/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

I donate this article to the public domain.

THE MEANING OF UTILITY AND USE-VALUE FOR SOCIALISM

Modern Utility Concepts VS Classical Use-Value

In 20th century economics, utility of something is conceived of in terms of degrees (or ranks) of happiness evaluations by individuals, with these evaluations usually assumed to be very different from individual to individual and a secret to anyone else until revealed through bids in the market. Usually it is assumed that additional units of a product going to the same individual give decreasing amounts of additional happiness (marginally decreasing utility). It is acknowledged that estimating the utility of a product basket for a particular person is a very complicated issue with some products being substitutes, others being complementary.

It is a daunting task for you, alien even, to express how much utility you would gain from this or that product basket. How much harder then must it be to make these estimates on behalf of another person? How much harder still must it be to make these estimates for millions of other people?

In classical economics and Marx, the use-value of something is what it is useful for due to its known aspects. Known by whom? - Most adult people living in society. Even though this knowledge changes over time (Marx gives the example of magnets), for a given time and place this knowledge is taken to be something fixed and objective. How to measure use-value: The quantity of a use-value of, for example, a particular coat, is simply measured in how many units of that particular coat exist. The use-value of something not in use is only a potential, the thing's use-value becomes real through use.

That use-value is not a matter of individually different perspectives is lost on many modern readers, who usually have already encountered 20th century economics before engaging with Marx. In the writing of Marx, one can read that something is not a use-value to its seller while it is a use-value to its buyer. The reader with a perception colored by 20th century economics is likely to have associations with individual differences in taste and needs resulting in different utility grades that different people implicitly give to the same thing. But what's in the text is just the binary distinction of using or not using. Marx is not referring to different happiness evaluations existing in this or that head, he is just saying the seller has no intent of using the thing. Hence its use-value does not become real in the hands of the seller. Marx assumes both the seller and the buyer to know what that use-value is.

Can a crude binary concept of use-value help us think about how to organize a socialist economy? - Yes. Real wealth is use-values and use-values only become real through use. There are physical limits to what a person can do. You cannot simultaneously sit on a train and on a plane. There are people in this world who own many things that in total they cannot possibly use due to the physical limits of time and space. To take a thing from you that you cannot possibly use does not make you poorer in a meaningful sense. For this sort of expropriation we don't need complex utility models, as our conception of wealth tells us that shifting a thing from a non-user to a user increases somebody's wealth without decreasing the wealth of another.

Property Privilege VS Use Privilege

You having property privilege in something means you having a legal title granting you power to restrict access to that thing.

Some people claim having property means first of all having "the power to use that thing" or they claim that to be a one-sided description neither better nor worse than "having the power to restrict access" and that putting both together makes for a more complete and balanced description. These people are mistaken. You can be the owner of something without being capable of using it. Example: A person without arms and legs can be the owner of a bicycle. The capacity to use things was not invented by law. Things can be used without being covered by the scope of property laws. Understandably it matters to you a lot that you usually can use the things you own; but there is no need to spell out this fact, since this fact directly flows from your ability to restrict or allow access. You just allow yourself to use these things. The addition of "the power to use something" to the definition of property privilege is redundant.

You having use privilege in something means you having a legal title granting you power to use that thing.

A society with a law system structured mainly around use privileges with niches of ownership will be very different from capitalism, one can hardly overstate how much. Such a society will not have patents. A person cannot be in two places at the same time, nor in two places far away from each other within a short time span, and based on this fact society can set ways to limit hoarding of tickets for events and the hoarding of living space. The use privilege automatically amounts to a privilege of restricting access for others only insofar as that restriction is the unavoidable consequence of you having the use privilege. There can be some privileges of restricting access that are not simply a logically unavoidable consequence of use privilege, if use privilege without that is deemed to be not convenient enough; but these exceptions have to be carefully defined by rules that are added, checked, updated, deleted by sortition-selected juries of the general public, rules that automatically expire after a while if not checked.

One may believe that, for practical reasons, in the case of many things like food there cannot be a difference between use privilege and property privilege. But this view is mistaken. From a few basic facts about expiration dates and calories we can conclude that it is possible to set limits to individuals taking food, which are only limits to absurd requests, but practically no limit for anyone who only makes requests concerned with directly satisfying their own individual needs and wants.

