/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2723676
a crow is not raised in a vacuum.

Rangeban British IPs. That is all.

>>2722737
>muh pounds of corn
Insane that anyone though this was useful.
The U.S. has all the corn. All the corn belong to us.

>>2722737
Who is this oompa loompa?

based op
fuck supply and demand
economics is a scam
seething liberTARDians and austriaggers btfo

We may read from "Cratylus" (~370 BCE), a point is made regarding the etymology for the term "profit" ("lusiteloun"; 417b-c). Socrates contends that profit does not come from "apoluei" ("to release" a capital sum for reinvestment), but rather that the term comes from "luei" and "luon" (in "doing away with" any terminus to the movement of money, for which Socrates describes the process as "immortal" and "without end"; telos - this is directly translated into the notion of "Chrematistics", espoused by Aristotle; t. Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 8-10). Further on this point, Hermes is also discussed; in his etymology, being a "messenger", and thus he is the God of language, but also profit. Aristotle invokes man's unique power of speech with his ability to have politics, and Adam Smith applies a synonymity between speech and trade, which thus intersect in this Hermetic way.

In Plato's "Statesman" (~370 BCE), Plato devises two roles in production, according to the theoretical and practical. He calls one the (i) "contributory cause" of production and the second, the (ii) actual "cause" (281d-e). He says that those who provide tools for production are not the active cause of a thing to be produced, yet activity cannot be completed without this aspect. He is rather ambiguous as to where this delineation can be exactly grasped however, by not stating whether the tool-maker is the contributor to production, which would be slightly paradoxical, seeing how making tools is productive. Plato otherwise associates contribution with theory rather than practice (287b), as he states, that it is "expertise" in providing tools that fashions them as instruments of production, either referring to invention or investment, such as the case of the slave-master (Plato seeing capital as the potential cause of Labour).

If we apprehend this meaning thus, we can see that Plato relates the order of production to class, with the master being separate from the direct product, yet gaining the right to possess the entire thing. Plato still considers the "potential" of capital as a necessary element to its active principle of labour for products, however.  Earlier, he also considers the difference between retail and artisinal trade, putting it in these terms (260c-d): "the retail-dealer is distinguished from that of the ‘self-seller’ or producer who sells his own products […] The retailer, I think, takes over someone else’s products, which have previously been sold, and sells them on, for a second time." Retail is an "imitation" of the original producer. Both sell, but only one creates.

In Xenophon's "The Economist" (~360 BCE) we see that Socrates begins by enquiring into the nature of wealth (that is, of the possessions of a man's estate which have "weal", so as to become "wealth"). He thus gathers that although a man may possess many items, if they remain injurious to him, they are useless, and so represent a loss more than a gain. Possession then, is distinguished from utility by these means. For example, he sees that though a man may possess a horse, if he cannot use it, then it is evidently useless to him. He qualifies uselessness twainfold however, between what is useless to its possessor, but what is useful by the means of its sale. He uses the example of a flute, which is either useful to the player, or useful by trade, by means of being exchangeable. Thus, a commodity is enshrined with two uses, one for its owner and the other for its prospective owner. We may thus see this distinction as "value in use" and "value in exchange" which confer contradictory properties in commodities.

His interlocutor, Critobulus, thus perceives that wealth is now twainfold, between use and exchange, but Socrates criticises this point, seeing that although a commodity may fetch a price, this still cannot count as wealth. His rebuke is that if uselessness arises from the lack of knowledge of a thing, then being ignorant of how to properly spend money must also cause more harm than good. So then, money in itself cannot be wealth, but rather, as Critobulus adds, it is often a source of madness, and so its accumulation is inherently harmful. Critobulus considers the benefit of profit, however, and speaks upon the position of the master, but Socrates immediately says that the master is himself a slave, for his wealth brings dependence on luxury and idleness by the labour of others, multiplying wickedness in its way.

