/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Robot slavery is fine. But what to do with 8 billion unemployed people is unclear

>>2547898
>what to do with 8 billion unemployed people is unclear
Ask the robots to take on some risk and be job creators for them

>>2547898
the robot owners can pay them in company scrip with all the value robots create

>>2547823
<The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
>>2547606
anti-communist warrior 💪
>>2547885
yes, ive read it before. chapter 4 is also worth reading.
>>2547883
>markets produce capitalist relations
capitalist relations (private monopoly over the means of production) historically occurs through state intervention via bourgeois dictatorship (i.e. primitive accumulation).
>>2548105
>>2547837
>receiving education is a lot of work that you're expected to pay for up front. Really higher wages are just paying you back for they ears of tuition and unpaid labor.
why are state officials receiving a separate, elite education in a communist society? why are people even paying for university in a communist society?

>>2547842
>ok, but why insist on putting all this in bourgeois economic terms that focus on "supply and demand" and "marginal utility" if Marx says the same thing?
the evidence for geocentrism and heliocentrism comes from the same phenomena, just interpreted differently. to me, marxism is geocentric.
>his standpoint is to educate the worker about their own exploitation
the early socialists in britain (1816-32) where followers of adam smith; the so-called "ricardian socialists" were smithian, as noel thompson shows: >>2547416
marxism is a perversion of socialism, which replaces british common sense with german mysticism. the first utopian socialist was british; robert owen (1813). the first proto-socialist movement was british, the "diggers", or the "true levellers" of the english civil war (1649). the labour theory of value came from british political economy (1662-), etc. what exactly are we missing?
>Your goal is to simply describe economics as scholastically as possible
you mean that i value objectivity? correct.
>>2548108
>its a political choice
politics and economics are not the same thing. ive discussed my politics plenty, so read what you want.

>>2547606
didn't keynes suggest that aggregate demand is so much more important than anything, including useful labor, that he suggested making people dig holes and fill them up again to boost employment during a recession? And this is the guy who said he could solve capitalism's crises better than the Marxist's "misunderstanidng of Ricardo?"

>>2548414
>the evidence for geocentrism and heliocentrism comes from the same phenomena, just interpreted differently. to me, marxism is geocentric.
What makes Marxism "geocentric?"

>>2548414
>marxism is a perversion of socialism, which replaces british common sense with german mysticism
explain for us the difference between british common sense and german mysticism, from your perspective.

>>2548414
>politics and economics are not the same thing.
Class society arises from economic relations, and this has political consequences. Artificially segregating the two might seem like "British common sense" to you but to anyone else its seems like obfuscation of class society which benefits the ruling class politically.

>>2548414
>marxism is a perversion of socialism, which replaces british common sense with german mysticism.
jesse….

>>2548726
It's especially weird that he says this since Marx spent literally over half his life in England, researching in the British museum, reading British political economy, and deriving his own ideas from that. Oh no this dirty stinky German showed up and ruined our perfect British common sense with his weird Hegelian mysticism is such a weird cope. As is the blatant attempt to segregate politics from economics in a thread called political economy.

>>2548731
at this point I just view him as a lol cow. I dont like being rude but he kinda is one

>>2548414
>marxism is a perversion of socialism, which replaces british common sense with german mysticism

The British Empire, a glorious exercise in "let's see how much of the world we can own before lunch," began with the subtle elegance of piracy and trade. At first, it was all about "spices" and "spices" were, naturally, worth turning a blind eye to any minor ethical dilemmas like, oh, kidnapping, slavery, and the occasional genocide. But that was just the appetizer. Then, like a drunk person stumbling into a buffet, Britain started scooping up territories with the same finesse as a toddler in a toy store. India? "Sure, why not!" The Caribbean? "It's like a tropical vacation… with gold!" Africa? "Let's just call it all of it." The Empire reached its zenith by collecting more territories than a Monopoly player who hasn't read the rules and is too busy yelling "MINE!" to notice they've declared bankruptcy. But, as with all good things that are based on unreasonable greed and excessive pride, cracks began to show. First, there were those pesky colonies with their rebellious ideas like "freedom" and "rights" (what a buzzkill). Then there were the mounting costs of controlling everything, because apparently, sending gunboats to every little skirmish isn't "cost-effective." Oops. Eventually, Britain started shedding colonies the way a person loses keys after a night of drinking: disoriented, confused, and somewhat surprised. The Empire shriveled under the weight of its own absurdity, like a giant inflatable globe with too many holes in it. In the end, what remained was less a global empire and more a series of bitter ex-colonies with grievances, a few tea bags, and a somewhat confusing sense of national identity. Britain now spends its time playing trivia about how it used to run half the world, while everyone else collectively wonders, "What on Earth were they thinking?"
And that, folks, is the rise and fall of the British Empire, a glorious mess of hubris, misplaced nationalism, and the inexplicable need to claim everything within a 100-mile radius.

>>2548307
…. if the dumbass asking had just rephrased his question as "what are various reasons for inflation?" he wouldn't have looked so stupid in this clip ….

>>2548706
he's making a satirical point by giving an analogy of the wastefulness of gold-digging and how digging up money serves the same end. he qualifies all this by saying that he would much prefer to build houses;
>It is curious how common sense, wriggling for an escape from absurd conclusions, has been apt to reach a preference for wholly “wasteful” forms of loan expenditure rather than for partly wasteful forms, which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict “business” principles. For example, unemployment relief financed by loans is more readily accepted than the financing of improvements at a charge below the current rate of interest; whilst the form of digging holes in the ground known as gold-mining, which not only adds nothing whatever to the real wealth of the world but involves the disutility of labour, is the most acceptable of all solutions. If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch10.htm
>>2548719
lets take engels' praise of adam smith for example:
>Thus even Adam Smith knew “the source of the surplus-value of the capitalist,” and furthermore also of that of the landlord. Marx acknowledged this as early as 1861, while Rodbertus and the swarming mass of his admirers, who grew like mushrooms under the warm summer showers of state socialism, seem to have forgotten all about that.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch00.htm
he does this providing various quotations from smith and marx. lets look at the citations:
<The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves itself in this case into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced.” […] rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land. It seldom happens that the person who tills the ground has the wherewithal to maintain himself till he reaps the harvest […] profit makes a second deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land…
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch00.htm
and with this, marx summarises smith's view:
>Here therefore Adam Smith in plain terms describes rent and profit on capital as mere deductions from the workman’s product or the value of his product, which is equal to the quantity of labour added by him to the material.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch00.htm
so then, smith creates the most basic sum in the world. we have the total value of a productive process (e.g. £100). this total value must then be shared between persons as separate revenues corresponding to class positions; "rent" for the landlord, "profit" for the capitalist and "wages" for the worker. thus, the return of total value has its share between these parties (i.e. £20 in rents, £30 in profit and £50 in wages). the total value thus corresponds to total revenue (or costs). we may then formulate the sum of total value: (rent + profit + wages) = total value (what smith terms the "component" prices of commodities). this of course is identical to marx's formula for the value of commodities in vol. 3:
<The value of every commodity produced in the capitalist way is represented in the formula: C = c + v + s.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch01.htm
so then, it takes smith a few chapters to say what it takes marx 2 books to conclude, by common sense. marx's "dialectical" method is so unclear and convoluted that its still argued over today. as people say, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." yet in all religious systems, oversimplification causes error, as it does with marx, but not with smith. proof of this is in the lack of baggage; you can accept economic reality without singing the l'internationale.

>>2548731
marx was pro-capitalist and anti-socialist: >>2510749
>>2548736
if i was wrong about anything, it would have been said.
>>2548751
>he writes in english…
>>2548723
>Class society arises from economic relations
its backwards. power in the state often impresses itself as power in the economy. aristotle understood this. class relations are relations of power in the state. you wouldnt deny this, yet you speak contrarily to it.
>>2548716
it presupposes a substance called "value" which exists codependently of price, rather than simply itself being a price, as it is in smith's system (i.e. "natural price"). now, marx's theory of value certainly has sociological intrigue and marx in himself is a world-historical genius, but on the style of his communication, he can be utterly lacking. an issue in his theory of value begins by his misinterpretation of aristotle, where he claims that aristotle saw the form of value, but not value as such; this is false, as we read (ethics, 5.5), where aristotle directly determines money as "measure of value", with value being quantity of "demand" in relation to supply. here, aristotle sees the trade relation underpinned by marginal utility, as we also read in "rhetoric" (1.7) where he introduces the "paradox of value" between water and gold. he resolves it by saying that what is better in gold is its scarcity, despite its (total) useless by comparison. so then, aristotle had a theory of value (of the good), yet it is a value measured in money (price), and by these means do we estimate the relative worth of something. xenophon makes comments on gold and silver here:
<I may note this fact about gold, that, with a sudden influx of this metal, it is the gold itself which is depreciated whilst causing at the same time a rise in the value of silver.
https://topostext.org/work/95
so then, the greater supply of gold, the less its value in relation to silver, despite the greatness of gold. thus as aristotle says, it is its scarcity which grants its value, or relative price, in relation to all other commodities. so then, to me, value is a function of price, or so to say, money is the "measure of value" (i.e. aristotle, smith). marx agrees, but reverses things, claiming that money itself must have value to measure value. this of course is false, since money is not a commodity. marx and engels speak on the retroactivity of this theoretical derivation here (of deriving value from price): >>2547392
yet its gratuitous, for the forms of which we speak of are still and always prices of one sort or another.

>>2549046
>marx was pro-capitalist and anti-socialist
sad

>>2548413
>why are state officials receiving a separate, elite education in a communist society? why are people even paying for university in a communist society?
why is the education elite now? what makes you think people are paying? there is a social cost to having people study instead of work even if that same individual doesnt pay

>>2549176
money printer go brrr

>>2549044
>so then, it takes smith a few chapters to say what it takes marx 2 books to conclude, by common sense.
Marx doesn't introduce this formula for the first time in volume 3 as you are suggesting here, it is present in Chapter 9 of volume 1, possibly earlier.

>>2549046
>where aristotle directly determines money as "measure of value", with value being quantity of "demand" in relation to supply. here, aristotle sees the trade relation underpinned by marginal utility
You keep implying demand is fundamental and supply is secondary, while I keep saying they are both disequilibrium phenomena that can only predict by how much a commodity's natural price (or value, or equilbrium price) differs from its market price. When the two codependent phenomena are in equilibrium, the price is simply the labor inputs, some of which are direct labor inputs (variable capital) and some of which are indirect labor inputs (constant capital). Surplus value, or profit, is just expropriation of wages by the capitalist which they are able to carry out because they own the constant capital, the i.e. the means of production. It is essentially a rent they charge the worker out of their wages for the privilege of using their private property (the means of production). Some of this they reinvest in expanding production, and some of it they keep for their own secure, lavish, and wealthy lifestyles.

Why I don't think demand is fundamental and is in fact codependent with supply, is because demand can be induced through various means (in fact, in traffic engineering we often talk of induced demand that comes as a result of road widening, but this can also apply to economics, and protection rackets for example thrive on induced demand created by the threat of violence) and rates of supply are simply a reflection of the socially necessary labor time needed to produce a commodity or, in the most simple of circumstances, find, extract, and refine some raw material from the Earth.

>>2549046
>marx was pro-capitalist and anti-socialist:
this seems like a non sequitur since this was intended to be a reply to someone replying to your previous remark about german mysticism vs. british common sense. it was stated that marx had a lot of influence from the so called british common sense, since he spent over half his life there researching and writing capital while studying the actually existing british economy and the canon of british political economists like Smith, Ricardo, etc.

>>2549046
>its backwards. power in the state often impresses itself as power in the economy. aristotle understood this. class relations are relations of power in the state.
Class society exists in both the private sector (economy) and in the public sector (state) but bourgeois class power rules over both those sectors, both in and outside of the state. So class society encompasses both the government and non-government sectors.

>>2549046
>it presupposes a substance called "value" which exists codependently of price, rather than simply itself being a price
before a value becomes a price tag it accumulates in the production process. If iron ore were laying around everywhere you wouldn't pay someone to fetch iron ore. You pay someone to go into the mines and bring the iron back out. The value is in that action, before a price tag is even hung on it. Value is socially necessary labor time. Price is the expression of that socially necessary labor time in measurable quantities of money. But if this is too abstract for you, suffice it to say that value is just the natural price.

>>2547894
>>2545190
>>2547194
I will leave this answer for anyone who has doubts and is falling for the austerity propaganda of neoliberals wanting to blame the unemployed for the decline in productivity in the United Kingdom.

The UK’s long-term productivity crisis is a direct product of capitalist decay such as falling profitability, financialisation, and rent-seeking, not state spending or welfare. Michael Roberts and other Marxist economists have been writing about this for over a decade.

<In the case of the UK, there is another particular problem: the UK is increasingly a rentier economy, relying on finance, business services and real estate. These are unproductive activities that do not boost the productivity of labour, but do reduce available profits for productive investment. Indeed, the relative fall-back in UK productivity compared to Germany and France etc can be particularly discerned from the early 2000s, when the oil revenues dissipated and investment increasingly went into a credit fuelled real estate boom.

<A detailed sectoral analysis by the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence has shown that three-fifths of the drop in productivity growth stems from sectors representing only a fifth of output, including finance, utilities, pharmaceuticals, computing and professional services. The Bank of England did a similar analysis found that it is the top ones that have become the slackers. The most productive groups are “failing to improve on each other at the same rate as their predecessors did”, according to its research. The best companies still improved their productivity faster than the rest, but productivity growth among the best has sharply fallen and this has hurt the UK’s growth rate.

<Investment in a capitalist economy depends on its profitability as I have argued ad nauseam in this blog. And there is still relatively low profitability and a continued overhang of debt, particularly corporate debt, in the major economies. In the case of the UK, the profitability of the non-financial sector is still some 12% below its level in 1997. And in the oil sector, it has fallen 50%.