However, that somebody has hoarded a huge pile of things that the hoarder logically cannot possibly all use does not amount to a proof regarding a particular thing in the pile. The logic applies to the pile as a whole (and to subsets big enough), but from this follows no strong justification to take this or that thing from the hoarder. As you point at a thing in the pile, the hoarder can say: "I just wanted to use this!" Usually you cannot disprove this. Someone with a huge collection of bicycles may be physically capable to ride any single one of these you happen to point at. Suppose there is a new regulation stating an individual now can own only up to three bicycles. If society leaves it to the hoarder to select the three to keep, the utility loss of the hoarder is minimal without society needing a clever psychological model of the individual's mind.

The new society sets limits in terms of use-values, individuals can choose how to comply with these limitations with an eye towards utility for themselves.

>>2915426
>additional happiness (marginally decreasing utility)
I would rather term it "diminishing marginal utility". As total "happiness" increases, marginal "happiness" decreases. Hence, if it takes 30 spoonfuls to eat a bowl of soup, we are pleasured with each one, but we are still less pleasured at the same rate of each one. As hunger declines, so does marginal utility. On this point too, this is mainly applicable to constant consumption rather than variable consumption, hence if we add bread and butter to the soup, we increase total happiness at the same rate, by also increasing each margin of pleasure. So, utility is multiplied with each commodity added. In marginal theories of production, this is applied by the factors of labour, capital and land, which are multiplied.
>estimating the utility of a product
Yes, especially when you don't have money as a means. A useful trick by Carl Menger is a comparison of various goods, making value (e.g. utility) entirely relative, never absolute (this is also stressed by Gossen, the founder of marginal utility theory). For example, if I have two goods, my immediate choice between them expresses the greater utility it brings me, and so goods which have the same level of "indifference" (t. Jevons) of choice have the same value to us. If we could either take or leave a choice between chocolate and vanilla, they have the same value. An issue however is that while Gossen and Menger both make this point, they also use the sum of Intensity and Duration as absolute metrics, the same as Jevons. Here, utility is caught between its relative case and absolute case. More rigorous Austrian theorists will then say that since life is a constant series of choices, we are always preferring one thing over another, making value entirely relative. So, we come into a strange case where the value of a thing is measured against the value of another thing, but value in itself is not established. It should also be said that value can be configured very basically to simply be a supply and demand equation in Menger's writings, which is then the very basis of price.
>To Marx, the use-value is known
Here I would disagree. To Marx, use-value is entirely contingent to circumstance, including history. If one makes a thing which is supposed to be useful, but isn't, by lack of sale, then it has no use-value. At most, it has a potential use-value; but if it's unrealised, it doesn't count.
>shifting a thing from a non-user to a user increases somebody's wealth without decreasing the wealth of another.
This is affirmed by Jevons; that transferring a private item into the public realm multiplies its total utility (1882):
<The main raison d'être of Free Public Libraries, as indeed of public museums, art-galleries, parks, halls, public clocks, and many other kinds of public works, is the enormous increase of utility which is thereby acquired for the community at a trifling cost. 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.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-methods-of-social-reform-and-other-papers#lf0236_head_005
Too, Gossen (1854) says that since each thing loses its value with constant addition, that the hoarder of money is irrational.
>You can be the owner of something without being capable of using it.
To Locke (Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 5), property is established by the rights of labour over the appropriation of a thing. This is later termed the Liberal "homestead principle" which establishes the privation of a thing from common use, or private dereliction, by the acquirement of it by cultivation. For example, if a house is abandoned, and people live in it, they gain a right to it - so, property is qualified by this direct utility. This is also continuous of Proudhon's own thoughts on possession. Further, I would concur that the right of exclusion is the more primary right, since rape, for example, is trespass against the property of another, and is unlawful. More than being able to "use" my body is my right for my body to not be used by others without consent. Thus, the mad utilitarian might justify rape against the right of property.
>Such a society will not have patents
Did you know that the Soviet Union had patents?
Ayn Rand also attempted to justify patents by citing that intellectual labour granted her the right to intellectual property.
>set ways to limit hoarding
Is this not simply taxation?