After this, Socrates says that the pursuit of greater wealth is useless, so long as one is made sufficient in his means, and points to Critobulus as an example of someone who feels insecure in his wealth, despite surpassing Socrates' estate, but only due to ambition. Thus, Socrates is richer, for in having less, he has more (if we recall the earlier argument that possessing value in exchange, or money, represents a loss, not a gain). This is is the same opinion as Democritus, in Fragments 83 and 147, that desire causes lack, which is poverty, while satiety is nothing more than a lack of desire. This is also equivalent to the Epicurean view of "pleasure".

Finally, in (Ch. 5) Xenophon gives a rather concide definition of what he considers to be Economics: "Well, then, we agreed that economy was the proper title of a branch of knowledge, and this branch of knowledge appeared to be that whereby men are enabled to enhance the value of their houses or estates; and by this word "house or estate" we understood the whole of a man's possessions; and "possessions" again we defined to include those things which the possessor should find advantageous for the purposes of his life; and things advantageous finally were discovered to mean all that a man knows how to use and turn to good account."

Xenophon's "On Revenues" (~355 BCE) begins by a discussion as to the increase of poverty in Athens, which Xenophon believes can be mended by a policy of self-sufficiency. He sees that although Athens is suitable for agriculture, the true wealth is in its silver and marble, which he sees Athens having a regional monopoly on, and so quarrying the land is what is best to feed the citizens of the land, by meeting the commercial demand of foreigners. Immigrants already resided in Athens, who Xenophon perceives positively by their contribution by taxation, as yet, he perceives that the "Sojourner's Tax" (a tax imposed on foreign residents) is too high, and that it ought to be reduced, and foreigners should integrate with Athenians, and thus only share in common taxes. He sees then that what is best for civil society is not necessarily best for the state. On top of this, Xenophon promotes the cultivation of land for housing, by grants from the state to foreigners, so that they should bring wealth into the Nation. He further notes that the harbour of Athens is the best in Greece, and with its means of universal (rather than local) currency, greater trade can be facilitated, rather than by the barter of other ports.

With this, he writes, comes more buying and selling, which means greater rents, customs and duties, which will be a mutually beneficial means of raising revenues. Other means he appears to suggest would be war bonds for expeditions, which appreciate investment. He also sees that if special honours are conferred upon contributors, then many men would happily give money. With this additional capital fund, Xenophon perceives that lodging-houses for merchants can be set up, to aid in the hospitality of trade. Xenophon's enthusiasm is that with this concurrent commerce and development, economic growth seems entirely exponential and linear.

In chapter 4, Xenophon brings his attention back to silver, and sees a paradox of production, that although mining is in constant operation, demand for labour only increases, leading to more mining for silver. What's also interesting is that Xenophon comments upon the exception which the industry of mining has from the rest. For example, he states that the limits of labour in farming are set at a certain rate, while the labour for silver mining is constantly under-supplied, with even iron and bronze production suffering from overproduction. Here, Xenophon directly associates the valuation of commodities with their supply, seeing over-supply leading to a depreciation of prices, in turn; ruining the manufacturer of the articles (e.g. by declining profits). Xenophon then repeats the point; the more silver mined, the more silver which is demanded to be mined. From this account he elaborates that the demand for silver (which was used to issue drachmae) is hoarded by its possessors, or otherwise spent on luxuries, and on the other hand, he says that when a Nation is poor, the demand for money is even greater, though less in supply. Relating his earlier comments on depreciation, he also invokes gold, so as to say that with increased supply relative to silver, it is the gold which decreases in value as silver rises in value (despite their apparent equivalent usefulness; we may of course refer to the earlier dialogue for such clarification - money's value is not based in its utility, but capacity for disutility). Xenophon makes a curious comments after this, where he says that silver may increase in supply but not depreciate (given its established exceptionality). It is unclear whether he believes this is due to a property of the silver itself (which is doubtful) or based on demand. He has already stated that silver increases in demand in a poorer Nation, so surely its value is related to supply.