<Michael Roberts, 2018, The productivity puzzle again

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/the-productivity-puzzle-again

The socialist solution is to de-financialize the economy by bringing banks under democratic control to channel credit into production, nationalize key sectors (energy, transport, housing, infrastructure), plan investment instead of leaving it to the financial capital short-term unproductive logic, raise workers' wages encouraging consumption and productivity together, not by discipline but by rational coordination of production, this means public investment with state-owned companies to encourage productivity.

>>2549570
> the UK is increasingly a rentier economy, relying on finance, business services and real estate.
there's a certain anon who calls Michael Hudson antisemitic for noticing these consequences of deindustrialization in the imperial core

hey guys do you think AI will reset the falling rate of profit? also why do we need robots for ubi why cant we just do ubi with computers we already have. like think about it wages decoupled from productivity right when computers happened we could all have ubi right now and then when the ai comes we can have universal maximum income.

>>2549733
i think adam smith and karl would have agreed on this and even graeber and haz. everyone wins

>>2549733
>hey guys do you think AI will reset the falling rate of profit?
no. because AI = constant capital and a higher ratio of constant capital to variable capital results in lower rates of profit, not higher. Listen to cockshott talk about this.

>>2549736
>anything that's not productive labor will get eliminated by AI at a rapid pace.

WHAT ABOUT CEO POSITIONS, MUSKRAT?!

>>2549743
the how did a burger survive the 73 oil crash and computers at the same time? didnt think of that huh smarty pants

>>2549172
>patricians are paid more than the plebs because of their education
<why are patricians getting a separate education from the plebs?
this still hasnt been answered. just seems like youre classcucked into supporting bureaucracy. as plato says, state officials should receive minimum wage. thats it.
>>2549260
the reply was meant for: >>2548726
and who cares if marx studied in britain? if, as engels says, adam smith already figured things out almost a century earlier than marx, then why do we need marx? thats my point. the british invented liberalism, socialism, the labour theory of value, etc. what does marx offer in particular?
>>2549285
>before a value becomes a price tag it accumulates in the production process
so value is a physical substance, not a mode of social recognition? as marx says, value is not physical;
>So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange value either in a pearl or a diamond.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
and "production" only has meaning in consumption:
<Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

>>2549570
>unemployment doesnt reduce productivity
<says nothing about re-industrialisation
worthless commentary.
>>2549736
>with technology anything is possible, except employee ownership over the means of production…
>>2549733
>>2550054
rate of profit ≠ absolute profit
as smith and marx explain, the rate of profit declines in proportion to capital stock employed and competition. if i invest £100 and get £110 back, my rate of profit is 10%, while if i invest £1,000 and get £1,010 back, my rate of profit is 1%, but absolute profit is the same: £10. so then, as long as there is absolute profit, its stable.
>>2549255
>You keep implying demand is fundamental and supply is secondary
as j.b. say understands, production is limited by the utility of objects, since whatever is sought to be produced must be useful so as to be purchased. similarly, aristotle places the marginal utility of gold as its imperative to be produced, and marx also understands production to be a condition of consumption, with labour only attaining its value by the act of exchange, and without this, there is no labour.
>they are both disequilibrium phenomena
so when supply and demand are in equilibrium, there is no supply and there is no demand? think.
>Why I don't think demand is fundamental and is in fact codependent with supply, is because demand can be induced through various means
the issue here is misunderstanding terms; when smith speaks of demand, he calls it "effectual demand", or the active ability to purchase a commodity, as opposed to what is ineffective, which is desire without purhase. you can desire anything, but demand only represents money. if you make mudpies, can you call them valuable?

>>2549175
you dont know what "political economy" means.
>>2549276
capitalists only have economic supremacy becauce of the state. without the state, they would lose it.
>>2548716
>>2549046
to continue, the presupposition of value causes immanent contradictions. for example, the form of appearance of value (exchange-value) takes on the form of price in a monetary system. thus, appearance gives epistemology to what is essential between things; we come to "know" value by price. this is perfectly consistent until capital vol 1, chapter 3, where marx says that the price-form both reveals and conceals value, since in gaining a price, a product attains the form of value as a commodity, yet this relation may not be one of "real" value, but rather, of "imaginary" value. thus, if commodity (X) has a price the same as (Y), one has a "true" appearance and the other, a "false" appearance. so then, epistemology breaks down and we no longer recognise value by its necessary form of appearance.

the assertion of a "false" appearance appears superstitious and thus an irrational means of explaining how some commodities have "value" while others dont. further, how are we to "know" what has value or not, if the means by which we come to know is the same? this "geocentrism" fails because it abides by sola fide.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/12/imaginary-prices-and-marxs-labour.html?m=1

truke or puke?

>neema parvini on embracing paul cockshott's view on productive versus unproductive labour
im surprised that parvini, with his austrian background, doesnt explain the difference between primary and secondary goods, and how the price of the goods also corresponds to the time-frame of consumption. as i have shown before, the chain of supply has its cause in the breadth of the economic order, from the merchant to the manufacturer, and so what is secondary implies the primary as a lesser marginal value (i.e. retail versus wholesale). 1 can of coke sold individually costs more than 1 can proportionate to its 24-can bundle, for example, and so the retail sale of the single can of coke influences the wholesale purchase of the 24 cans, and so on. the question of productive and unproductive labour thus has its answer by these means, which is that productivity is not a substance (i.e. "labour"), but is a context, harmonised on an economic scale. and as a basic example, every seller needs a buyer. "productivity" is not determined by a physical act, but by meeting a need in this activity, otherwise your product serves no value and is thus a waste. productivity is only determined in sale (i.e. ricardo, marx), and so if someone is deemed "unproductive" it appears to be as jevons describes smith's paradox of value, that though water has a greater total utility, its marginal utility is less than the diamond. so then, manufacturing has a lower marginal product by having a greater total product, while its opposite for services. this is why manufacturing goods cost more in total, while services cost more in particular (i.e. a single can of coke, or a single cup coffee). less is more, yet the most is not the least.

>>2550289
hoppe already says that profit is the interest rewarded to the capitalist for his investment: >>2460758
yet he justifies it by saying that the capitalist gets a positive reward for time-preference. i reverse this by showing that its actually the worker who takes on "risk" with their investment.

>>2550260
>so when supply and demand are in equilibrium, there is no supply and there is no demand? think.
not what's being said at all. To say something is a disequilibrium phenomenon is not to say that the phenomenon doesn't exist at all. Just saying that when it comes to the price standpoint, supply/demand can only adequately explain the deviation from the natural price, but not the natural price itself. It is an important question to ask why different commodities have different natural prices even though supply and demand are in equilibrium for each of them. One might say rate of supply explains natural price as if to make supply fundamental, but rate of supply depends on the production process, specifically the socially necessary labor time. If we're talking about a nonrenewable natural resource, yes scarcity is a permanent feature, but scarcity merely regulates the socially necessary labor time it takes to find, extract, and refine that natural resource. This is why Marx makes socially necessary labor time the locus of his theory of value, because from a perspective of class struggle, which for him is a driving force in human society, the context of all economic activity, scarcity, or rate of supply, is going to regulate the exploitation of labor, and profit is subtracted from what would otherwise be wages. Writing economic theory from the standpoint of exploitation and class struggle doesn't make this perspective less clear or less scientific unless you don't care about how these things relate to economics, or worse, you think these things shouldn't be acknowledged at all in economics. But we already went over ITT how the arbitrary segregation of politics from economics is indeed a deliberate contrivance of the ruling class to reinforce capitalist individualism, where the suffering of the poor is not a result of social murder and exploitation, but merely a failure of individuals to survive in a social darwinist struggle.
>the issue here is misunderstanding terms; when smith speaks of demand, he calls it "effectual demand", or the active ability to purchase a commodity, as opposed to what is ineffective, which is desire without purhase. you can desire anything, but demand only represents money. if you make mudpies, can you call them valuable?
Smith Anon, we've been over the mudpies thing countless time. Marx has built into his theory the idea that a commodity must be satisfy a human desire (at a social scale) for it to be a commodity in the first place. Obviously neither Marx nor I put forward the idea that labor which does not produce something demanded in the economy produces commodities. All of this is assumed in the context of commodity production which are assumed to have use value (or, if you like, demand) baked into their definition. But this doesn't make demand more fundamental. You can look at any circuitous activity in the economy and say "this is the starting point and therefore the most fundamental element" but for Marx, it is important to see that it's a circuit, and what is fundamental to people depends on their standpoint, and therefore upon the material interests, and therefore upon their class, and the class struggle.

>>2550303
>not what's being said at all
these are your words:
<they are both disequilibrium phenomena
supply and demand are phenomena in equilibrium as well, since there is no concept of "equilibrium" outside of supply and demand… what exactly is equilibrating?
>supply/demand can only adequately explain the deviation from the natural price, but not the natural price itself
what is supply measuring, in your opinion?
>the arbitrary segregation of politics from economics
are they different things? yes or no? can you be a communist who rejects the LTV, for example? can you be a communist and not care about economics?
>capitalist individualism
capitalism is not individualistic.
>a commodity must be satisfy a human desire
okay, so supply depends upon demand, to marx. they are co-constituted, as he writes in the grundrisse.

>>2550309
>supply and demand are phenomena in equilibrium as well, since there is no concept of "equilibrium" outside of supply and demand… what exactly is equilibrating?
From the market standpoint what’s equilibrating is price and quantity. The market price adjusts so that quantity demanded equals quantity supplied, and the market price is the same as the natural price. At that point, no buyer or seller has an incentive to change behavior. That’s the equilibrium. From the standpoint of price it is the point at which the production process, rather than the supply and demand, can explain the cause of the price being specifically what it is for that commodity, since different commodities will have different natural prices, despite supply and demand being in equilibrium for each of them.
>are they different things? yes or no?
False binary. Ever seen a venn diagram? Things can "overlap." We put forward static notions like "politics" and "economics" and segregate them from the standpoint of categorizing things, but then we overcome our own static notions when we see clear overlaps or ambiguities between our statically conceived categories.
>what is supply measuring, in your opinion?
From an economy wide standpoint, how much of a finished commodity is already in circulation in the economy.
>can you be a communist who rejects the LTV, for example? can you be a communist and not care about economics?
I suppose an individual could choose to call themselves one thing while at the same time rejecting all the typical characteristics of that thing. Not sure why they would do that, but it happens. This in turn would slightly influence how language is used, and over time could cause semantic drift, which we often see, since not even definitions are static, but contested and contextual.
>capitalism is not individualistic.
It very much is. It actively discourages class struggle on the basis that an individual can make it through their own wit in the social darwinist struggle. From the bourgeois perspective, Thatcher remarked that there is no society, only individuals. From the proletarian perspective, Steinbeck remarked that socialism never took off in America because everyone sees themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Marx criticizes the bourgeois apologia that profit is merely the individual capitalist's superior discipline, or his abstinence from using money, or the wages for his managerial acumen.
>okay, so supply depends upon demand, to marx. they are co-constituted, as he writes in the grundrisse.
before a human can desire it, they must know that it exists, and for it to exist, it must be produced. The production process is circuitous. You can pick any point in the circuit as the arbitrary and therefore most "fundamental" starting point. Once you get out of the thinking that the production process is merely a linear series of events, and you get into the thinking that it's a circuit with different start/endpoints depending on your subjective standpoint, you can analyze the production process from different standpoints, and see the class struggle in human society as more fundamental than supply or demand.

>>2550317
>The market price adjusts so that quantity demanded equals quantity supplied, and the market price is the same as the natural price
yes, precisely. the natural price being the costs of production, which you call "labour inputs".
>False binary
>Things can "overlap."
okay, so they are different things and so can be spoken of separately.
>I suppose an individual could choose to call themselves one thing while at the same time rejecting all the typical characteristics of that thing. Not sure why they would do that, but it happens.
how many self-proclaimed marxists would you estimate have actually read marx? how many anti-marxists do you think have actually read marx? see?
>Thatcher remarked that there is no society, only individuals
her policies were a one-sided class war against the workers, including social conservatism, which limits individual freedom. you see the same contradiction in thatcher's mentor, friedman, who is a voluntarist until it comes to labour unions. the capitalist cant believe in the political power of the individual even if they ontologise them as slaves. the claim that society is only a series of individuals is also rhetorically used in rothbard's "for a new liberty" (1973) to prove that blaming "society" simply means blaming everybody else except yourself, which is true. as smith also says, the self-interest of the citizen is substituted with the class interest of capitalists, as "wealth" is falsely identified with profit. wealth means higher wages, not profits. engels also says that "national wealth" (e.g. GDP) is a contradictory metric for the same reason.
>before a human can desire it, they must know that it exists, and for it to exist, it must be produced.
we desire things that dont exist all the time. you are again confusing desire for demand. if you dont think that demand constitutes supply, take it up with marx.

>>2550330
>yes, precisely. the natural price being the costs of production, which you call "labour inputs".
Well considering means of production is the result of past labor inputs, and labor power is the current labor inputs, and profit is just unpaid wages, yes, the cost of production is the result of labor inputs, which explains the natural price. The market price can vary from the natural price, and this variation is explained by supply and demand, but the natural price is the anchor determined by production, which is labor inputs.