>>2915426
>Usually it is assumed that additional units of a product going to the same individual give decreasing amounts of additional happiness (marginally decreasing utility).

>>2915463
>>additional happiness (marginally decreasing utility)
>I would rather term it "diminishing marginal utility". As total "happiness" increases, marginal "happiness" decreases. Hence, if it takes 30 spoonfuls to eat a bowl of soup, we are pleasured with each one, but we are still less pleasured at the same rate of each one. As hunger declines, so does marginal utility.
Why reply in such a fashion to a grammar mistake? It is clear from context that decreasing marginal utility was meant, all the necessary context being in the first half of the sentence you quote from while omitting that first half.

Then you seem to quote a word string that is not actually in the original, but I suppose it was in response to this section:
>In classical economics and Marx, the use-value of something is what it is useful for due to its known aspects. Known by whom? - Most adult people living in society. Even though this knowledge changes over time (Marx gives the example of magnets), for a given time and place this knowledge is taken to be something fixed and objective. How to measure use-value: The quantity of a use-value of, for example, a particular coat, is simply measured in how many units of that particular coat exist. The use-value of something not in use is only a potential, the thing's use-value becomes real through use.
I invite anyone to compare the reply below to what was said in above section and to decide for themselves whether the reply adds anything:
>>To Marx, the use-value is known
>Here I would disagree. To Marx, use-value is entirely contingent to circumstance, including history. If one makes a thing which is supposed to be useful, but isn't, by lack of sale, then it has no use-value. At most, it has a potential use-value; but if it's unrealised, it doesn't count.

>>2915718
>Why reply in such a fashion to a grammar mistake?
"Utility" in general is not marginal utility.
It's theoretical necessary to separate them, otherwise you have the Paradox of Value. Jevons comments on this problem here (1871):
<We must now carefully discriminate between the total utility arising from any commodity and the utility attaching to any particular portion of it.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-theory-of-political-economy#lf0237_head_021
<Smith evidently means by value in use, the total utility of a substance of which the degree of utility has sunk very low, because the want of such substance has been well nigh satisfied. 
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-theory-of-political-economy#lf0237_head_033
The "contradiction" of use-value and exchange-value is thus explained thencewise. Wicksteed revises Marx upon the same issue (1884):
<Marx is therefore wrong in saying that when we pass from that in which the exchangeable wares differ (value in use) to that in which they are identical (value in exchange), we must put their utility out of consideration, leaving only jellies of abstract labour. What we really have to do is to put out of consideration the concrete and specific qualitative utilities in which they differ, leaving only the abstract and general quantitative utility in which they are identical.
https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/today/1884/10/wicksteed-capital.htm
This abstract utility is given by the principle of indifference.
>quote a word string that is not actually in the original
It's paraphrase.
Your argument rests on the assumption of utility being a type of social knowledge which then has determination to the ends of application. This is part of the Classical prejudice of Say's Law, which I see as challenged by Marx, in part - and moreso by the Austrians, who write upon the "knowledge problem" of markets, leading to an inherent imperfection; this realism is then carried into Keynesian economics.

>>2915718 (me)
And one more thing about that poster's way of talking:
>>set ways to limit hoarding
>Is this not simply taxation?
For expropriations, yes, if we use "simply" to mark freaky edge cases that are not meant 99.9 % of the time. What is called a tax is almost always set in money terms. Which is why a tax in kind is explicitly labeled a "tax in kind". Taxes are indeed so often set in money terms that some definitions of tax claim that money must be paid. Following that poster, Lenin should have called his article "The Tax in Kind" instead "Simply the Tax" and since the topic is so simple and oh-so-obvious, the body of the text following could have been omitted. Given that the concept of a limit per person can already be applied before the decision is made whether something should be distributed to a particular person, one may wonder if even a qualifier like "tax in kind" is enough for distinguishing the concept from a normal tax. Maybe that poster thinks we should call that "very simply the tax".

Lurkers in this thread can ask themselves why somebody would enter a conversation trying to convince people to not use distinct terms for very different situations.