After this, Xenophon proposes a plan to increase the revenue of the state by investment into silver mining, through a public sector of slave labour, aimed at being proportional to 3 slaves per Athenian citizen (the number of Athenian citizens at this time was around 21,000, so he is proposing the state owning 63,000 slaves to mine silver - total number of slaves in Athens around this time was around 400,000, so he suggests using around 1/6 of total slaves to mine silver. This is the equivalent of the state nationalising ~15% of the economy, on top of existing public projects). Xenophon's extended plan is for the state to own slaves so as to lend them to private contractors, where it is implied that due to a natural shortage of available free labour, this reserve of slaves will be a monopoly on mining services. On the long-term plan, he sets out a model, beginning with 1,200 slaves, which after 5-6 years, will be gained to 6,000 slaves (an obol a day of profits supposed per slave leading to 60 talents a year per slave, for which 20 talents is invested in new slaves to purchase and 40 talents is reserved for extra public expense). He sees that in time, 10,000 slaves will produce 100 talents a year in profit per slave, and so Xenophon maintains the view of perpetual and expontential growth from silver.

In chapter 5, Xenophon makes the appeal of peace to Greece in general, for it is in peace that wealth grows, while in war, it is spent. Thus, Xenophon links the rise in taxation as the means to wage war, which is commonly true as a matter of fact in history.

Aristotle's "Rhetoric" (~350 BCE) concerns the relation between "relative goodness and relative utility". He begins by seeing that what is relative must be quantitative, for if one compares one thing with another, it regards what each must possess, for one to be "greater" or "less" than the other. Thus, he regards that what is greater must at once contain lesser, and more, while the lesser is included in the greater. This is not at once a measure of goodness however, for as he writes, what must be good is desired for its own sake, and so can be said to be absolute. As yet, there are "greater" goods than others, for if we take what is good, and see that more of this is capable in one thing than another, then it follows that some things are better than others. Aristotle gives a causal relationship to this, by seeing that effects are the results of primary causes, and so what is primary to the effect of the good is itself a greater good, thus, although Life does not necessarily produce health, health is a product of life, and so Life is a greater good than health (since, remembering the initial argument, what is greater contains the lesser, and more - so Life contains both health, and sickness). He circles this back to the ethical argument, that what is pursued for its own sake is an end in-itself, and so is self-sufficient, so has necessity rather than contingency. The good, then, is a cause of itself, making it best. Aristotle considers this between means and ends, seeing that while the original cause of an action has primacy, what is secondary still constitutes the action. The potential and actual then imply each other.

From this, Aristotle compares the relativity of goodness, between attributes of contrasting magnitudes; he states for example that "what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful" (since it is desired for its own sake), continuing, "gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful: it is harder to get, and therefore better worth getting". Thus, the good and the useful are contrasted, but by a strange argument, for if the good is defined as a proportionally useless thing, then utility cannot be an attribute of goodness. Aristotle abridges the argument by declaring that the measure of the goodness of the gold is the difficulty of its extraction and production, which corresponds to scarcity. What then, is the primary cause of gold's virtue? It's rarity or its production costs? Aristotle writes that gold is "better worth getting" due to the fact that it is "harder to get", so then, it must be the cost of production which is the cause of its rarity, which is then the attribute of virtue, given a common measure between the rare and abdundant. He clearly sees that utility is proportional to abundance, as we read after; "Reversely, it may be argued that the plentiful is a better thing than the rare, because we can make more use of it. For what is often useful surpasses what is seldom useful, whence the saying: "The best of things is water." He re-states this relativity: "the hard thing is better than the easy, because it is rarer: and reversely, the easy thing is better than the hard, for it is as we wish it to be." But adds this condition to it: "That is the greater good whose contrary is the greater evil, and whose loss affects us more." So then, is he implying that the rare is better because its loss is more painful than otherwise? Of course, this is entirely true, that though gold is much less useful than iron, it is valued much more highly.