>>2550359
the natural price is itself a market price, as smith says:
<The actual price at which any commodity is commonly sold is called its market price. It may either be above, or below, or exactly the same with its natural price.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch07.htm
>the cost of production is the result of labor inputs
again, if we qualify cost as labour, then we are ambiguous in what is quantified. its here that someone can claim that superintendence adds "labour" to the product for example, and its all indeterminate until we account for these factors by component prices (i.e. wages, rents, profits). once this is accounted for, it can be tallied as the cost of production. as i have said, labour in itself cannot be quantified, but only its representation. when marx derives value from labour for example, he says this:
<The value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it. [V = q/p]
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
if we substitute "productiveness" for "intensity" then we have the exact same terms as jevons, and thus labour can be measured by its finished product. in the same way, jevons and marx perceive profit over wages to be a result of the duration of labour, and thus marginal product meeting lesser duration equates at higher wages. i have discussed all this before: >>2495832
jevons already contends with the LTV of course:
(1) Cost of production determines supply.
(2) Supply determines final degree of utility.
(3) Final degree of utility determines value.
this simply appears to be the proper formulation of it.

wait is the ai right. Did marx and carey interact with each other? The great american neo mercantalist interacting with karl marx himself is fascinating, if true

No, Henry Carey and Karl Marx did not meet in person, but they corresponded and had a complex professional relationship. Carey sent Marx copies of his books, and Marx wrote critically about Carey's work while also acknowledging his significance in American economics. They were indirectly involved through their writings for the New York Tribune, though their intellectual differences meant their interaction was more of a public and intellectual disagreement than a personal conversation.
Intellectual opponents: Marx considered Carey a rival and wrote about him critically to his collaborator, Friedrich Engels.
Source of material: Carey, an American economist, even cited Marx in his own work, referencing his articles from the New York Tribune.
Indirect interaction: While they did not meet, their engagement with each other's work, especially through the Tribune, created an indirect "dialogue" or "warfare" of ideas.
Mutual respect (with criticism): Marx privately referred to Carey as "the only American economist of importance," but was critical of his views, while Carey expressed respect for Marx's contributions to the Tribune.

>>2550330
(sorry I got distracted by something before completing my previous reply which was >>2550359)

>okay, so they are different things and so can be spoken of separately.
yet they interpenetrate, interconnect, and have ambiguity, and shouldn't be thought of as completely separate and not affecting one another. Recall that the stimulus behind this conversation was the following remark:
>>2548414
<politics and economics are not the same thing.
>how many self-proclaimed marxists would you estimate have actually read marx? how many anti-marxists do you think have actually read marx? see?
Not enough of either, evidently, but it never surprises me anymore when people don't do the reading because people are the products of an alienating environment rife with burdens, exploitation, and distractions.
>her policies were a one-sided class war against the workers, including social conservatism, which limits individual freedom.
When I hear "individual freedom" my first instinct is to question what that means for the person using the phrase. For someone like you, you would probably include freedom from exploitation as well as freedom to live as you please provided it does not harm anyone else. But for the bourgeoisie, "individual freedom" means the freedom of the individuals in the ruling class to exploit others. So there are mutually contradictory sorts of freedom. The freedom to exploit and the freedom from exploitation mutually exclude one another. The more people are free from being exploited, the fewer people are free to exploit. So you have to decide what kind of freedom, freedom to X, or freedom from X, you want to be available in society.
>you see the same contradiction in thatcher's mentor, friedman, who is a voluntarist until it comes to labour unions. the capitalist cant believe in the political power of the individual even if they ontologise them as slaves. the claim that society is only a series of individuals is also rhetorically used in rothbard's "for a new liberty" (1973) to prove that blaming "society" simply means blaming everybody else except yourself, which is true.
Not necessarily, the individual is part of the society in the same way that the heart is part of the body. If the body takes in a lot of endotoxins and the body goes into septic shock from low blood pressure and poor circulation, it's not the heart's fault, the heart is just embedded in a context where it becomes less effective than usual. What uses is there in the heart "blaming itself" for being in a body that has taken in a bunch of endotoxins? Similarly if society is structured in such a way that poverty is endemic, there is not much use in the impoverished individuals blaming themselves. I suppose particularly talented individuals can escape a statistically likely situation, but even having "natural" talent or having the time and resources to cultivate talent through practice is largely the result of luck. People start off as helpless infants long before they reach a point where they are capable of changing society, and once they are capable of changing society, society has already turned them into a product. So there is reciprocal action between the individual and society, but very asymmetrical reciprocal action, and it is a very rare thing that one individual is put in a position to change society a lot, and usually only because they are, by chance, at the center of a powerful network of other individuals, rather than because they are particularly special.
> as smith also says, the self-interest of the citizen is substituted with the class interest of capitalists, as "wealth" is falsely identified with profit. wealth means higher wages, not profits. engels also says that "national wealth" (e.g. GDP) is a contradictory metric for the same reason.
I agree with this and have no comments.
>we desire things that dont exist all the time. you are again confusing desire for demand. if you dont think that demand constitutes supply, take it up with marx.
OK. no comment.

>>2550387
>the natural price is itself a market price, as smith says:
the natural price is the market price where the cost of production (labor inputs) are sufficient to explain the price itself. You only need supply and demand to explain deviations, or disequilibrium from that cost of production.
>again, if we qualify cost as labour, then we are ambiguous in what is quantified. its here that someone can claim that superintendence adds "labour" to the product for example
superintedence does add labour, but the capitalist is compensated not for that labour. Rather they are compensated through unpaid wages called profit, which they disguise by saying they are merely performing the superior task of superintending. In slavery, for example, we enslaved overseers performing labor of superintendence without compensation. They are more privileged than other slaves usually, but that is a consequence of a tiered hierarchy where they are the minority, rather than their labor-power (which costs their subsistence) being somehow more valuable.
>and its all indeterminate until we account for these factors by component prices (i.e. wages, rents, profits)
If you restructure society in a revolutionary manner to no longer allow for rent, profit, or interest, and make what would have been become rent and profit as a collectively owned surplus kept aside for emergencies or for planned expansion of production based on projected population growth, you would, in my estimation, have achieved at least something like a lower stage of socialism. This is me talking, not Marx or Smith. As for the abolition of wages, you would just guarantee people have their needs met. Whether this is through a system of labor vouchers or something more modern is besides the point I think, though implementation details would matter in practice insofar as they could be gamed in a way to reintroduce exploitation. This is all possible insofar as people already produce through their labor, on average, more than they themselves need, at least as long as the sun continues to send Earth its energy. This is why surplus labor was exploited even in slavery and serfdom. Who fed the feudal lord's armies? "His" peasants.
>if we substitute "productiveness" for "intensity" then we have the exact same terms as jevons, and thus labour can be measured by its finished product. in the same way, jevons and marx perceive profit over wages to be a result of the duration of labour, and thus marginal product meeting lesser duration equates at higher wages. i have discussed all this before:
OK. No remarks yet. I'll think about that for a while.
>(1) Cost of production determines supply.
>(2) Supply determines final degree of utility.
>(3) Final degree of utility determines value.
>this simply appears to be the proper formulation of it.
There is something which determines cost of production, and it is
<The amount of labor time required to produce a commodity under normal conditions of production, with the average degree of skill and intensity of labor prevalent in a given society.
This is SNLT. And technology plays a central role in determining SNLT because it changes the average productivity of labor across society.

>>2550443
They were both connected through Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, which Marx wrote op-eds for, in English.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Charles_Carey#New_York_Tribune

>>2550514
what a convenient situation. These two men who arguably influenced a lot of economic thought in the future, were writing for the same newspaper

>>2550448
>yet they interpenetrate
yes… but theyre not the same thing.
>for the bourgeoisie, "individual freedom" means the freedom of the individuals in the ruling class to exploit others
yes, this is smith's point. the self-interest of the capitalist is inherently contrary to that of the citizen, and so the individual as such is suppressed (an example of this tendency would be war, which is poor young men dying for rich old men, even as it was depicted in the iliad nearly 3,000 years ago). i am a true internationalist in this cause. marx makes a finer point, that the capitalist himself is a slave to profit, and so his own individuality is subsumed by an alien subjectivity.
>So there is reciprocal action between the individual and society
"society" is not an object (where does it begin and end?)
individuals relate to other individuals. if you dont think so, then you must not think the officer who is "just following orders" has any personal responsibility.
>superintedence does add labour
so why doesnt this labour enter into the value? i would say, like marx says about the slave, that this labour simply isnt paid and so cannot be accounted for.
>If you restructure society in a revolutionary manner to no longer allow for rent, profit, or interest…
a slave society can also manage without those terms.
>if you tax rent and profit you have socialism
taxing rents make sense, but taxing profits makes less, since rents rise with wages, while profits decline. plus, putting a tax on production raises prices arbitrarily, while a consumption tax for example, raises prices proportionally, especially if there is no income tax (which i have previously advocated for): >>2525784
>There is something which determines cost of production [SNLT]
but isnt SNLT measured by costs implicit in the wage (e.g. duration)? so to say, the abstraction of SNLT depends upon standardising labour according to cost, and so the category of labour begins as a cost. i had this discussion in the first thread, where it seems that (SNLT = wage), and not a "physical" relation per se. the importance of considering this is that labour collectively aggregates a median rate of productivity while median wages do not correspond to individual activity. this is why i like marx's idea of allowing harder workers to receive more back in equality with what they give, yet the declaration that people will only get what they "need" in a "higher phase" society seems like a regression. if people are better, let them be better.

>>2550260
>production is limited by the utility of objects
but thats wrong. production is limited by labor

>>2550659
what is labour?
<Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

>>2550571
>the abstraction of SNLT depends upon standardising labour according to cost, and so the category of labour begins as a cost.
yes… but theyre not the same thing, so they are different things and so can be spoken of separately.

>>2550662
how do we define SNLT outside of wages?

>>2550664
i think time is usually measured with clocks

>>2550670
ah, so this is the peepee poopoo time of the thread
i'll check back in tomorrow

this should interest you: >>>/edu/25237
<Vincent de Gournay, a French Physiocrat and intendant of commerce in the 1750s, popularized the term laissez-faire as he allegedly adopted it from François Quesnay's writings on China. Quesnay coined the phrases laissez-faire and laissez-passer, laissez-faire being a translation of the Chinese term wu wei (無為).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

>>2549683
This depends on whether the person talking about the financialization of the economy wants to use state capitalism as a temporary solution and a socialist economy in solidarity with the world's workers as the real solution. If the person is fantasizing about returning to capitalism with Fordist class conciliation against "technofeudalism," then this person is ignorant because there is no national capitalist with interests separate from financial capital currently to make any deal. This type of analysis depends on what solution the person will propose or if they understand that current financialized capitalism is a continuation of the previous industrial capitalism that changed as capitalists' profit rates decreased and these capitalists felt comfortable not having an organized threat from radicalized workers against the capitalist ruling class to force the bourgeoisie to make concessions. People who accuse of antisemitism probably don't know the socialist solution, which would involve the use of public enterprises and the democratization of the economy for use value instead of speculation and sale for exchange value to make a profit. This means going against private property and anarchy of production.

>>2548414
>the labour theory of value came from british political economy (1662-)
Bismillah it comes from Ibn Khaldun

>>2548414
>marxism is a perversion of socialism, which replaces british common sense with german mysticism.

observe >>2552890
<The specifics of political economy are decidedly *not* my forte, so I'm unqualified to make any informed take on this. However, your summary of what he's claiming appears to me correct. What I would say is that, in the first place, to understand Hegel (or German Idealism as a whole) to be "mystical" would be to mistake metaphysics for theology. The Left-Hegelians were basically all atheists if not Spinozists; a base materialism which cannot account for metaphysics is, in my opinion, doomed to fall into some vulgar materialism which capitalism and capitalist liberalism expressly reinforces. His general defense of Liberalism, however, is certainly beginning to pick up speed within broader academic discourse as it increasingly seems to people that the out-right rejection of Social Democracy, Left-Liberalism, and French Utopian Socialism was perhaps an over-correction (this is what Walter Benjamin himself was arguing in the Arcades Project, and he presents one of the most damning critiques of Social Democracy ever); the claim that these movements (and ones similar to it) necessarily bring about or reinforce capitalism is a claim that is at the moment beginning to be seriously re-challenged. People like Adam Tooze seem to be rather essential in this moment. In my opinion though, it's probably good to reject "British Common Sense" whenever possible, because their approach seems to me to inevitably lead to the reification of categories (see my earlier comments on Pragmatism). My understanding of Hegel and Marx is, basically, that we should almost never trust common sense.

>>2552906
"observe" what? this entire reply is a non-sequitur.
and its no surprise that we are expected to abandon common sense to make room for teutonic blather.

as regards the actual state of the argument, i have very clearly articulated my empirical (a posteriori) outlook, as opposed to what is a priori in marxism:
>>2549046
>>2550261
marx is right that "value" has its form of appearance in price, yet he is wrong by stating that there is such a thing as "imaginary" prices. the proof is in the pudding; i can set a price and it doesnt need "permission" to be so self-affirmed. it merely is, as a basic phenomenon. when marxism cant explain the rate of pay for "unproductive" enterprises, it begins to lose legitimacy. now, as i have previously cited, smith indeed posits that unproductive labour is nonetheless still "valuable", which is afforded by its two-fold meaning, as having a "value in use". smith's only argument is that it cannot have an equivalent rate with its output, and so its market rate dictates reward (i.e. supply and demand). so then, smith can conceive of price outside of the strictures of equivalence, while marx appears unable to.