The essay explicitly distinguishes between use-value in Marx and classical economics and utility in modern economics. The essay opens the distinction by starting with the definition of the first term in the very first sentence:
>In 20th century economics, utility of something is conceived of in terms of degrees (or ranks) of happiness evaluations by individuals, with these evaluations usually assumed to be very different from individual to individual…
It continues with the definition of the other term to make a contrast:
>In classical economics and Marx, the use-value of something is what it is useful for due to its known aspects. Known by whom? - Most adult people living in society.
The essay continues making the explicit distinction all the way to the last sentence:
>The new society sets limits in terms of use-values, individuals can choose how to comply with these limitations with an eye towards utility for themselves.
The critic comments:
>>2915805
>Your argument rests on the assumption of utility being a type of social knowledge which then has determination to the ends of application.
Again, I invite the lurkers to try to figure out what he is trying to achieve with his presence in this thread.

>>2915831
>try to figure out what he is trying to achieve with his presence in this thread.
You sound paranoid.
>essay
Really..?

https://youtu.be/ztZvd89h_Ao?si=cyn4pcLZBCCyCXK6
New dickblast

>>2917169
thanks anon but learn to use embed next time

>>2915837
When Smith Anon gets assblasted so much he is having a near-death experience, he posts these really short texts in defense of himself in the hope that people can't tell from style that it's him. Love it.

>>2920231
Oskar Lange, Viktor Novozhilov. Yeah nothing new here. David Zachariah makes the point that by allocating labor time explicitly as such to the enterprise, the center reduces incentives at the enterprise level to exaggerate what they require. An allocation of maximally abstract budget goop that can be sliced and diced in a trillion ways (AKA money) can be easily abused for self-enrichment. It is well worth dwelling on that point.

People often talk about incentives to shill for market-like processes. Their rhetoric tends to be very simplistic. When they talk about incentives, they usually disregard any interest individuals might have in the well-being of others. Assuming a hyper-selfish person, the claim is that without direct rewards there is a lack of incentives for doing good. But a situation without these direct individual material incentives for a selfish person is not the worst situation in the world. In a situation without direct rewards and punishments, you are also not punished for doing good. And introducing an incentive system with differential individual rewards usually also creates situations where you get punished for doing good.

An absence of incentives also means an absence of perverse incentives.

>>2920842
I don't think he's talking about personal incentives, but incentives on a firm level

>>2920923
Yeah but I don't see that making a practical difference here.

>>2920842
How would you get workers into an industry that is short on hands without incentives? The Soviet Union had better pay and conditions for people willing to work in the Arctic regions, would this kind of thing not be necessary to ensure proper distribution of workers sectorally and geographically?

>>2920842
>When Smith Anon gets assblasted so much he is having a near-death experience
There is literally nothing of note in the criticism to my post.
The replies are complaints of style, not substance.
>the hope that people can't tell from style that it's him
Why would I disguise myself?
I am one of the few prudent and literate posters on this forum.
As for your own post:
>you are also not punished for doing good
I believe that in any personal relationship, this is considered abuse:
<Look, I didn't hit you today! Aren't you glad?
<Dig the hole… or else.
Else what, in the Communist utopia? What are the "punishments"?
This all says a lot about your psychology.
By the way, I have written on the Soviet economy (1921–28) and the Soviets offered incentives and rewards for different divisions of labour, like how miners only worked 6-7 hours, while others worked 8 hours, leading to higher marginal produce, and thus greater hourly wages. This was far beyond the standards of the West, of course.
You can read my review here: >>2857646

>>2920948
You don't get it.
Anon thinks the only way for a slave to work better is to whip them.

>>2920970
>You can read my review here:
good post. have you ever read RW Davies? his epic tomes of soviet economy got dumped here:

>>>/edu/24318
>>>/edu/24319
>>>/edu/24320
>>>/edu/24321

>>2920970
>I am one of the few prudent and literate posters on this forum.
I am sure your girlfriend ChatGPT tells you that every day, but your "critique" of post >>2915426 is "Your argument rests on the assumption of utility being a type of social knowledge", which means your reading comprehension failed you already at the title of the article, which explicitly distinguishes modern utility and classical use-value concepts, as does the entire rest of the article, whereas you conflate.

If you don't want to disguise yourself, use a name.