After this, he begins to develop an argument that what is desired most generally must be that which is greater, which with continuity with previous comments, must therefore be desired for its own sake (himself declaring that the greatest pleasure is that which is least painful). Is the quality of gold which is virtuous (i.e. pleasurable) its rarity, however? It appears impossible that the less useful is at once more pleasurable, since how else can one measure utility besides the capacity for common pleasure, or function? Aristotle concludes likewise: "honor is, as it were, a measure of value". This appears to be rather tautological, because if the value of gold derives from its honourable qualities (e.g. rarity) then Aristotle is basically saying that "its value is its value".

Aristotle still continues however, seeing that a whole is greater for the sake of its many parts, applying this notion to what may be measured in value. He applies this to the greater effort of producing gold than other things, seeing that its value is then correspondent to the chain of its causes, which must then add "importance". He further adds that what is harder to come by is more "natural" than "acquired", despite gold's production. Is he now insinuating that it is the natural scarcity of gold which is its measure of value, rather than its acquirement? If so, he falls into blatant absurdity, for what is rare by nature can never necessitate value. He ends by more comparisons as to relative virtue, never quite concluding on this issue, but he has already said enough, for what he has admitted is that while gold is able to exchange for more than iron, it is less useful, which is in succession to comments from Xenophon. Additionally, Aristotle sees that utility often increases with abundance, with the inverse also being true, creating an absolute separation between value in use and value in exchange, and both being antagonistic.

In Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" (~340 BCE) Aristotle deals with the notion of reciprocal justice (from earlier discourses on the Pythagoreans) and associates this directly with commodity exchange, which he sees as a means to create equivalence in trade between buyer and seller (e.g. one gives and takes by mutual engagement). Aristotle begins by seeing that as far as justice is concerned, where evil is inflicted, it is sought to be returned in proportion, lest men are reckoned as slaves by this inequality. On trade, he begins by defining the terms that between A(b) and C(d) are two producers (A,B) and their products (b,d), which by (i) "proportionate equality of goods" and (ii) "reciprocal action", we see "proportionate return" or "exchange" occur. He adds that without equality, one cheats the other, for one gains from the others' loss, and so for trade to be mutually beneficial, it must entail an equality of goods traded. He further stipulates that trade must begin by a diversity of goods, and so a division of labour - thus, the variables of trade are given in his initial example (Ab:Cd) - this of course is the Marxist "form of value" (value-form) which Marx claims Aristotle is the discoverer of. He uses this abstract model in 4 modes, ending in money (Ax=By).

Between the differences of production there must be something common to them however, as Aristotle writes, for how else can A(b) equate with C(d)? Aristotle sees that it is money which completes this purpose, which he calls an "intermediate" (t. "medium"). Aristotle says that this suffices because money is able to "measure" the value of products and so convert them into prices, and this is what makes trade possible. He elaborates however and reveals that what is really common to each product is "demand", with money acting as the representative of demand (i.e. value). Aristotle speaks more on money, seeing it not as a "natural" object with intrinsic value, but as something established by law or convention (for which he traces the etymology of money as "nomisma" to "nomos"). Aristotle therefore says that it is in the power of the state to change money or make it useless, and so he can only summon money as valuable by decree (fiat). This of course was a standard understanding of money in the ancient world, moving into Ancient Rome, but what later becomes mystified in modernity, even to Marx (an illusion which Engels doesn't appear to have).

Aristotle speaks on equality pertaining to the "work" of each respective producer, yet only measures value in money by a quantity of "demand", which appears to lack the counterpart of "supply". Of course, one cannot demand a product without it being supplied, and the "work" of the producer is equated with the demand, so the meaning of Aristotle appears to be understood. Now we come to Aristotle speaking of commensurability, whereby he writes that (b) and (d) find no means to be commensurated… Besides their being demanded. This is unfortunately obfuscated by Marx (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 3) where he implies that Aristotle defeats himself, yet Aristotle is perfectly consistent. As he says, without demand, there can be no exchange, so what unifies products being exchanged is their mutual demand. Aristotle then concludes by implying that money as a medium simply facilitates exchange, but itself has no value of its own. It represents other commodities. He says for example that where A(b) = B(d) this trade will have occured before money, and so money as an intermediate simply equates them as a common unit. Money is the "measure" of value, so cannot be a value.