>>2552846
i first read that it was ibn khaldun in his "muqaddimah" (1377) who established the LTV in graeber's book on debt (2011). aquinas is sometimes said to have done this earlier in his "summa ii.ii.Q.77" (1274) by instituting a theological "just price" as against usury, and so a price which measures the equivalence of labour in exchange (what in aristotelian terms is also noted by marx as the difference between "economy" and "chrematistics"). in reading the muqaddimah with its various internal references, it makes constant note to chapter 5 being the chapter on labour as the source of value, so i will summarise and review this chapter here (sct. 1):

it begins with a theological justification of property, the same as in locke; that God hath given man dominion over the earth. what is further is khaldun's stipulation of self-ownership as the source of man's self-determination to gain (what is called "profit" generally, and so perhaps incorrectly). this differs in part from locke, since locke says that "property" is a fixed element of ownership which comes from mixing labour and nature, while khaldun sees property as an unconditioned right of abstract man, rather than man in particular. khaldun then says that there is a difference between "sustenance" and "profit" relating to income, with sustenance also being related to rightful ownership (as codefied by the "mu'tazilah", apparently - which is a theological movement which affirms human free will and reason, contrary to popular religion. mu'tazilites also saw the quran as man-made, and so these rationalists may be termed as proto-humanist). khaldun further qualifies by stating that though one may acquire means unrightfully, God may still sustain him, as is his Will. khaldun ends this line of thought by stating that both sustenance and profit require labour.

after this, khaldun speaks on money as "measure of value", once more being scriptural in stating that it is gold and silver which measure value. this also differs from locke, who directly states labour as measure of value. khaldun also makes more clumsy comments, claiming that profit rises with labour and decreases with lack of labour; thus, he says, the more employment you have, the more luxury a civilisation also has. this is a misunderstanding (or mis-categorisation) of "profit" generally, since adam smith saw as early as the tudor period in england, the rate of profit fell in line with the falling rate of interest, which is also paired with a rise in wealth. so then, khaldun is seemingly generalising "profit" as "wealth", rather than "profit" as a lack of social wealth, as per british political economy.

moving onto section 2, we see a further generalisation. he states that the vocation of labour, "livelihood" (ma'ash), seeks sustenance as its end. he then appears to further synonymise sustenance and profit, giving different means of obtaining profit: taxation, hunting, fishing, agriculture, craftsmanship and commerce. he claims for example that "profit" in this case comes from appropriating the product of somebody else (i.e. taxation and commerce).

of these livelihoods, he sees agriculture as the original, which is also part of xenophon's praise of agriculture as the essential craft of a nation, in "the economist". this physiocratic thought was also present in quesnay. after this, he sees craftsmanship develop historically and finally, commerce. on commerce he plainly states that profit is made by selling above the price of purchase, and khaldun also stating an inherent gambling inscribed into it, yet of which is legal, since one still gets something in return. so then, profits here are defined by private appropriation, not surplus production (this he repeats in section 9, where the commercial venture is described as buying low and selling high, not selling at an equivalent rate of a surplus product). in section 3, he quickly states that service work is unbecoming of a man and that receiving a wage is undignified. section 4 is not relevant as to any fruitful discussion.

in section 5, he comes upon a truth as to the source of profit, as uncompensated labour. he states that a man of "rank" will naturally have those who serve without want of payment and that this accumulates profit. khaldun relates this to "political power" (imarah) and its means of utilising free labour, in the difference between (as khaldun states) what is produced and what is paid for. so then, we see the way in which this form of profit is constituted by realising value over labour costs. thus he concludes that one may grow rich without working. jumping to section 9, we see supply and demand at work to achieve a gain by disequilibrium (here also however is a slight discourse on "storage" and "travel" and thus the notion of time-preference in the market).

in section 12 he makes a proper distinction between "profit" (ribh) and "profit" (kasb). looking online, it appears that "riba" refers to usury (haram) and kasb refers generally to proper acquisition; sustenance (halal). in section 15, khaldun gives an aristotelian lesson on the habituation of craft; that it is something essentially practiced, not theorised. in section 18, there is the acknowledgement of the value of craft corresponding to its social demand, and thus the price for which is only granted by its sale to customers. in section 21, he discusses the division of labour as qualities and colours of the soul, which are able to be formed from early on, but as they are fixed, they remain. in section 22 he lists all the crafts, from most basic (necessary) to most splendid: agriculture, architecture, tailoring, carpentry, weaving, midwifery, writing, printing, singing and medicine. he appears to make a similar conclusion as antoine montchretien, that all crafts (arts) make up the integral body politic, but what is equal in montchretien's consideration (of liberal and mechanical arts), is subordinate in the division of labour to khaldun. thus, he makes an austrian inference as to order of economic goods and presumably, their economic value. after this, he concludes the chapter by detailing each craft, yet not by adding anything more to a concept of an LTV.

to conclude thus, the attestation of ibn khaldun's supposed founding of the LTV appears flimsy, since it essentially differs with later modern notions.

>>2553678
> when marxism cant explain the rate of pay for "unproductive" enterprises, it begins to lose legitimacy.
unproductive isn't a pejorative, so I don't understand why you're putting it in scare quotes. Marx is pretty clear that they're paid a portion of the surplus value expropriated from commodity production.

>>2554266
ah, but we shan't praise the saxon too keenly, for the scottish enlightenment was celtic. it was originally the saxons who sought to overthrow the "norman yoke" by returning to the "ancient liberties" of england, but it was only in the next century that we got smith and hume from the north, after the english parliament gave the throne to a dutchman.
>>2554691
>unproductive isn't a pejorative, so I don't understand why you're putting it in scare quotes.
it isnt descriptive either, as ive explained. "productivity" is determined by purchase. the difference between marginal and total product serve to illustrate this point: >>2550291
in the classical theory, "productive labour" translates to (TP), while "unproductive labour" translates to (MP). this is why as jevons says, total utility (TU) and marginal utility (MU) are in antagonism, between what smith calls "value in use" (TU) and "value in exchange" (MU).
>Marx is pretty clear that they're paid a portion of the surplus value expropriated from commodity production
this is irrelevant to determing the price of commodities and the legitimacy of the price thereof. what makes a price either "real" or "imaginary"? thats the question.

>>2555140
>ah, but we shan't praise the saxon too keenly, for the scottish enlightenment was celtic. it was originally the saxons who sought to overthrow the "norman yoke" by returning to the "ancient liberties" of england, but it was only in the next century that we got smith and hume from the north, after the english parliament gave the throne to a dutchman.
it's kind of funny saxons wanted to overthrow the norman yoke, but the saxons were themselves once invaders of england, and before them the romans. are english people even indigenous to england? the framework of indigenous-ness (indigeneity?) is used to a lot on the left because of settler colonialism in places like the USA and Israel, but the further back in history you go, the less clear this framework becomes

>>2555140
>it isnt descriptive either, as ive explained. "productivity" is determined by purchase. the difference between marginal and total product serve to illustrate this point: >>2550291
>in the classical theory, "productive labour" translates to (TP), while "unproductive labour" translates to (MP). this is why as jevons says, total utility (TU) and marginal utility (MU) are in antagonism, between what smith calls "value in use" (TU) and "value in exchange" (MU).
explain this like i'm the guy in the picture

>>2555450
>are english people even indigenous to england?
pedantically, probably not, though I think settler-colonialism is more useful as a model of how states instrumentalize demographics as a means of social control.

on the one hand, colonialism may be extractive, like how Spain co-opted the feudal structures in Mesoamerica and the Andes to exploit the labor that was already present–though replacing them with Spaniards and West Africans as well, obvs

on the other, colonialism may be exterminative, like with the United States, which underwent an extremely extensive settlerist process of destroying the societies of aboriginal peoples (who were not typically yeomen or proletarians) with a stock of europeans who were of the right class character to start scaling up a society for early capitalist exploitation.

both extraction and extermination are processes that may occur in colonial enterprises, and I can imagine this also occurred in colonial projects before the 15th century. IIRC the crusades that aimed to establish a Christian Israeli realm were motivated by some aristocrats wanting to co-opt a realm far away from the wars and squabbles of feudal Europe (though my knowledge on this is very limited)

>>2555450
i don't think anyone would seriously argue the modern english aren't "indigenous" because of some 1500 year old feud, larping academics maybe

>>2556788
well they have been conquered 3 separate occasions by outlanders

>>2556811
Nobody is native with the rare exception of African San-people.

>>2555450
ive discussed in different threads the reputation of the saxons in relation to the britons (celts/gaels), which is something still contentious and politicised today, as it always has been. i'll provide a short literary history…

the founding of britain has its mythical origins in "brutus of troy", a contemporary of "aeneas" (t. virgil's "aeneid", 20 B.C.). this is first discussed in "historia brittonum" (828 A.D.) where the name "britain" comes from "brutus" (such that in virgil's aeneid, "rome" also comes from "romulus"). this origin is also spoken of by geoffrey of monmouth in his "historia regum britanniae" (1136 A.D.), which is also where we first get detail of the king arthur myth - yet, the first ever reference to arthur is in the text "annales cambriae" (~980 A.D.). the date given for his conquest against the saxons is 516 A.D. while his death is recorded in 537 A.D. in the same text however there is a seeming contradiction with later canon, since "merlin" (myrddin wyllt; a real figure in welsh folklore) is described as only becoming merlin "the wizard" after 573 A.D., decades after arthur's death, which is why geoffrey of monmouth mythologises (re-historicises) him as "merlin ambrosius" (historia, book 6), a syncretism between myrddin and "ambrosius aurelianus" (a romano-british soldier who fought the saxons). whats confusing however is that geoffrey inserts ambrosius aurelianus into the story, being uther pendragon's (arthur's father's) brother. the blood relation between arthur and merlin is here then implied, while it only becomes an adoptive relationship in sir thomas malroy's definitive "morte d'arthur" (1485). geoffrey's arthurian literature began a bit earlier though, where he wrote "prophitiæ merlini" (1130) which is expanded and grafted into his "historia", book 7. the prophecy given is the origin of the battle between the red dragon (britons) and the white dragon (saxons), with the saxons gaining temporary victory, yet merlin states that arthur shall have a second coming from avilion (glastonbury) to genocide and expel the saxons. historically, it appears that the norman conquest (1066) serves as the event to propagandise this post-hoc (in the same way that Christ "prophecies" the temple in jerusalem to fall, by authors writing after this event). something which points to the contemporary politics of the prophecy is that in later canonisation, this particular narrative appears absent, and it is only rather that arthur is sent to avilion by his sister morgan la-fey (the celtic triple-goddess "morrigan", composite with the greek "fates", norse "norns" or anglo-saxon "wyrd"). he says that he will be healed, but that he may never be heard from again. it is also claimed that king arthur is indeed dead and buried (t. "morte d'arthur", bk. 21.4-6). so then, within the passing centuries, the adaptation of the myth by french, german and anglo-saxon influence gives it a different character than it originally had. the original welsh myth clearly has the angle of racial vengeance, the same as we read retroactively in the book of genesis concerning the origins of the canaanites from the curse of ham, and to what is later fulfilled in the book of joshua by their genocide. the britons are clearly not a people concerned with racial purity however, since they have no qualms choosing a trojan forefather, a roman guardian and a norman conquerer as representatives. in fact, if you see the largely canonical "celtic nationalism" of today, it is not racialist, but only really anti-english (e.g. all celtic "independence" movements dont want to form a new union, but want to join the EU). in the UK, it is also mostly england and northern ireland whose nationalism is about racial purity (the same as their cousins on the continent). there is a sort of precedence in this as we may read in tacitus' "germania" (98 A.D.), where the germans were said to be untouched by immigrants, and so they clear had never gained a cosmopolitan worldview, such that we see more clearly in the alexandrian and roman empires. ive written previously this historical dichotomy also: >>2543097

now, coming out of these original polemics against the saxons, we may move onto the view of the saxons themselves. british common law first begins in the "assize of clarendon" (1166), and the later "magna carter" (1215/97). the magna carta establishes many things, including the "ancient liberties" of the city of london and "habeas corpus" (freedom from false imprisonment), a theme which becomes propagandised later on. the first to dig up and emphasise this document is "edward coke", where in his "petition of rights" (1628), he invokes the "great charter" to petition for the right of habeas corpus (what only officially becomes law in 1679), to regulate the king's power, in what is later termed "the rule of law" (or the supremacy of the legislative branch of government, e.g. the house of commons, as opposed to the judicial house of lords or executive monarchy). the magna carta is also invoked by later radicals, such as "the levellers" (1641) including "john lilburne" in his "england's birth-right justified" (1645). the levellers were voluminous in their propaganda, as de facto representatives of the parliamentary forces (roundheads) during the english civil war, despite being persecuted by them later on. it is also the levellers who speak about the "norman yoke", such as in richard overton's "remonstrance of many thousand citizens" (1646). the english civil war of course ends with oliver cromwell establishing an english republic in 1649 (abolishing the monarchy and house of lords), which would have been maintained if his heir had any promise, yet he didnt. afrter cronwell's death, there was a restoration, which also never lasted long and britain finally got a constitutional monarchy in 1688 with the "glorious revolution" of william of orange leading to the "bill of rights" (1688) along with the later publishing of john locke's treatises of government (1690). this is often said to be where liberalism begins, as an anglo-saxon project, leading to the US revolution of 1776…

now, on the fact and fiction of 17th century propaganda, there are some things to be considered, the "norman yoke" itself can be said to have given right to the "ancient liberties" in the first place, not merely by statute of the magna carta but also by precedent of "the writ of william" (1067), in which william the conquerer offers security that he shall maintain the same rights in place as were present under edward the confessor. this appears to be the meaning of the "ancient liberties" aforementioned. of anglo-saxon law, hardly anything remains (since it was mostly custom), besides "the laws of æthelbert" (560-616 A.D.) which is simply a series of fines applied by multiplication based on the rank of the injured. this is in germanic law is understood as "wergild" (man-price) and is also in the shariah law of "diyah" (e.g. quran 4:92). so then, all we know of "ancient liberty" is the rigid class structure of various legal penalties, and so it appears that this was simply a fantasy (i.e. the "free-born" rights of the english). however, the cause of right is not simply in englishness, but as "the diggers" (1649) or "true levellers" had it, the right of land held in common ought to belong to those who work in common (what is later individualised by john locke's theory of property, t. 1680). we may in fact read a perfect polemic by gerald winstanley against the levellers on this point (1649):
<O what mighty Delusion, do you, who are the powers of England live in! That while you pretend to throw down that Norman yoke, and Babylonish power, and have promised to make the groaning people of England a Free People; yet you still lift up that Norman yoke, and slavish Tyranny, and holds the People as much in bondage, as the Bastard Conquerour himself, and his Councel of War. Take notice, That England is not a Free People, till the Poor that have no Land, have a free allowance to dig and labour the Commons, and so live as Comfortably as the Landlords that live in their Inclosures.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/winstanley/1649/levellers-standard.htm
locke's own "labour theory of property", as i have previously demonstrated, appears to be a subsequent notion from william petty's composite theory of wealth, where in his "treatise of taxes", chapter 10 (1662) he designates labour as the active principle and nature the passive principle, the same as locke assigning property as a fixity given by mixing one's labour with nature, with locke further stating that labour is the measure of value of commodities, leading to adam smith's contributions…

so, the britons hated the saxons, and saw the normans as a means to suppress them. the saxons hated the normans for denying them their "free-born" rights, which it turns out didnt exist, and that the rights one may speak of are contemporary, and pertain to his property.

