>>2930561Comrade Shapiro is back.
I agree with him that the argument of alienation is contrived in complex production which entails trade, especially if property is granted, since to possess is also the ability to dispossess. Marx is obscure in his restoration of "true" and "human" property. We read:
<In my production I would have objectified my individuality […] your enjoyment or use of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work […] I would have been for you the mediator between you and the species, and therefore would become recognised and felt by you […] Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature […] This relationship would moreover be reciprocal; what occurs on my side has also to occur on yours.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/index.htmHere, sharing is apparently permitted, but by direct exchange, rather than indirect distribution, we might say – reverting back to barter, but even so, Marx sees barter as the initial stage of alienated being:
<Exchange or barter […] it is the opposite of the social relationship.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/index.htmTo Marx, it is really the medium which is of concern.
The "conscious" judgement of the act is what mediates humanity.
Since Shapiro references 'Gotha', we may cite this (1875):
<Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products […] in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htmMarx forbids "exchange", yet there is "direct" distribution.
It is all rather speculative, so Shapiro's pragmatism is superior.
Next is the Labour Theory of Value, which Shapiro describes rather adequately, but his point that prices can be determined without the need of invoking labour ignores the fact that labour itself is a price which thus orients all others (e.g. if wages pay for things, then society sells things to its own producers). So then, labourers themselves are the bargainers of market competition, not apart from it. A distinct "labour value" is simply Marx's meaning of an average price, given conditions of perfect competition, which thus lowers prices to their costs of production – Shapiro (at least in older clips) agrees to this. Profits are simply justified by priority of investment, and capital risk. Shapiro is also right that indirect labour is necessary for production. The idea of positive sum thinking is also true, but contrived. If I threaten someone, there is the mutual benefit that they pay me, since I get money, and I leave them alone. Carl Menger thus writes that any situation can be economised, but so what? If I smash windows, I induce demand for window repairs. For the rest, Shapiro complains about the DSA. He should look up what Marx thought of Social Democrats…