For Aristotle's "Politics" (~330 BCE, we will solely regard content which appears relevant to political economy. Aristotle first writes (Bk. 1, Ch. 3) that man is the only creature with the power of speech and its this which also grants him his political nature (by distinction from mere animal, which can only signify pleasure or pain). Aristotle makes a consistent argument in De Anima ("On the Soul") where he says that it is the complexity of man's sense of taste which proves his rationality (more than his eyes, which are evidently inferior to other creatures). It is the tongue (rather than the thumb) which to Aristotle is man's anatomical distinction. This has relevance due to Plato's earlier comments of associating the power of language with profit (via Hermes), with each entailing the infinity of circulation - this is also continuous of later discourses, such as in "The Wealth of Nations" (1776).

After this (Bk. 1, Ch. 4) Aristotle categorises two forms of property: (i) "instruments of production" and (ii) "instruments of action", writing "The shuttle [which is used for making beds and garments], for example, is not only of use; but something else is made by it, whereas of a garment or of a bed there is only the use." Thus we have an understanding of the means and ends of consumption, such that Plato divides between the potential and active cause of production (Aristotle says that the shuttle is "not only of use" implying its "productive consumption", e.g. mill, 1821). We may then syncretise these views, where we begin with a master providing capital in the contribution of his instruments of production, which are then worked on by labour. This finally produces instruments of action to consume.

Beginning in (Bk. 1, Ch. 8-9) Aristotle seeks to discern the difference between "Economics" (Household Management) and "Wealth-Getting" (Chrematistics). He distinguishes between what is obtained either from nature or from acquisition, putting Economics in the place of acquisition (e.g. as opposed to hunting). He also designates Chrematistics as a mode of acquisition, but distinguishes them by their limits on gaining wealth; Economy deals in a limited concept of wealth, while Chrematistics deals with an unlimited concept (what Marx later signifies as C-M-C/M-C-M). In explaining the difference between them, he begins by describing the two uses of a thing (e.g. a shoe). Its primary use is to be worn, while its secondary use is to be exchanged (i.e. use-value and exchange-value). This concurs with Xenophon, who wrote that what is useful to the owner is consumed while what is useless to him is sold, and so in turn, becomes useful, but for another (this is also how Smith, Marx and Menger describe the origin of trade). Aristotle calls the primary use "proper" and the second use "improper", with exchange arising out of what is "natural" in the qualities of the object (Marx adopts this framework by calling the use-value of a commodity its "natural" form, as opposed to its "value" or social form).

After this, Aristotle gives his logical anthropology as to the process by which use-value turns to exchange-value, which he describes occuring from a self-sufficient community establishing a division of labour, which over time leads to the trading of commodities (he repeats this in Nichomachaen Ethics, Bk. 5, Ch. 5, which is also where Marx gets his "form of value" from; e.g. Ax=By). Aristotle says that first comes barter, then money, which is first set by standard weights of metal, but then comes to be treated as fiat denomination (what is profoundly unclear in this exposition is the time-frame he is dealing with, since the coining of money in Greece had only started around 2 centuries before). Aristotle says that with the advent of money do we get retail trade, for which Chrematistics is closely related. Nevertheless, Aristotle sees that "unnatural" relations can only begin by money (such that he says that though money can purchase any commodity, it is worthless in itself, and so like the fable of Midas, a man may starve from his abundance of gold). Thus he contrasts Chrematistics (as an art of gaining coin) from other forms of riches. Here, Aristotle thus formally opposes the Economic, as the "natural" way of getting wealth, to Chrematistics, as unnatural, and necessarily initiated by exchange (Aristotle says however that barter is "natural" and only coin leads to what is unnatural, but without itself being evil - Marx would see this as "alienation" which comes to comprise the social universe, as man loses himself). To conclude on this point then, we see that Chrematistics comes from viewing money as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end; the difference lies in treating the composite uses of objects between their primary and secondary aspects, which causes different results (Marx quotes Virgil on this - "auri sacra fames", which is the "greed for gold"; a form of civilised insanity. Max Weber equally cites Benjamin Franklin in this regard, that the maxim "time is money" as moral imperative produces a life of pious, yet idolatrous worship of Mammon, "the root of all evil". Of course, it is foolish to suppose nothing priestly in the temperance of the saver, who as Marx says, worships humanity's "Real God", which if we take the Platonic claim, is Hermes).