>>2556819
>nobody is native
but some are more native than others.

>>2557150
> the original welsh myth clearly has the angle of racial vengeance, the same as we read retroactively in the book of genesis concerning the origins of the canaanites from the curse of ham, and to what is later fulfilled in the book of joshua by their genocide.
kind of how Mormonism has evolved in the US to reject their original 1800s assertion that black people were descendants of Cain, which they had to do for the sake of keeping up with culture, especially now that there are more and more black Mormons

>>2557151
Nope. Fuck your culture and natives. Immigration is historically progressive.

>>2550291
You can live without your haircuts, but can't live without electricity. Productive labor is shared by all the society, including by the providers of unproductive labor, while unproductive labor is superfluous and not strictly necessary for survival of civilization. More often than not productive labor is manifested as a physical good, while unproductive as a service for other people, and unproductive labor cannot be accumulated

So, in short, every productive labor worker has to provide for himself and also pay wages for unproductive labor workers. The only way towards tangible improvement of a society is to invest into productive labor - as opposed to much more profitable unproductive one, because it's much easier to redistribute than to create

>>2557830
> Productive labor is shared by all the society, including by the providers of unproductive labor, while unproductive labor is superfluous and not strictly necessary for survival of civilization. More often than not productive labor is manifested as a physical good, while unproductive as a service for other people, and unproductive labor cannot be accumulated

>So, in short, every productive labor worker has to provide for himself and also pay wages for unproductive labor workers. The only way towards tangible improvement of a society is to invest into productive labor - as opposed to much more profitable unproductive one, because it's much easier to redistribute than to create

you contradict yourself. how is unproductive labor more profitable if it must be paid from the unpaid wages of productive labor? clearly by that logic productive labor is more profitable, since profit is unpaid wages. And unproductive labor isn't profitable at all, but simply subsidized by profit that has already been realized. If anything the profit rate in a society would be zero if there were no production of commodities from raw materials.

>>2557970
Dude, unproductive labor doesn't even necessarily requires any inputs except wages. Tthis means that unproductive labor's profits are more profitable

Again, creation of value vs redistribution - while creation has physical limits, redistribution is limited only by total creation.

>>2558062
but for Marx, profit is specifically the unpaid wages of productive labor, right? For Marx, the wages of unproductive labor are paid out of the profits made on productive labor, but do not in and of themselves generate profit, right? Unproductive labor, for Marx, is defined as labor which does not produce surplus value, i.e. profit.

Marx contends that while the wages of unproductive labor are paid from the profits generated by productive labor, these workers do not contribute to the creation of new profit. Their role is more about facilitating the system of capitalist production and ensuring that the surplus value generated by productive workers can be realized and distributed. Or, in some cases like health care workers, simply performing part of the maintenance of the working class.

>>2554266
If anything Oswald M. was super into teutonic nonsense since he was fuck buddies with Adolf

what does adam smith anon feel about deng xiaoping

>>2555458
"productive labour" = greater total profit
"unproductive labour" = greater marginal profit
>>2557813
in romans 9 we see paul use an odd device to say that there are two children of abraham; ishmael and israel. he claims that believers in Christ are israelites, while unbelievers (i.e. "synagogue of satan") are "children of the flesh". in islam, we may also read in the hadith "Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2276" that mohammed is a descendant of ishmael, thus connecting him with the line of abraham. so being a "seed of abraham" is the line of succession to be sought (e.g. royal bloodlines). the "black israelites" also do this, by some claiming legitimacy through moses' wife zipporah, for example.
>>2557830
this is far too simplistic. as labour divides, it inevitably becomes occupied in different positions, and this differentiation allows for greater social wealth (i.e. markets). marginal production attains marginal utility. this is why i say communists have no theory of luxury.
>>2558163
to marx, only productive labour has surplus value, yet unproductive labour still helps to realise this surplus.
>>2559905
i think the idea of SEZs can be used more often in the west - but did you know that the concept of SEZs actually come from ireland's "shannon" zone (1959)?
>>2557828
rambling nonsense.

>>2558832
this guy was more deranged pro-german and hated mosley.

>Leese soon began attacking Mosley for his failure to deal with the "Jewish question"; he eventually labelled Mosley's group "kosher fascists",[16] and sardonically nicknamed the BUF the "British Jewnion of Fascists"

>Leese despised however the BF policy of allowing former socialists and Jews in the party, contending that it was "honeycombed" with communist infiltrators

>Leese was generally unsatisfied with the policies of the British Fascists, dismissing them as "conservatism with knobs on"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Leese

>>2549046
>so then, the greater supply of gold, the less its value in relation to silver, despite the greatness of gold. thus as aristotle says, it is its scarcity which grants its value, or relative price, in relation to all other commodities.

scarcity simply implies a greater amount of socially necessary labor time to procure a useful quantity of something

>>2547894
I saved your links on my blogspot, anon. Thank you!
https://cadaverminimal.blogspot.com/2025/11/nota-de-pesquisa-ndp-politica-economica.html?m=1

>>2562826
the value of gold in relation to silver is purely a function of their relative scarcity to one another. this exchange ratio is commented on as early as the 4th century B.C. by xenophon. as aristotle also says, the labour entailed in mining gold is the effect, not the cause, of its value. its value is determined by its scarcity, as a natural quality. similarly, ricardo and marx comment that a commodity only has value in exchange if it has a value in use, and that without this, labour has no recognition:
<Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
this relates to jevons' causation of production costs:
(i) Cost of production determines supply.
(ii) Supply determines final degree of utility.
(iii) Final degree of utility determines value.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-theory-of-political-economy

>>2563933
>(i) Cost of production determines supply.
>(ii) Supply determines final degree of utility.
>(iii) Final degree of utility determines value.

doesn't supply determine cost of production? doesn't it cost more to produce gold from a mine if it is in low supply? you have to find it before you can extract it, and needing to spend more time to find it increases its cost of production.

>>2564846
"supply" refers to what is brought to market, not what is produced per se.

who the fuck is jevons and why should anyone care

>>2565252
a contemporary of marx who has a page on marxists.org
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/jevons/mathem.htm

>>2565272
yes but why is he posting about him constantly now despite never mentioning him in over a year? is this a cope fad for AI retards?

>>2565278
idk, i think smith anon just posts here about whatever he is reading and has taken an interest in jevons lately, that is my charitable interpretation

>>2565390
well jevons has become popular lately for his paradox that technological improvements in efficiency can lead to an overall increase in the consumption of a resource, not a decrease, and is popular in the context of AI being a bubble and stealing jobs.

and mr smith is obsessed with robot powered UBI and saving capitalist from communist revolution.

this of course ignores the TRPF and that robots dont produce value.

and he is way beyond deserving charitability at this point, but he keeps "according to jevons" as if this is some kind of important thing everyone should know and care about. so basically hes laundering techno-fascist nonsense

>>2565403
>and he is way beyond deserving charitability at this point, but he keeps "according to jevons" as if this is some kind of important thing everyone should know and care about. so basically hes laundering techno-fascist nonsense

well yeah, he's a self admitted centrist lib but he's not going to save capitalism from communism by posting any more than we're going to defeat capitalism by posting.

>well jevons has become popular lately for his paradox that technological improvements in efficiency can lead to an overall increase in the consumption of a resource, not a decrease, and is popular in the context of AI being a bubble and stealing jobs.

I don't even see how that's a paradox. isn't it obvious that automation increases consumption of resource? A man with a chainsaw can process more wood than a man with a steel axe, and a man with a steel axe can process more wood than a man with a stone axe. This is why advancements in technology that increase the speed at which we process natural resources usually end up getting supplemented by other advancements in technology that increase the efficiency of our resource usage. Like miniaturization of transistors for example allow for more computing power to be packed into smaller and smaller chips, which is the principle by which Moore's law operated for decades. We're constantly working with changing situations.

>this of course ignores the TRPF and that robots dont produce value.

I forget what his response to this one was. Something about Marx making up anthropocentric rules I guess

>>2565418
the idea was that an increase in the efficiency of steam engines would result in less coal use, but instead the increased efficiency led to the deployment of more and more steam power driving a demand for more coal. so as computers and AI become more powerful instead of needing less computers to do the same work we will increasingly use computers for more and more things,

presumably they think the increased demand overcomes infinite growth in a finite universe and you dont have to address the contradiction of private ownership

to me it just seems like an adjacent argument to the idea that while new technology like the loom destroys seamstresses it creates job for loom repairs, which as i said ignores the trpf, and of course also ignores that the transition to a service economy relies on imperialist extraction that boomerangs back around to the domestic economy eventually as capital returns to suck the remaining juices that are left in the husk they previously destroyed

>>2565252
after gossen, he is the founder of "marginal utility" theory. his influence is absolutely immense.
>>2565390
i provided a review of his work "the theory of political economy" (1871) in one of the older threads, which people clearly never read. he's interesting to read since his findings are compatible with the classical labour theory of value, hence him and marshall are dubbed "neoclassical" economists in their defence of ricardo (e.g. keynes' general theory, japanese preface).
>>2565403
here's a question: why are you even in a political economy thread when you are intentionally ignorant of economic history? you are proudly idiotic, claiming to not know or care about jevons, as if this makes you superior. so, why are you here?

>>2565881
(You)

>>2565881
>intentionally ignorant of economic history
Is that worse than being unintentionally ignorant? Aren't you that retard who thinks exchange value is the same as value in Marxist theory.

And what's the point of projecting this pychobabble about marginally decreasing utility of tendies for you into how firms operate. Some science you got there.

>>2566778
>sagepost
off to a very bad start
>yes, i am intentionally ignorant
why are you in this thread, then?
>Aren't you that retard who thinks exchange value is the same as value in Marxist theory.
if youre trying to make a point, then make it.
>what's the point of projecting this pychobabble about marginally decreasing utility
i repeat, why are you in this thread?

>>2567239
The post says you are ignorant because you think in Marxist theory exchange value is the same as value; which if true, means you are pretty ignorant of the history of economic thought yourself.

>>2567314
>another sagepost
from bad to worse.
>The post says you are ignorant
but youre a proud idiot, so why would i care what your opinion on economics is, especially when you openly deny having any actual interest in it? just stop posting.

>>2567390
not being "interested" in charlatans is not the same thing

>>2567737
how is jevons a charlatan? you know nothing.

reviewing philip henry wicksteed's criticism of marx's capital (1884):
https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/today/1884/10/wicksteed-capital.htm
as a preliminary, wickstreed began his economic study with henry george's "progress and poverty" (1879) and later moved on to jevons in 1882. this original criticism in 1884 caused a reply by george bernard shaw (the founder of fabian socialism) who soon converted to marginalism, as we see in his writings by 1885…