>>2920948
>How would you get workers into an industry that is short on hands without incentives? The Soviet Union had better pay and conditions for people willing to work in the Arctic regions
Strictly speaking, there is no need for that, because people can be drafted to work at this or that activity in this or that place. IIRC Trotsky was a big fan of that, though I am not. (A drafting procedure could still take into account what the drafted people actually want to to, e. g. people fill out forms ranking activities from more liked to less liked and then the forms are processed in random order or by some order of merit like school grades.) There can be remuneration standards for that, I just wouldn't want them decided at the enterprise level.

Suppose the administration of an enterprise is not all its workers. These administrations communicate with the center. The center makes decisions about allocating resources to the enterprises. If the center gives money to the administration of an enterprise, that's a very flexible resource for the administration, too flexible'. If the center gives management that sort of freedom, they will likely just do the short-term thing and enrich themselves. With an electronic accounting network that the check clocks are linked up with, the center can compartmentalize a local administration's budget or even use completely distinct circuits of play-money for things like remuneration. Aaron Benanav speaks of that.

The less universal and abstract, the more compartmentalized and specific, the requests from the enterprise administrations to the center are, the less room an enterprise has for bullshitting, but it also gets kinda tedious.

>>2920930
it depends on how often we can re-plan things. if it can happen instantly then there is no issue. but if there's a three-month delay to re-plan for you to get a necessary spare part, then it makes sense to have a monetary budget with which to order parts until the plan catches up. that way you keep "spontaneous" spending in check. without a budget you run into issues associated with soft budget constraints

>>2920975
I'll check it out; thanks.
>>2920992
>drafted to work
Literally slavery.
What happens if a worker exiles his commander? Court Marshalling?
>>2920985
>A type of social knowledge
Read: >>2915426
<In classical economics and Marx, the use-value of something is what it is useful for due to its known aspects. Known by whom? - Most adult people living in society. Even though this knowledge changes over time (Marx gives the example of magnets), for a given time and place this knowledge is taken to be something fixed and objective.
I have interpreted anon's meaning perfectly.
I thus critique this naivety by adding how to Marx, use-value was still contingent, even in the presumption of social knowledge. It is true that in the general classical view, supply created its own demand, but Marx permits error on the part of suppliers; especially in the larger thread of crises of overproduction. If use-value was a known factor, all markets would achieve equilibrium. We see Malthus as early as 1800 comment on the "glut" of markets, which in Smithian terms, exceed effectual supply, and so become waste-products. Another Malthusian, Senior, also sees that there is overproduction, which can only be solved by redistribution. Rodbertus finally saw that overproduction is coincidental of underconsumption, although Marx was earlier in the Manifesto, diagnosing this issue. If we take even the earliest classical economists like Boisguilbert in France, we see how the contradiction of value-formation impresses itself on the value of wages; e.g. where food is "overproduced", this cheapens labour, and so the excess food becomes wasted, unless it is traded abroad, which was Boisguilbert's free trade solution, which nonetheless distracted from a commercial confrontation of the limits of capitalist production. So, use-value as a type of social knowledge has always been limited, especially as it concerns the "paradox of value", described as early as in Aristotle's time.
>use a name
Why would I be a namefag?
This is [8chan], not plebbit.

>>2920975
>>2921323
I'm through 2 chapters of the second volume, and the word "tome" is apt. I will not be continuing, since it's not befitting of a novice to be so acquainted with this dry economic history. Here is my own summary:

Chapter 1 deals in the general situation of the kolkhozy, or the collective farm, which began to develop in 1925, in smaller form (Ch. 1C), but which by 1930 had grown in size to encompass dozens of households. By 1930, there were 113,000 kolkhozy in the USSR - jumping from only 57,000 in 1929 (Ch. 2), expropriating hundreds of thousands of kulaks (Ch. 1A); a struggle notoriously culminating in the Holodomor (1932-3), and so the class struggle between peasant and state ended. The drive for collectivisation was simultaneous of the application of "laws of industry" to all sectors (Ch. 1A), necessarily meaning centralising authority in line with investment (e.g. mechanisation). It was suggested in November 1929 that the kolkhozy be managed in the style of the state-owned sovkhozy, or "grain factory" (Ch. 1A), but this was too costly.  Along with the kolkhozy was their union in the kolkhozsoyuzy, which was sought to be joined with the agricultural cooperatives, or the koopsoyuzy, further centralising authority. Enthusiasm for the kolkhozy displaced the traditional power centres of mir and skhod, and even overshadowed the soviets - along with intrusive plenipotentiaries. Major features of the kolkhoz system established in 1929-30 endured until Stalin's death, and for some time after it (Ch. 1C). So, the basis of collectivisation was firmly planted in this era.