In (Bk. 1, Ch. 10) Aristotle re-states: "There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is ap-plied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."

This is the end of theory, and now (Bk. 1, Ch. 11) he denotes the classification of wealth-getting into its practical aspects. According to its natural part are: (i) Livestock and (ii) Husbandry. Of the unnatural portion: (i) Commerce (transport and marketing), (ii) Usury and (iii) Hiring Labour. He leaves room for an intermediary form however, which partakes of both aspects, which is earthly industries, such as wood-cutting and mining. After this, he admittedly says that while this has general correctness, it cannot cover all areas of wealth-getting. After this, Aristotle speaks upon Thales (often thought of as the first philosopher) as having a "financial device" which allowed him to become rich. Aristotle tells the story that because of his astrological skills, he could predict a great yield of olives in the next spring (it was currently winter), so he bought up plots at a much discounted price, selling his later produce in order to make a profit. Aristotle identifies this as "monopoly" and says that it is often used as a means for wealth.

This constitutes the majority of Aristotle's economic writings in "Politics", but a few more citations will be adequate to demonstrate Aristotle's view. In (Bk. 3, Ch. 6-10) and (Bk. 4, Ch. 11) we see Aristotle display a Platonic view of the forms of state which are possible (Plato describes these in "Statesman", as being 3; monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, but which each also possess an unlawful character, making 6, with the 7th being the ideal form, which cannot be actualised - thus, the forms of government are under temporal rule, so move into each other. Plato describes this moreso in Republic, where each state moves from the best to worst by a process of unlawfulness and class conflict). Aristotle expands this discourse by seeing how these forms inherently relate to class representation in power. He further sees that what is most stabilising is for the middle class to expand, so as to reduce wealth inequality between the high and low (Aristotle utilises his "golden mean" for this judgement). He thus advocates for the redistribution of wealth and property, since an ideal constitution is friendship (rather than romance, lets say - Friendship is also the "platonic relationship" described in Lysis), and all things are shared between friends (Aristotle ammends Plato on this point by seeing how Plato's erotic political notion in Symposium is inadequate for perfection; t. Bk. 2, Ch. 4). Aristotle thus gives a cause as to civic destabilisation being based in wealth inequality, such that he famously declares, "poverty is the parent of revolution and crime" (Bk. 2, Ch. 6). Plato also gives attribution to this in his Republic, that tyranny is the result of the poor rebelling against the rich, but in their place, creates dictatorship. So then, Aristotle was conscious of economic disparity, such as in later writing, e.g. "Problems", that the charge of theft was more severe than murder, for theft lead to the death penalty, while murder only resulted in fines, and so it appears that already, man's alienated property aspired to greater civil protections than his own life.