the article begins by a slightly irrelevant section on wages. i'll begin after this, where wicksteed seeks to describe marx's theory. he describes it adequately, with direct reference to the text, and then finally says this:
<A few pages, then, after we have been told that wares regarded as "valuables" must be stripped of all their physical attributes, i.e. of everything that gives them their value in use, and reduced to one identical spectral objectivity, as mere jellies of undistinguishable abstract human labour, and that it is this abstract human labour which constitutes them valuables, we find the important statement that the labour does not count unless it is useful (pp.15, 16, 64 [16a, 35a]). Simple and obvious as this seems, it in reality surrenders the whole of the previous analysis, for if it is only useful labour that counts, then in stripping the wares of all the specific properties conferred upon them by specific kinds of useful work, we must not be supposed to have stripped them of the abstract utility, conferred upon them by abstractly useful work. If only useful labour counts then when the wares are reduced to mere indifferent products of such labour in the abstract, they are still useful in the abstract, and therefore it is not true that "nothing remains to them but the one attribute of being products of labour (p.12 [14b]), for the attribute of being useful also remains to them. In this all wares are alike.
this is an extremely piercing observation, and which is similarly true in the case of ricardo, as jevons had previously identified; that labour, to be valuable in exchange, must also be labour which is valuable in use. continuing, wicksteed further observes:
<The exchange of two wares implies a heterogeneity (Verschiedenheit) and a homogeneity (Gleichheit). This is implied in the fact that they are exchangeable […] his analysis is based on the bare fact of exchangeability […] Now the "common something," which all exchangeable things contain, is neither more nor less than abstract utility, i.e., power of satisfying human desires.
thus, wicksteed sees that if "value" as abstract labour only attains its status in exchange (so as to be useful), then value as such must be defined by abstract utility:
<It cannot be urged that there is no common measure […] If I am willing to give the same sum of money for a family Bible and for a dozen of brandy, it is because I have reduced the respective satisfactions their possession will afford me to a common measure, and have found them equivalent. In economic phrase, the two things have equal abstract utility for me.
wicksteed is slightly lacking in this explanation however, since what is measuring value is not utility directly, but money. now, marginalists have a theoretical issue with money. we may read in jevons for example that money only possesses an "acquired utility", which is to say that it only attains a value in what it may exchange for, but is in itself valueless - this is seemingly incorrect, since the desire for money shows how it is something with an inherent utility, which is why people will exchange their labour for it, for example (this utility function i have previously described by comparing money against "vouchers" - the mercantile concept of money as "store of value" must also have truth to it, if people desire it for its own sake). money also appears to lack the same laws of diminishing returns as with other products, since money is not "consumed" in the same way. carl menger is more sophisticated than jevons on money since he implies that money (as a "commodity") is subject to the same laws of economic rationality, and so, the more money one has, the less "economical" one becomes, explaining why the rich "waste" their money. thus we might say that at least in jevonian terms, the total utility of money declines at the greater purchase of value in exchange (marginal utility), and so what diminishes with money is total utility, whilst to a marginalist, "value" is only measured at its margin - thus, when wicksteed invokes "abstract utility" he speaks rather fallaciously, since utility itself is divided, in the same way that value in use and exchange is for the classical economists. if we take money to be our measure of value as a means to assess abstract utility, such that we may quote wicksteed…
<If I am willing to give the same sum of money for a family Bible and for a dozen of brandy […] the two things have equal abstract utility for me.
then we confuse the issue by not clarifying the point, especially when we dont compare the utility of money to what its able to purchase, but rather simply presume a common "measure" with money as a medium, like jevons does… money itself must have a utility function, not simply an acquired utility (in fact, a keynesian blogger i read has made the same point in relation to MMT). so i would say that wicksteed is exceedingly clever in his primary observation, but fails in his secondary revision of marx - not for the sake of the task itself, but by means of indefinite terms, such as "abstract utility". nevertheless, we may continue:
<Under [jevons'] guidance we shall be able to account for the coincidence, in the case of ordinary manufactured articles, between "exchange value" and "amount of labour contained," while clearly perceiving that exchange value itself is always immediately dependent, not upon "amount of labour," but upon abstract utility.
i would say that wicksteed is both correct, but may also become incorrect by what is overstated. labour to jevons plays a role crucial to the value of commodities, since only labour can possess disutility, in proportion to its marginal product, which equates at the wage. this is also the model by which jevons proves the intersection of the wage to marginal productivity, so as to supplement marx's theory of the surplus utility of labour by means of extended duration of the working day. jevons is supremely consistent here, as opposed to other marginalists such as hoppe, who has tried to say that capitalist profit acts as rightful interest on the time-preference of the labourer, when marx shows the opposite. moreover…
<Thus the abstract utility of the last available increment of any commodity determines the ratio of exchange of the whole of it. 
here, wicksteed defines "abstract utility", but qualifies it as jevonian "final degree of utility", which is not an incorrect economic sum, but its simply ipso facto. next, wicksteed explains the rate of exchange for commodities, but fails to directly relate it to costs of production by causation - such as jevons does, and finally, he encounters marx's theory of surplus value, and simply says that there is no surplus utility to be consumed by the purchase of labour. in the jevonian analysis, this is also true (but only from a particular perspective). wages meet at the equilibrium of labour to its marginal product, yet we precisely see that in the increased duration of the working day, the marginal product decreases, while the total product increases. thus, the product of the labourer increases as the price of labour falls, by proportion of labour's duration (thus, we can relate total product to marginal product in the final analysis, as the difference between value in use and value in exchange, as jevons likewise stipulates). wicksteed's abandonment of this insight shows either his ignorance of jevons' argument, or an unwarranted hostility to marx. either way, he fails on this point.

to conclude, wicksteed is correct that "value" can only be determined by utility, yet he is false by being indefinite in the relations of utility (value) to itself, and its this which causes him to ultimately abandon jevons' "neoclassical" and marginalist compatibility with marx on the theory of surplus value (or, surplus utility).

>>2568305
such profound illiteracy. as i stated, it was gossen who first formalised the theory of marginal utility, then jevons. it was wieser who actually came up with the term, and wicksteed who first used it in english.

and what is further implicated in this post? that the theory of marginal utility is itself in the character of charlatanship? why? now that we've come to it, explain your opposition to it.

>>2568308
i see you are awake early these days mr smith

>and what is further implicated in this post? that the theory of marginal utility is itself in the character of charlatanship?
of course. it does not overcome marx's theory it merely sidesteps it. it is obscurantism and misdirection.

>>2568314
>it is obscurantism and misdirection.
how? explain.

>>2568317
>it does not overcome marx's theory it merely sidesteps it.
presumably you think its an advancement or some kind of response but it is really just changing the terms of the conversation in order to not address what marx is saying

>>2568319
how is marginal utility theory incorrect?
youve claimed its incorrect. explain how.

>>2568320
>youve claimed its incorrect
i have?
or have you invented another lie? liar! caught again mr smith!

>>2568321
here are your words: >>2567737
>jevons is a charlatan
next: >>2568314
>it is obscurantism and misdirection
youve refused to explain these statements, and now you deny them in the same breath. as i have asked, why are you in this thread?

>>2568323
being a misdirecting obscurantist charlatan is not the same as being "incorrect" which i did not say. i explained how it does not address marx but merely changes the terms of the conversation… and you call others illiterate

marginal utility is not "special knowledge" in regards to economics. it does not advance the field or improve understanding, its just a new way of accounting for what was already known, if anything it is a step back from marx. the purpose of subjective theories of value is not understanding, but apologetics for private ownership over the means of production.

>>2568327
>never said marginal utility is incorrect
so is marginal utility theory correct?

>>2568329
of course it is, on its own terms. but redefining value does not debunk other definitions of value, hence misdirection and obscurantism. if your intent is merely accounting for what is instead of understanding how to change it then a surface level simplification is probably just fine for you

>>2568335
>of course it is
if the marginal utility theory of value is correct, then whats the issue? whats all this fuss and namecalling about? why is jevons a charlatan, exactly? you are entirely contradictory and idiotic.
>change
as i have already presented, english socialism appears to begin with inspiration from adam smith (1816-32) and it caps off with jevons via the fabian socialists by means of george bernard shaw (1884-), who are also the founders of the labour party (1900-)… so two people i take economic inspiration from have had a great influence on political movements as well. what now? more contradiction and confusion, i presume.

>>2568352
all right man i cant read the words for you. good luck

>>2568354
so jevons was right, but he was a charlatan?
thats your final word on the issue?

https://paulcockshott.wordpress.com/2016/07/23/not-even-wrong/

By the classical theory, we mean the theory that labour is the source of value. This was generally accepted from the time of Ibn Kaldun through Adam Smith down to that of Karl Marx1. But if you have had an economics course at school or college, this is unlikely to be the theory you were taught. Instead you would have been taught the neo-classical theory which was developed in the late 19th century by writers like Jevons or Marshall. It is arguable that this theory gained its popularity because the classical theory, having by then been adapted by socialist writers, had a rather disreputable image in polite society. The neo-classical theory appeared considerably more sophisticated. It was more mathematical and had a sciency feel2. Its plausibility to young students is enhanced by a beguiling use of diagrams. For those of you who did not do an economics course at school, Figure 1 is what millions of school students have been given as the theory of price.


There are two lines, sometimes they are drawn slightly curved, one is called the supply function the other the demand function. The demand function rests on the commonsense notion that if something is cheap, people will buy more of it, so it slopes down. Teachers have little difficulty getting this idea across to their class.

The other line, called the supply function is shown sloping the other way. What it purports to show is that as more is supplied, the cost of each item goes up. Teachers have more difficulty with this, as common knowledge and experience will have taught students that actually the reverse is the case: as industries ramp up production they find they can produce more efficiently and supply the output at a lower cost. Such objections provoke some hand waving at the blackboard and excuses3.

The great thing about a classic diagram is that it is both memorable and intuitively understandable. If you can present maths this way you leverage the processing ability of our visual cortex to understand it. That is why Venn diagrams are so much easier for students to grasp than axiomatic set theory[Lakoff and Nunez, 2001]. Our brains tell us that if it looks right, it not only is right, but it is real. So having seen the diagrams students come out thinking that supply and demand functions are real things, after all they have seen them. Not only that, one can see that the intersection of these functions exactly predicts both the quantity of the commodity sold q, and its price p.

Had the theory been presented entirely in algebraic form it would be both more confusing, less appealing, and more subject to critical analysis. We will demonstrate that once you convert it to algebraic notation it is evident that the theory violates two cardinal principles of the scientific method. Its sciency feel is faked.

Occam’s razor is the principle widely credited to the monk William of Ockham in the middle ages, who is supposed to have said that in an explanation entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem or entities must not be multiplied without cause. His dictum has been widely adopted by scientists who interpret it to mean that when constructing a hypothesis you should keep it simple4.

Why is this a good principle for science?

Beyond philosophical beliefs that the laws of nature are simple and elegant, there are pragmatic reasons why sticking to Occam’s razor is good scientific practice. The main one is that if you make your theory complicated enough you can make it fit any particular set of observations, but this is at a cost of loss of generality predictive ability. A famous example is the way that the Greek geocentric theory of astronomy was extended by adding epicycles to account for the retrograde apparent movement of Mars5. Ptolemy was able to get good predictions, something that classical economists signally fail to do, but he got them at the cost of a theory with little inner logic, and which, we now know was totally inside out.

The neoclassical supply and demand theory does multiply entities without cause. Each of the functions has at least two parameters specifying its slope and and position6. But the real observed data only has two parameters : a price and quantity on a particular day. So the theory attempts to explain two numbers and in the process introduces four new numbers – entities lacking necessity.

For Ptolemy the epicyclic complexity bought precision in predicting planetary motion, and in the sense that there were no more epicycles than was necessary to achieve that precision, Ptolemy’s theory obeyed Occam’s razor. But the profligacy with which the economists strew free variables around, brings the opposite effect. Their price theory is underdetermined and makes no testable predictions at all.

Testability is another cornerstone of the scientific method. A causal theory should be testable to see if it is true. For that to work, the entities you use have to be measurable. But what testable predictions does the neoclassical theory make about the structure of industrial prices in, for example, the US economy?

It can make none, since the supply and demand functions for the various commodities are not only contingently unknown, but are in principle unknowable. The theory says that the two functions uniquely define the price and quantity that will be sold on a particular day, but there are infinitely many pairs of lines that could be so drawn as to intersect at the point (q,p) in Figure 1. It is no good trying to look at how the prices and quantities sold vary from day to day, since the theory itself holds than any changes in price or quantity must be brought about by ‘shifts’ in the functions. What this means is that the economics teacher goes to the board with her ruler and draws two more lines intersecting at the new price and quantity. This, she tells the class, is what happens in a real market, prices change because the supply and demand functions move about.

But splatter any arbitrary set of points on the price quantity graph, and you can obviously draw intersecting lines through each an every one of them. Let these points be prices on successive days, there could never be a sequence of these price value measurements that could not be ‘explained’ by suitably shifting a ruler about and drawing pairs of intersecting lines. So the theory is unfalsifiable. It makes no specific operational predictions about prices and quantities. It is true by definition and vacuous by definition. It is not even wrong[Woit, 2002].

(Finding mentions of Jevons in Dickblast articles)

https://paulcockshott.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/did-marx-have-a-labour-theory-of-value/

Did Marx have a labor theory of value? It seems absurd that one has to answer this question.

It was so thoroughly answered by previous generations of economists in the affirmative[12], that it would seem unnecessary even to examine the issue. But David Harvey has recently posted a short article[6] claiming that Marx was an opponent of the labour theory:

>It is widely believed that Marx adapted the labour theory of value from Ricardo as a founding concept for his studies of capital accumulation. Since the labour theory of value has been generally discredited, it is then often authoritatively stated that Marx's theories are worthless. But nowhere, in fact, did Marx declare his allegiance to the labour theory of value. That theory belonged to Ricardo, who recognized that it was deeply problematic even as he insisted that the question of value was critical to the study of political economy. On the few occasions where Marx comments directly on this matter,1 he refers to value theory and not to the labour theory of value. So what, then, was Marx's distinctive value theory and how does it differ from the labour theory of value?( [6])

It is difficult to take this seriously but as Mike Roberts has done a reply, I probably should do likewise and type a brief response.

Harvey claims that the labour theory of value is generally discredited. But in what sense?

It is correct to say that the theory is not viewed with favour in economics departments, but that is for political reasons – the labour theory of value, since Gray and Marx, came to be associated with socialism. Since academic economists, in general, did not want to be tainted with the socialist label they were at pains to distance themselves from the theory. But none of them ever adduced any empirical evidence to refute it. It was socially discredited but not empirically refuted.

If one wants to refute a theory about the world you have to show that the theory makes incorrect empirical predictions. Eratosthenes refuted the theory that the Earth was flat and confirmed the theory that it is round by observing that when the sun was overhead in Syene it was at an angle of 7°12′ to the vertical in Alexandria, implying that the earth was curved with a circumference of 25,000 miles. If the earth had been flat the angle of the sun would not have varied as you went north.

The labour theory of value predicts that the prices of commodities will vary proportionately with their labour content. Refuting this should be easy, just show that in fact their prices do not vary with labour content in this way. Did the economists opposed to the labour theory of value do this?

They did not even bother to collect the data to do the tests. So for a century after Marx, the theory was ‘discredited’, but never empirically refuted.

As soon as economists started to collect data to test the theory, which depended on reasonably good economic statistics of whole economies, what did they find?

They found the Ricardo and Marx had been right all along. A whole bunch of studies[18,17,5,13,15,19,1,4,2] since the 1980s have shown that the labour theory of value is very good at predicting prices. Far from being refuted by the evidence, it has been confirmed.

Harvey is like a flat-earther after Erastosthenes, denying the Earth is round on theological grounds.

Harvey next complains that Marx nowhere declares his allegiance to the labour theory of value. True enough, since at the time Marx was writing, that was the only theory going. It simply was the theory of value. It was only afterwards that the alternative marginal utility or neo-classical theory of value was established. After Jevons[8] economists distinguished between the classical or labour theory of value and the neoclassical or marginalist theory of value. But it is ridiculous to expect Marx to have taken sides in a debate that only started after Capital was published(1867). At the time he was writing it was widely accepted that labour was the source of value. Even Jevons the founder of marginalism still accepted that prices were proportional to labour, thinking that his marginal utility theory gave further support to this time honoured assumption.

Harvey promises to explain what Marx’s theory of value actually is, but nowhere in his article does he do this. That is because it would be impossible to do this without revealing that the theory of value in Marx is identical in all major predictions to that of Ricardo.

What did Ricardo’s theory say?