Chapter 2 deals with Machine-Tractor Stations (MTS). In terms of ownership, by Spring 1929, the sovkhozy only possessed 100 tractors, while large 147 kolkhoz owned 800 tractors, and 57,000 small kolkhoz owned majority of the 20,000 available tractors. By October 1929, no tractors remained in personal possession. Technology for agriculture was suggested to be joined in a "unified organisational centre" to provide investments to places most requiring it, and so on. Markevich rejected a policy resuscitated by Khrushchev 30 years later, that each kolkhoz-village should possess its own tractors, and so insisted upon MTS monopoly. For this, representatives of the MTS would supervise production performed from the hire of machines; the peasants would then pay out a charge per hectare - an example is from Shevchenko, where a village would pay up to 1/3 of its harvest to the MTS, which thus induced incentives for more produce. Markevich sought to separate tractors from kolkhozy by exclusive state monopoly, which was criticised by many, seeing how independent contracts were already given from people. After a lot of intense detail, we see that from January to July 1930, kolkhozy no longer simply collectivised harvests, but all "commodity branches of agriculture" including draught animals and implements. With this too, all MTS were divorced from cooperative control, and instead deferred to the state and kolkhozy - which also acted as a rival to local and soviet powers, implicitly on behalf of state interests. By September 1930, the Traktorotsentr took over all cooperative MTS.

From what I gather in this process of collectivisation, the cooperatives were an obstacle which was defeated, and as Davies adds, there were common grievances by inefficiencies of the MTS system, such as 40% of all labour being repair of tractors. As I put it in my review, collectivisation has its dekulakisation during 1932-3, momentous of these earlier steps in the five year plan. The very short preface also gives a good picture of it:
<The collective farmers were remunerated for their work on the collective lands-in principle, though not yet in practice-in 'labour days'; these were proportionate to the quantity and quality of work, though they were paid only after the harvest, by sharing out what remained after state and collective needs were satisfied. In this compromise between state and peasant interests, the state predominated, by its power and its material advantages. The collective product was firmly con-trolled by state collection agencies, and, after a lengthy controversy, available tractors and other modern machinery were transferred to state-owned Machine-Tractor Stations, each of which served and controlled a number of kolkhozy.
Here, we see a class struggle at work, between bureau and peasant.

2026sep28
>>2921323
>I have interpreted anon's meaning perfectly.
Can you give a summary of >>2915426 in your own words.

>>2921698 (me)
Yes, I do put my text entries like that in one gigantic .txt file before I post them here. (If you instead post first and then copy-paste you introduce the possibility of the forum software crapping itself and also lose formatting.)

>>2921699
oh hey it's .txt autism anon. how's life been treating you?

>>2921698
Summary:

From the 20th century onwards, utility is understood as something singular to individuals, and very difficult to estimate. In the Classical and Marxist view, however, use-value is something known by most adults living in a particular society. This is implicit in exchange, since to have the confidence to sell something means to have a foreknowledge of possible utility for others. Since use-value differs in terms of potential and actuality, those who possess much in potential may never realise them. Since wealth is a realisation of use-values, expropriating potential use-values from those who possess them is not a subtraction of wealth (e.g. taxation subtracts at a margin of income which may be better economised for greater ends). So, then, redistributing potential wealth increases actual wealth, in effect.

Property privilege is not merely direct ownership by appropriation, but is statutory, and so a product of law. For this sake, one may have a claim to property without being able to use it. A contrary "use privilege" would be different, since ownership would be contracted upon useful appropriation (e.g. Locke's Homestead Principle). Such things as monopolised estates or intellectual property would cease to exist under this system of law; establishing a "new society" (e.g. Classical Liberalism).