Ancient Economics: Aristotle (Economics, Bk. 1-3)

(Pseudo-)Aristotle's "Economics" (~320 BCE) begins by a distinction between economics (household management) and politics, by a difference in the number of rulers: "politics involves a number of rulers, whereas the sphere of economics is a monarchy." This he repeats in "Politics", that the Father is monarch over his household, yet may still be "constitutional" toward his wife (where he says that the barbarian races have gender equality because they are uncivilised, the same as "warlike" races, who also permit homosexuality, like the Spartans or Celts, who allowed women in positions of power, which Aristotle disapproved of as destabilising; t. Politics, Bk. 2, Ch. 9). So then, Aristotle sees that the household has one form, but a state may have many forms. He continues: "Now a city is an aggregate made up of households […] It is evident, therefore, that economics is prior in origin to politics; for its function is prior, since a household is part of a city." So then, economics precedes politics.

In defining the household, Aristotle begins (Bk. 1, Ch. 2): "The parts of a household are man and property", quoting Hesiod in this regard, "First and foremost a house, a woman, and an ox for the plough" (Works and Days, line 405). Aristotle then describes the order of natural art, beginning with agriculture (this is described more thoroughly in Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 11). Aristotle speaks ironically of agriculture as a "liberal" (free) art, for it cultivates manliness in strength, yet the master divides this labour amongst his slaves. The slave is thought of as both lesser and greater than the master by Aristotle, it seems. This is a contradiction in virtue. After this (Bk. 1, Ch. 3), Aristotle describes how reason forces co-operation and mutual advantage, first between man and wife, but also between child and parent, in that what is given to the child is re-paid by the care of parents in their old age. Aristotle perceives that these opposed attributes then allow for the development of each, which he also associates with a division of labour. Nature has endowed men and women with different qualities, he writes, such that by man's strength and bravery, he operates externally to the household, while women operate within it (e.g. hunter/gatherer). He further sees that while women nurture children, men educate them. So the division of labour begins in nature, by the sexes.

Aristotle opens (Bk. 1, Ch. 5) with: "Of possessions, that which is the best and the worthiest subject of economics comes first and is most essential—I mean, man. It is necessary therefore first to provide oneself with good slaves. Now slaves are of two kinds, the overseer and the worker […] And since we see that methods of education produce a certain character in the young, it is necessary when one has procured slaves to bring up carefully those to whom the higher duties are to be entrusted." So then, a further division of labour is marked in production, according to the role which one possesses, and is constituted by levels of education. Further, Aristotle sets separate wages for these slaves: "To the higher class of slaves he ought to give some share of honour, and to the workers abundance of nourishment." And so even within the class of slaves is a hierarchy, constituted by a division of labour which confers different rates of pay. Inequality then begins here. He continues: "Three things make up the life of a slave, work, punishment, and food. […] It remains therefore to give them work and sufficient food; for it is impossible to rule without offering rewards, and a slave’s reward is his food. And just as all other men become worse when they get no advantage by being better and there are no rewards for virtue and vice, so also is it with servants. Therefore we must take careful notice and bestow or withhold everything, whether food or clothing or leisure or punishments, according to merit". So then, Aristotle has a theory of wages which is based in the merit of the slave, and he sees that they ought to be paid in equivalence of this effort. He also sees that offering freedom will motivate them to work harder, so it is advisory to do so. He also suggests that slaves ought to be permitted to have children for the sake of ingratiating them to their master. So, Aristotle sees that slaves ought to be treated well if you want them to be the most productive to various ends.

Departing, we move to (Bk. 1, Ch. 6) where Aristotle describes the four roles in relation to wealth: (i) Acquirement, (ii) Guardianship, (iii) Ordering and (iv) Utilisation (for which Aristotle claims is the ends of wealth - it should also be said that Aristotle in Politics says that having too much acquirement causes a lack of proportional guardianship, so with more wealth either comes more dispossession or tyranny. This is also why the ownership of property has its natural limits, but also its legal limits; theft then often appears as reclamation). The economist, he says, ought to distinguish his property between what is "productive" and "unproductive" (t. "instruments of production" and "instruments of action", Politics Bk. 1, Ch. 4). He also compares different National economies, saying that he prefers the Attic, because of its commodity exchange.

