/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.