>>2915426
>>2921954
>From the 20th century onwards, utility is understood as something singular to individuals, and very difficult to estimate. In the Classical and Marxist view, however, use-value is something known by most adults living in a particular society.
Yes.
>This is implicit in exchange, since to have the confidence to sell something means to have a foreknowledge of possible utility for others.
Use-value is far more specific than estimating something is probably useful to someone. The shoe seller does not just merely know that shoes are useful to people, the shoe seller knows what shoes are. Even a person born without legs very likely also knows.
>Since use-value differs in terms of potential and actuality, those who possess much in potential may never realise them.
May? Use-value only becomes real through actual usage, actual consumption. Those who don't make use of a use-value by definition don't realize it. "Realizing" here does not refer to something happening in the head ("I realized Kevin from HR is an asshole"), it means "making it a reality" (the calories in the pudding in my fridge will add to my body only if I eat the pudding, before that they are a mere potential). Usage can be observed.
>A contrary "use privilege" would be different, since ownership would be contracted upon useful appropriation
This is very confused phrasing. The article describes ownership as it exists in law ("property privilege") and does not propose a development of that concept, but a reduction of its application to niche cases, and proposes a different concept with its own label: "use privilege".
>(e.g. Locke's Homestead Principle)
Totally different concept. That one is about nature becoming yours because you are mixing your labor with nature. (Aside: Modern readers of Locke virtually all take that to mean the labor of the lone individual, but did Locke actually mean that? People had servants.) Look at the example given in the article: Nature didn't make bicycles by itself. To what extent people relate to bicycles as makers doesn't even come up in the article, because it is irrelevant to the concept it presents.

>>2921954
>C4SS
ancap garbage

>>2876480
that made me sad. I didn't know he had a nonverbal autistic son. :(

>>2922342
>the shoe seller knows what shoes are
So a thing in itself is a use-value? This is confused.
A use-value is only relative to what may be useful to people.
That's why even if we know what rubbish is, its still waste.
>Usage can be observed.
You aren't quite grasping the nature of potential. The post provides the distinction: "The use-value of something not in use is only a potential, the thing's use-value becomes real through use." This is what I wrote.
>does not propose a development of that concept
Yes it does; "having use privilege in something means you having a legal title granting you power to use that thing." Thus, ownership is transferred from the property holder to the useful expropriator. The "niche" has a very wide brush; "somebody has hoarded a huge pile of things that the hoarder logically cannot possibly all use […] suppose there is a new regulation stating an individual now can own only up to three bicycles." From a "huge pile" to "three" is a big difference, and this is all based upon the homestead principle; of excluding property from a common stock by useful appropriation. The argument against the hoarder is that he cannot effectively mix his labour with all he has.
>did Locke actually mean that?
Locke's personal feelings are irrelevant to the principle itself.
We may respect a man's ideas while seeing the man as a hypocrite.
>To what extent people relate to bicycles as makers doesn't even come up in the article
Fair enough, but where a thing has become wasted, we say that it has become part of the commons, and property by Lockean principles is established by privation from the commons. Thus, a thing comes into ownership where it has been claimed apart from a state of nature. The complaint of hoarding is that a thing exits society, and so loses its contractual basis. This is why I emphasise taxation. The most just tax policy redistributes wasted money for useful ends, and so society claims its right of appropriation of this produce.

Cockshott got a new book out titled VECTOR: Programming as Geometry. I suppose having a grounding in that will make input-output matrix math more easy to approach.

>>2922693
>"The use-value of something not in use is only a potential, the thing's use-value becomes real through use." This is what I wrote.
Smith Anon going full schizo 😭

>>2922716
input-output is useless for planning. move immediately to LP

>>2924157
some thoughts:
the biggest problem I see with the piece is Moody's anticommunism. here are some relevant quotes:
>While the Soviet Union promoted itself as socialist and in the transition to a classless society, it was anything but. It was, in fact, a highly stratified and bureaucratized society.
>[The USSR] was, in a real sense, a totalitarian society.
there's even more Trot nonsense like this, including outright Trotsky quotes. like look at this:
>Stalin, apparently, was not averse to new capitalist technology
no shit Stalin wasn't averse to new tech. only a moron would think otherwise
the text is correct in pointing out a ruptural break is necessary, and rightfully criticizes Chibber's revisionism. bringing up the Meidner Plan is a good move, as it is probably the most based thing any social democrat has ever come up with. despite that, Palme ultimately didn't believe in it and the plan floundered as a result

>>2922718
>input-output is useless for planning. move immediately to LP
Bullshit. They are both useful.