Did Marx agree with him?

When comparing theorists, especially ones who originally wrote in distinct languages, you should not pay too much attention to the precise vocabulary that they use. What is important is the relations between the concepts they deploy and the relationships that the theorists predict will hold in the real world. When you look at this you see that Marx followed Ricardo’s value theory very closely.

There are 4 key components to their value theory on which both authors agree:

<One: The exchangeable value of commodities varies with their direct labour content2,3.
<Two: The indirect labour used to make raw materials and equipment also contribute proportionately to the exchange value4,5.
<Three: It is the labour actually expended not the level of pay of the workers that determines value6,7.
<Four*: The variation of price with labour will be modified by the formation of an equal rate of profit on stock.8,9

The theories are therefore substantially identical in the empirical predictions they make, differing only slightly in terminology. Points 1,2,3 are validated by the empirical data in the studies cited earlier. Point 4* is poorly supported by or refuted by the empirical data [5,19,3] . Marx and Ricardo say the same thing where they are both right and say the same thing where they are both wrong.

So yes Marx has a labour theory of value as Ricardo had. The greater part of this theory is not refuted by the evidence, it is confirmed by it.

This does not mean that Marx made no contributions. Major innovations in his thought were:

<The point that labour only gets represented as exchange value in societies with private ownership and atomised production. Marx says exchange was absent in traditional Indian communities or the communism of the Incas. The prior economists had assumed that all societies produce commodities.
<The distinction between labour and labour power.
<The introduction of the concept of surplus value as something functionally prior to the division of surplus value between profit, interest and rent.
<A new theory to explain the falling rate of profit.
<A repudiation of Say’s law.
<The concept of absolute ground rent.
<The introduction of more modes of production than the ones Adam Smith recognised.
<The idea that the class struggle leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

These are all significant innovations that did distinguish him from his predecessors. There is no need to pretend innovation by Marx in value theory, a topic where he just rigorously used Ricardo’s concepts.

But what about abstract/concrete labour?

Was this distinction not an innovation on Marx’s part?

Well the specific phrase ‘concrete labour’ was different, but the relevant conceptual distinction between the two was present in Adam Smith’s work.

Smith simply uses the term ‘labour’ unqualified where Marx sometimes says abstract labour10. Smith specifically says that when he is talking of labour in this way he is talking of labour in the abstract11. When Smith discusses the division of labour, he is discussing the division of the abstract labour into what he terms ‘varieties’ of labour12 or ‘sorts’ of labour13. This is the same distinction that Marx is making when, using the slightly different term, he talks of abstracting from concrete labours or kinds of labour14.

An interesting comment from the above article:

<Jurriaan Bendien
<August 17, 2019 at 8:39 pm

<Dear Paul,
<I read your article “Did Marx have a labour theory of value”, written in response to David Harvey. I just want to point out, that the real scientific dispute is not really about whether Marx had an LTV or a VTL.

<Marx never referred to his own theory as a labour theory of value for a very good reason, namely he understood quite well, and says so, that there are many assets in society whose value is not determined by labour time or labour costs, and whose value cannot be predicted by related labour costs (such as real estate and financial assets – stocks, securities, deposits, derivative contracts etc.).

<In brief, Marx understood, that NOT ALL value is determined by labour time. The labour theory of value applied only to the production and exchange of commodities as labour products. It did not refer to financial assets and land values, even if labour costs could influence their value to some or other extent.

<It was therefore quite logical, that Marx did not refer to his own theory as a labour theory of value, because that would imply that labour determined the magnitudes of ALL (economic) value. It doesn’t. If Marx really did subscribe to a labour theory of ALL value, this would be an scientific error.

<This simple point has rarely been understood in Marxist circles (I found only one scholarly article so far which explicitly acknowledges that, other than the Harvey/Elson line), which has the consequence that Marxists are at a loss to explain the financial economy, in terms of the LTV. All they can do is talk about “fictitious capital”.

<When the so-called “fictitious capital” is responsible for running a third or more of the economy, with real and large consequences for people’s lives, then calling this capital “fictitious” is just not very plausible. Even Michel Aglietta understands that.

<Best regards,

<Jurriaan Bendien


I thought "fictitious capital" simply refers to the shenanigans caused by things like quantiative easing, fractional reserve banking, messing with money supply an interest rates at a governmental level, and other things that are basically done through bourgeois dictatorship and don't actually correlate with value produced through commodity production. Specifically I thought it was capital that exists not as a direct claim on actual productive resources but as claims on future value. It’s essentially money that represents future profits or dividends rather than anything grounded in present-day productive activity.

>>2568453
>After Jevons economists distinguished between the classical or labour theory of value and the neoclassical or marginalist theory of value.
in actual fact, the term "neoclassical" was chosen by critics, and was popularised by keynesians. there were however "schools" of thought, such as the austrian school (menger) and lausanne school (walras). the very term "classical" political economy also comes from marx himself, to describe the british tradition of thought, culminating in ricardo (yet marx never identified with it). what may surprise cockshott is that keynes considered marshall (and by extension, jevons) defenders of ricardo. this is what "(neo)classical" referred to (with keynes invoking marginal theories into his explanation of the "classical" theory of unemployment, via pigou).
>Even Jevons the founder of marginalism still accepted that prices were proportional to labour, thinking that his marginal utility theory gave further support to this time honoured assumption.
glad to see cockshott have sense on this issue.
>>2568444
>By the classical theory, we mean the theory that labour is the source of value. This was generally accepted from the time of Ibn Kaldun through Adam Smith down to that of Karl Marx.
i address the supposed canonicity of ibn khaldun within the thought of the LTV here: >>2554036
and show that what ibn khaldun believes is not the same as what is later given in the british tradition.
>It is arguable that this theory [marginalism] gained its popularity because the classical theory, having by then been adapted by socialist writers, had a rather disreputable image in polite society.
this is part of the same nonsense conspiratorial thinking as what michael hudson peddles. as jevons shows in his second preface (1879), it was gossen (1854) who first expounded the marginal theory, 4 years before marx even wrote the grundrisse (1858). further, jevons says that his own theory was given in outline in 1862, 5 years before the first edition of marx's capital (1867). if we actually read jevons, we can also see his total loyalty to ricardo (1817) and j.s. mill (1848), who are the formalisers of the labour theory of value (otherwise characterised as "cost of production" theories of value), so jevons was not attempting to distance himself from the LTV (which indeed had influence on socialist politics via smith, 1816-48), but was trying to contextualise it. we can decipher this best in "the theory of political economy" (1871), chapter 4, section 25. as i have also been at labours to explain, jevons has compatibility with marx's theory of the surplus utility of labour, by showing the equilibrium of the wage to its marginal product:
>Evidence to the like effect is found in the general tendency to reduce the hours of labour at the present day, owing to the improved real wages now enjoyed by those employed in mills and factories.
<the theory of political economy - chapter 5, section 5
whilst the total product is the source of capitalist profit. hence, the longer a worker labours, the more he produces at the expense of his wage, the same as what marx says; that the source of profit is in surplus labour. as for jevons' politics, he was a liberal, but promoted worker co-operatives (the same as murray rothbard and ronald regan). we may read this in "trades societies: their objectives and policy" (1870), sections 9 and 10:
>I wish to see workmen becoming by degrees their own capitalists—sharers in all the profits and all the advantages which capital confers […] I hope for the working-men of this country more than they generally hope for themselves: that they may become in a great degree their own capitalists, and may be the builders of their own fortunes.
<"methods of social reform and other papers" (1883).
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-methods-of-social-reform-and-other-papers
and as i have also shown, a jevonian writer, philip henry wicksteed, had influence over george bernard shaw, the founder of the fabian socialist society (1884-), which is an organisaton that founded the labour party (1900-).

>>2566339
jevons discusses this notion in "the rationale of free public libraries" (1862):
>If a beautiful picture be hung in the dining-room of a private house, it may perhaps be gazed at by a few guests a score or two of times in the year. Its real utility is too often that of ministering to the selfish pride of its owner. If it be hung in the National Gallery, it will be enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of persons, whose glances, it need hardly be said, do not tend to wear out the canvas. The same principle applies to books in common ownership. If a man possesses a library of a few thousand volumes, by far the greater part of them must lie for years untouched upon the shelves; he cannot possibly use more than a fraction of the whole in any one year. But a library of five or ten thousand volumes opened free to the population of a town may be used a thousand times as much. It is a striking case of what I propose to call the principle of the multiplication of utility, a principle which lies at the base of some of the most important processes of political economy, including the division of labour.
<"methods of social reform and other papers" (1883).
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-methods-of-social-reform-and-other-papers
thus, public access to an object may multiply its total utility, which jevons compares to the division of labour. i would say that various libertarian arguments against copyright have the same idea. in my own time, i have bemoaned the privatisation of literature, since public access could only add to human wealth, never subtract. so, free stuff is often more utilitarian than the method of trade (contra the austrian school's idea of mutual interest… although, if we gave out free money, then we could say that we are necessarily increasing utility from an austrian standpoint, but are perhaps being "irrational" in allocation; but as rothbard says, he would rather give out free money to the public than have wasted money on public services. a lot of UBI stuff today is also libertarian). so, we return to the cancer of capitalist profit, which as smith says, is a tax against the nation. this is also an issue i disagree with kant on, where he attempts to defend intellectual property (1785):
<Now the counterfeiter is he who transacts another's business (the author's) against the other's will. Therefore the counterfeiter is obliged to give up to the author or to his attorney (or the editor) [any profits from the transaction].
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46060/46060-h/46060-h.htm
the dichotomy between the subject and object of literature is eventually resolved by roland barthes (1967). this has its economic analog between use-value and exchange-value, or the object and subject.

>>2567390
I'm a different poster than the one you called ignorant.

Back to the question: In the writings of Marx, what is the difference between value and exchange value?

>>2569967
>>2569973
thanks anon, I found these interesting but don't have much to add. :)
<i address the supposed canonicity of ibn khaldun within the thought of the LTV here:
I will read this one later

Coming back to /leftypol/, optimistically finding there's finally a political economy thread, only to find it largely filled with people arguing in a circle in relation to another series of identifiable personalities that encasulte the worst pseudo-intellectual qualities of /leftypol/ (like it always has), is a despondency I cannot describe.

>>2570852
well anon, for what it's worth i made these threads for likely the same reason you envisioned, only to watch it go to shit very quickly. The main "body" of the site seems to congregate in the /usapol/ and geopolitical flashpoint (/ukr/ /palestine/) threads. Tell me what you would like this thread to be more like and I will try my best to oblige, within reason, but I am just one person.

>>2570855
I respect your effort, I do still think it's a noble thing to do. I'll mention when I can think of something, but I also know I don't have any expertise in addressing something like this and should probably leave more room for those that do. And unfortunately, there's also nothing you can do if it's a garbage in - garbage out situation. If I could say something I would like though, it's for us to discuss things in a context that is useful and relevant to analyzing things as they are or how we may inform/refute the basics to others. Respectfully, this kvetching about Jevon for what looks like 3 threads is useless, it provides no suitable analysis or investigation into how things are, which is what we need when discussing this outside the bottomless nothing pit that is leftypol. Otherwise were just typing words who's only purpose is to wait on a conveyor belt till it disappears forever.

>>2570873
youre free to illuminate us with your wisdom any time you like, instead of complaining that the people who contribute to the thread arent doing what you want.
>>2570602
>still sageposting
shameful.
>Back to the question
you never asked me a question; you accused me of taking a position, remember?
>In the writings of Marx, what is the difference between value and exchange value?
value is abstract labour (which can only be abstracted in the act of exchange). exchange-value is the quantity of abstract labour, measured in labour-time. as yet, labour in itself has no value, since its not a commodity. this is the further point; that the form of value to marx is only between two commodities which polarise each other, and so takes a necessarily social existence; hence, value is not a natural relation (e.g. physical). "value" as a term generally refers to exchange-value, as james steuart writes (1767), and marx says the same:
<When, at the beginning of this chapter, we said, in common parlance, that a commodity is both a use value and an exchange value, we were, accurately speaking, wrong. A commodity is a use value or object of utility, and a value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
so, the terms can be substituted for one another. also, the "fully developed" value-form to marx is money, and thus, value is expressed by price. thus he writes:
<Consequently it was the analysis of the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their characters as values.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
this is why someone like michael heinrich claims that marx had a "monetary" theory of value.

>>2570972
>youre free to illuminate us with your wisdom any time you like, instead of complaining that the people who contribute to the thread arent doing what you want.
I'd hardly call this discussion a contribution to anything. This isn't a constructive group discussion, it's one online personality and the responses to him. None of this can be turned into praxis, you talking about value is about the only useful thing remarked on here to discuss about.

>>2570873
> Respectfully, this kvetching about Jevon for what looks like 3 threads is useless, it provides no suitable analysis or investigation into how things are, which is what we need when discussing this outside the bottomless nothing pit that is leftypol. Otherwise were just typing words who's only purpose is to wait on a conveyor belt till it disappears forever.
I do sometimes take what I learn from others on here into real life conversations, albeit imperfectly since It's easier to type things and look up references in open tabs than it is to carry on conversations IRL where things flow much differently

>>2570602
>In the writings of Marx, what is the difference between value and exchange value?
>>2570972
>value is abstract labour (which can only be abstracted in the act of exchange). exchange-value is the quantity of abstract labour, measured in labour-time.
You say here the ratios of abstract labor going into commodities is equal to their exchange ratios and equal to the labor-time input ratios. Are you sure that's what you want to say.

