using violence then you become a state, since a state is defined by "a monopoly on the use of force"
True, but I never proposed use of violence or force to enact socialist/communistic measures. And frankly I fail to see your point about how labor is expressly in benefit through a capitalistic wage system. If you have no more strawman arguments to add, then it will be pleasure to terminate this conversation, thanks.
Sniper2008009 1 year ago
Hey Brendan,
I do not subscribe to any political or economic label as of yet, and I'm still learning. You are doing a fantastic job with that (helping me to learn). Thank you, and please continue these videos.
formic 1 year ago
I was so excited to log on here and see that you have new videos posted!
LovexandxRage 1 year ago
excellent video thanks!
bebedagely 1 year ago
YAY!!! Finally someone is doing a detailed video series on Marx's Labor Theory of Value. Good luck and much thanks! When should we expect the next video?
Xenu 1 year ago
I dig Marxists because they know who Böhm-Bawerk was.
gunsandbullhorns 1 year ago
great great stuff. lookin forward to more.
oojamaflipper 1 year ago
Nice intro Brendan, hope you are well.
TheBigHo111 1 year ago
7:04 "impersonal, blind forces of society"
impersonal? values are impersonal? or will you argue that humans can maintain civility after dispensing all values? and can you maintain that value can be so entirely eradicated that none will possess any value, so as not to potentially exploit those without any values?
egoistorms 1 year ago
@egoistorms. Not subjective consumer preferences (the bourgeois definition of value) but an objective value: labor time objectified as exchange values. These are two different things. You must separate them in your mind and not confuse one for the other. An amount of labor is an objective thing as is the expression of that labor in the exchange ratio between commodities.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago
@brendanmcooney by what means are "subjective consumer preferences" expressed?
egoistorms 1 year ago
@egoistorms... consumers decide what commodities to buy. In so doing they send signals back to production which apportion labor. This works because commodity prices are expressions of socially necessary labor time. The socially necessary labor time is objective. The ratio of labor inputs between commodities is objective. The only role for subjective valuations is in selecting one type of labor over another. This can only happen with this larger objective context.
brendanmcooney 1 year ago