>>2921446
To a certain extent collectivization was a necessary prerequisite for war as Philip Faymonville wrote to the US embassy in the 40's, but at the same time it was a contradictory policy. It's like Walmart monopsony for agriculture.

>>2924340
explain one (1) case where IO is more useful than LP

>>2924485
I didn't say one was useful than the other, I said they were both useful. You get technical coefficients from IO tables and plug them into an LP matrix.

>>2924486
>You get technical coefficients from IO tables and plug them into an LP matrix
no you don't. this is completely backwards. IO tables are part of national accounts. they are highly aggregated and useless for planning. Stalin rightfully criticized IO as "juggling with figures"

>>2924486
How does this work when LP is by definition a hypervolume in a substitutable space and IO gives you factorio style non substitutable stuff

>>2924486
to add to what >>2925424 is saying, a central issue is the choice of production methods. in national accounts electricity production is just one column. in reality we have a whole plethora of electricity production methods. so you are faced with questions like how much gas to burn and when. or whether to schedule production around the weather. or whether to invest in PVs or nuclear. questions like these cannot be solved with IO

>>2924351
Collectivization may be more economically inefficient and there is some data supporting the notion that private agriculture produces higher yields with less workers, but there is something to be said for how collectivization creates a support bloc that helps stabilize communist governments and inculcates a pro-state attitude in the peasantry that you wouldn't find in a fully privatized agricultural sector.

https://paulcockshott.wordpress.com/2026/10/04/on-my-expulsion-from-the-communist-party-of-britain/
>ON MY EXPULSION FROM THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN
>[…]
>Support for the American Communist Party.
imagine being expelled for supporting Haz' LARP org
>I did not make an audio or video recording; I produced a transcript.
Paul seriously thinks he can language lawyer himself out of taking notes during meetings of an organization that ultimately seeks to overthrow the Crown
>Rule 15(c): Members should improve their political knowledge and understanding of Marxism-Leninism, participate in discussion and formation of Party policy, win support for Party aims and policy, and recruit new members.
this one is extremely funny, I'll give Paul that. the idea that a published author and dedicated Marxist academic has failed to study Marxism-Leninism is very silly
>The investigation also alleged that I had breached Rule 2(c), which requires members to: “work for the removal of all unfair discrimination based on race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, age, disability, marriage, civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief.”
Paul proceeds to language lawyer again, not realizing that perhaps the big fat GENDER section on his blog and its contents might perhaps be construed as violating this rule

>>2926050
so they expelled the most important marxist economist alive (laibman is a hack) over gender shit

>>2926181
Paul seems to think it's over the "antisemitism" stuff. there's no way to tell

>>2926184
it's not just what he thinks, they listed that as a reason, that he supported "antisemitic conspiracy theories" because he doesn't buy the official explanation for the Nth israeli false flag attack
then there is the gender thing

imo the strongest point they have against him is the acp shit: he apparently liked and retweeted some of their stuff. on the other hand, he has made more than one video condemning and disproving acp nonsense, like his iconic video explaining that baristas are, in fact, NOT bourgeois:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEsuQyyv5hc

he clearly doesn't agree with them on anything, old man just saw the word "communist party" and smashed the like and retweet button. it's insane that they would expel someone over any of this, let alone someone of his caliber. this feels like some clique inside had a grudge against him and just decided to throw shit at the wall and see if it sticks

like, all the other british marxist authors from the last ~30 years are, at best, verso-books fodder

>>2926050
Heinrichchads winning

>>2926273
Another banger from that channel.

>>2926273
>the fucking anti-vaxx stuff near the end
am I missing something here? is he implying that Fauci was underestimating the amount of time (two weeks) it would take to get the pandemic under control?
>>2926199
>like, all the other british marxist authors from the last ~30 years are, at best, verso-books fodder
it could just be that the CPB has been infiltrated by glowies