>"value" as a term generally refers to exchange-value, as james steuart writes (1767)…
The question was about Marx as you understand him.
>…and marx says the same:
<When, at the beginning of this chapter, we said, in common parlance, that a commodity is both a use value and an exchange value, we were, accurately speaking, wrong. A commodity is a use value or object of utility, and a value.
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
<so, the terms can be substituted for one another.
The following is literally from the beginning of the next paragraph after your quote:
<Our analysis has shown, that the form or expression of the value of a commodity originates in the nature of value, and not that value and its magnitude originate in the mode of their expression as exchange value.
Does Marx not distinguish here between value and exchange value.
>also, the "fully developed" value-form to marx is money, and thus, value is expressed by price. thus he writes:
<Consequently it was the analysis of the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their characters as values.
Again, what is the context. Look at the sentences right before it:
<Man’s reflections on the forms of social life, and consequently, also, his scientific analysis of those forms, take a course directly opposite to that of their actual historical development. He begins, post festum, with the results of the process of development ready to hand before him. The characters that stamp products as commodities, and whose establishment is a necessary preliminary to the circulation of commodities, have already acquired the stability of natural, self-understood forms of social life, before man seeks to decipher, not their historical character, for in his eyes they are immutable, but their meaning.
Marx talks here about how other people see the world.

>>2571291
if the thread is so bad, then stop browsing it.
what can i tell you? 🤷🏻‍♂️
>>2571815
>You say here the ratios of abstract labor going into commodities is equal to their exchange ratios and equal to the labor-time input ratios
theyre the same thing: Ax = By
>Does Marx not distinguish here between value and exchange value.
he does, between "value and its magnitude"; quality and quantity. we may also read footnote 11A:
<Now we know the substance of value. It is labour. We know the measure of its magnitude. It is labour time. The form, which stamps value as exchange-value, remains to be analysed.
>Marx talks here about how other people see the world.
he is making an inference that value as something socially recognised is retroactive of its actuality - this is a point of contention in the marxist theory, since marx appears to say that value is an autonomous entity which is present even where it is unrecognised (such as in his example of aristotle), yet at once, he reduces value to the exchange of commodities, socially recognised as values:
>There is a physical relation between physical things. But it is different with commodities. There, the existence of the things quâ commodities, and the value relation between the products of labour which stamps them as commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising therefrom. There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things […] So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange value either in a pearl or a diamond.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
<In order that these objects may enter into relation with each other as commodities, their guardians must place themselves in relation to one another, as persons whose will resides in those objects, and must behave in such a way that each does not appropriate the commodity of the other, and part with his own, except by means of an act done by mutual consent. They must therefore, mutually recognise in each other the rights of private proprietors. This juridical relation, which thus expresses itself in a contract, whether such contract be part of a developed legal system or not, is a relation between two wills, and is but the reflex of the real economic relation between the two.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
so then, value is a "stamp" of equality, mediated by two subjects in mutual exchange, yet to marx, it is also self-realising and to engels, it is inherent:
<Thus, the Marxian law of value has general economic validity for a period lasting from the beginning of exchange, which transforms products into commodities, down to the 15th century of the present era. But the exchange of commodities dates from a time before all written history — which in Egypt goes back to at least 2500 B.C., and perhaps 5000 B.C., and in Babylon to 4000 B.C., perhaps to 6000 B.C.; thus, the law of value has prevailed during a period of from five to seven thousand years.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm
yet, marx affirms that the "concept" of value did not exist in antiquity, so as to be socially realised:
>The economic concept of value does not occur in antiquity.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch15.htm
<Aristotle therefore, himself, tells us what barred the way to his further analysis; it was the absence of any concept of value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
so value as an "abstraction" existed, yet it had no concept? this is the hegelian gobbledygook one is forced to reckon with. from what i can determine, money (as the concrete form of value) predominates until capitalism, at which point, money is overcome by capital (which marx especially relates to credit, such as in the case of the bank of england. he also calls usury an antediluvian form of capital, or elsewise relates it to "chrematistics", an aristotelian term). here, value turns to surplus value, and thus, value comes into conception (begriff), just as it is fading away (e.g. political economy). the hegelian concept is the substance become subject, and we see this in marx's description, where "dead labour" and "living labour" mix as the objective and subjective aspect, to realise capital, or "money in motion", which mirrors hegel's "idea" of the absolute. i criticise this view by showing that indeed, aristotle did possess a concept of value, and marx's omission of this appears rather suspicious.

>>2571906
>if the thread is so bad,
its bad because of you
>then stop browsing it.
is that your goal here?

>>2571927
idk dude, i might not agree with him on much but he certainly cites sources and contributes more than you. Your posts here are pretty low quality. Just counter argue and cite sources if you disagree with something he says. That increases the quality of the thread and gives it more voices. If that's not your style then maybe this isn't the right thread for you. This thread isn't meant for low effort shitflinging. Back in version 3 we had a guy who rejected the entire premise of the thread outright, saying something like "Marx critiqued political economy therefore any continuation of it is bourgeois" but he still stayed in the thread and repeatedly argued this point instead of just leaving. Ended up wasting a bunch of vertical space in the thread on nothing.

>>2571815
>>2571906
to further explain the point on quality (substance), quantity (magnitude) and measure (form), we may read from the first edition of marx's capital (1867):
<What was decisively important, however, was to discover the inner, necessary connection between value-form, value-substance, and value-amount; i.e., expressed conceptually, to prove that the value form arises out of the value-concept.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
david harvey presents a similar trilateral diagram in "companion to marx's capital" (2010), but incorrectly labels its internal attributes as "use-value", "exchange-value" and "value" (p. 23), since he misinterprets marx:
>value is socially necessary labor­ time (p. 22)
value in itself is not SNLT; SNLT is "value-amount", which must relate to its substance and form.

paul cockshott has previously attempted to explain it in aristotelian terms, of substance being a unity of form and matter, which marx assigns between the poles of a commodity's "natural form" (use-value; concrete) and its "social form" (exchange-value; abstract). an issue with this view is that "substance" is positively identified with use-value by marx, yet is likewise abstracted by exchange, while in the aristotelian model, the actuality of substance comports with form, not matter. i feel that some marxian theorists attempt to resolve this dialectically (such as harvey), by positing production as a factor of exchange (e.g. "socially necessary"), which is not wholly incorrect, although i do think marx had a general sense of causation, such as the syllogism in the grundrisse between universal production, particular distribution and singluar consumption; a chain which has a beginning and end - although, when he gets to supply and demand (production/consumption) he does say that each is the cause of the other. of social necessity, he also takes the ricardian line that for labour to "count", it must be exchanged for, so we cant quite blame interpreters of marx, but marx himself for being so confusing. all in all, i think hegel's "doctrine of being" works best to understand it, as a relation between quality-quantity-measure, which marx intentionally subtitles in the chapter. the doctrine of essence is also present, between value and its form of appearance. as i have also shown, the doctrine of the concept (begriff) is clearly shown by the development of capital, where being and essence (objectivity) become joined to the subject of value (living labour). its this conjoinment which is the source of surplus.

>>2571927
the point still stands; if you dont like it, then stop forcing yourself to be malcontented. if you have anything to actually contribute however, then go ahead.
>>2571930
they can never actually explain why im wrong or why i ought to be despised, yet i live rent free in their heads anyway. i think its something to do with marxist cultists encountering heretics or unbelievers. of course, it only ends for them with concentration camps where they get to "re-educate" you into following their opinions, otherwise you deserve to die or be enslaved.

>>2571930
>>2571950
That's a totally different anon, the only posts I've made have been in regards to how effectual discussion is in relation to how it may be applied to praxis. That should have been obvious with the writing style.
>>2571950
>they can never actually explain why im wrong or why i ought to be despised, yet i live rent free in their heads anyway.
I wrote a longer post that I despise having lost when I clicked a link to double check a reference, but to shorten and summarize what I guess my issues are, it's that you tend to easily go off on side tangents that aren't very useful and are more a practice in onanism, and that you tend to overcomplicate things beyond what they are by taking the most uncharitable view of it, while inserting some assumptions into the small details that then add up. Just now, your writing about Marx and Aristotle is easily addressed by looking at the context of his critique, of how Aristotle only goes half way in his theory but is unable to recognize the uniting feature of his comparisons, and the social context of why that might be. Marx seems to be using "concept" (even when referring to antiquity, though this may be wholly separate as well) in a very different way then you are, and I don't see how it's a contradiction to value (as he defines it) being an emergent "abstraction" dependent on social relations. And from that, I further do not see the necessity of getting into the weeds with Hegel, when much of what you refer to Marx here doesn't bother with such, with Marx using Hegel at the most as a framing model/diagram then using it outright. Complexity can be useful, but not when its unnecessary. You seem to also add more confusion by taking early Marx (Grundrisse) and trying to reckon it with his far less "Hegelian" influenced works 10 or 20 years later, when I found Marx to more heavily "Darwinian" in his framing as time went on. Using terms like the "economic cell form" is a lot less of a hegalian framing.
>think its something to do with marxist cultists encountering heretics or unbelievers. of course, it only ends for them with concentration camps where they get to "re-educate" you into following their opinions, otherwise you deserve to die or be enslaved.
Lots of assumptions here.

In general though, I don't like Kaustsky-esc personality debates. It becomes a process of who has the time and who can type more in response to a singular individual, rather then a collaborative effort in engaging in learning that can they be made into meaningful IRL praxis. There is very little actual political economy happening here in regards to our current capitalist relations.

>>2571989
>praxis
what is the thread topic, again? dont you think its weird how the guy who talks about political economy in a political economy thread is constantly demonised?
>side tangents that aren't very useful and are more a practice in onanism
such as?
>tend to overcomplicate things
any examples?
>Just now, your writing about Marx and Aristotle is easily addressed by looking at the context of his critique, of how Aristotle only goes half way in his theory but is unable to recognize the uniting feature of his comparisons, and the social context of why that might be
but its a false analysis, as i have previously demonstrated. aristotle has a theory of value and indeed, commensuration, which marx obscures. he doesnt even provide a source for his quotations, which says a lot.
>I don't see how it's a contradiction
because value as a social construct must have recognition to have validity. if it is unrecognised, then how does it persist?
>I further do not see the necessity of getting into the weeds with Hegel
because marx is using hegel's logic to describe the development of capitalism… you appear utterly incurious as to the contents of the text, so why have loyalty to a man you dont even want to understand?
>You seem to also add more confusion by taking early Marx (Grundrisse) and trying to reckon it with his far less "Hegelian" influenced works 10 or 20 years later
marx in the 1873 preface to capital says this:
<I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker [hegel], and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm
you are running on fumes.
>Lots of assumptions here.
its the lived reality of whoever combats marxists. its a cult which breeds more cults.
>collaborative effort in engaging in learning
yes, hopefully you have learned something from me.
>There is very little actual political economy happening here in regards to our current capitalist relations.
nothing's stopping you from writing about it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

>>2571930
>he certainly cites sources and contributes more than you
lol you dont know who i am. i stopped in round two after going in circles with this guy for over six months with heavy citations. he openly contradicts himself constantly and posts things that are objectively false and when corrected ignores it. his position has been completely exhausted and he just comes back to repeat it despite being proven wrong repeatedly

opinions on shimomuran economics.
Mainstream economics suggests that investment should equal savings. Shimomuran economics suggests investment should be greater than savings.
Shimomuran econmics suggest doing this by using the central bank to create money out of "nothing". For example, the central bank buys assets in local banks and then puts a debt (I owe you) towards these local banks, in its balance sheets. The central bank then sends this literal "free" bank credit to the local banks. The local banks then send it to key industries for the central bank guides the local bank to do that. (more credit to those local banks that follow the central banks guidance).
Japan, sk, taiwan, and maybe china did this. It lead to an economic boom

>>2571906
>>You say here the ratios of abstract labor going into commodities is equal to their exchange ratios and equal to the labor-time input ratios
>theyre the same thing: Ax = By
Marx explicitly says it is the labor time in what you quote right after asserting this:
<We know the measure of its magnitude. It is labour time. The form, which stamps value as exchange-value, remains to be analysed.
>marx appears to say that value is an autonomous entity which is present even where it is unrecognised
Yeah he appears to say that because he is saying that.
>marx affirms that the "concept" of value did not exist in antiquity, so as to be socially realised:
The quote that follows is from his earlier scribblings not meant for publication and not from Capital. Why would you put much weight into that. Then you quote Capital:
<Aristotle therefore, himself, tells us what barred the way to his further analysis; it was the absence of any concept of value.
>https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Again, context. What is Marx saying just a few sentences after this:
<The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice.
About Aristotle:
<What is that equal something, that common substance, which admits of the value of the beds being expressed by a house? Such a thing, in truth, cannot exist, says Aristotle (…) The peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived, alone prevented him from discovering what, “in truth,” was at the bottom of this equality.
Marx is talking about value as something that somebody living in antiquity cannot see, but somebody looking back at antiquity can see.
>so value as an "abstraction" existed, yet it had no concept? this is the hegelian gobbledygook one is forced to reckon with.
Something can exist without you, me, or a famous philosopher, seeing it. Marx in Capital says Aristotle didn't have the mindset for seeing value because he lived in a slave-owner society.

>>2571989
>your writing about Marx and Aristotle is easily addressed by looking at the context of his critique, of how Aristotle only goes half way in his theory but is unable to recognize the uniting feature of his comparisons, and the social context of why that might be. Marx seems to be using "concept" (even when referring to antiquity, though this may be wholly separate as well) in a very different way then you are, and I don't see how it's a contradiction to value (as he defines it) being an emergent "abstraction" dependent on social relations. And from that, I further do not see the necessity of getting into the weeds with Hegel, when much of what you refer to Marx here doesn't bother with such, with Marx using Hegel at the most as a framing model/diagram then using it outright. Complexity can be useful, but not when its unnecessary. You seem to also add more confusion by taking early Marx (Grundrisse) and trying to reckon it with his far less "Hegelian" influenced works 10 or 20 years later, when I found Marx to more heavily "Darwinian" in his framing as time went on. Using terms like the "economic cell form" is a lot less of a hegalian framing.
Yes, exactly.

And getting back to my original question for Smith Anon: I do not believe that Marx thought that value ratios are equal to exchange-value ratios.

SmithAnon, you were responded to in the immigration thread.