Aristotle begins the next book (Bk. 2, Ch. 1) by dividing the 4 different kinds of economy. I would quote it directly, but it is staggeringly ineloquent. So then, to summarise what is written: There are 4 kinds of economy: (1) Royal Economy, (2) Satrapic Economy, (3) Political Economy¹ and (4) Individual Economy. Of the (1) Royal Economy, there are 4 kinds of consideration: (i) Coinage, (ii) Exports, (iii) Imports and (iv) Expenditure. Of (2) Satrapic Economy, there are 6 kinds of revenue: (i) Land-Tax, (ii) City-Products, (iii) Merchandise, (iv) Poll-Tax, (v) Animal-Tax and (vi) Market-Dues. Of (3) Political Economy, there are 3 revenues: (i) Country-Products, (ii) Customs and (iii) Ordinary Taxes. Finally is (4) Individual Economy, with 3 general sources of revenue: (i) Land, (ii) Regular Activity and (iii) Money-Investment. [¹"Political Economy" = "Economy of the City/Polis"].

In (Bk. 2, Ch. 2) he goes through different examples of states and how they sorted economic matters. It is purely anecdotal and provides no great theory, so I will not relate any of this content. The final part (Bk. 3, Ch. 1-4) is nothing besides a patriarchal list of rules for how a wife ought to obey her husband, and how conversely, a husband ought to be loyal to his wife. It is not economic in any sense that we understand the term today.

In Summa Theologica, ii-ii, Q.77-78 (1274 CE), Aquinas discusses the "justice" of exchange (t. Aristotle's Ethics, 5.5) which concerns the equality of value in buying and selling between members. He counterposes just price with usury. We may read his summary of Q.77 here: "We must now consider those sins which relate to voluntary commutations. First, we shall consider cheating, which is committed in buying and selling: secondly, we shall consider usury, which occurs in loans." The 4 articles he sets out are: (1) Of unjust sales as regards the price; namely, whether it is lawful to sell a thing for more than its worth? (2) Of unjust sales on the part of the thing sold; (3) Whether the seller is bound to reveal a fault in the thing sold? (4) Whether it is lawful in trading to sell a thing at a higher price than was paid for it? We shall give his response to these 4 points.

In Article (1), he answers that "It is altogether sinful to have recourse to deceit in order to sell a thing for more than its just price, because this is to deceive one's neighbor so as to injure him", and as he writes, the purpose of exchange is mutual benefit, and so it is sinful to have one-sided gain. In defining what a thing is worth he makes distinction into two properties, he posits that "the quality of a thing that comes into human use [e.g. use-value] is measured by the price given for it [e.g. exchange-value]", and so he appears to see that the price for any thing is a given fact of it, yet how ought one distinguish between a false and real price? He says that a thing's "worth" ought to be equal to its "price", and so we advance, but how do we determine worthiness? In his reply to Objection 1, he states that laws are in place to protect buyers and sellers from being cheated, such as when either of them engage in unjust exchange (exchange which mismatches price from worth/value), and so a standard of value must exist beyond mere market price, to bring it in alignment with its real price. Is Aquinas saying that a commodity has inherent worth, or that the law regulates the worth of commodities? He elaborates: "the just price of things is not fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate". But what is estimated and who estimates?

In Article (2) Aquinas lists the faults of a commodity which thus devalues its worth, and so makes it unjust to sell at the standard price of that thing. He first says that a defect in its substance (such as mixing wine with water) dilutes and impurifies it, and so makes it lesser. Another defect he lists is a false report of the quantity of the thing sold, and the final is like the first, which is a false report on the qualities of things sold (e.g. sick animals sold as healthy animals). We see that injustice in these cases is the false appearance of what is exchanged in mind for a real appearance, given in price. Injustice then, is giving a false price for a real price.

In his reply to Objection 1, he states that, "Gold and silver are costly not only on account of the usefulness of the vessels and other like things made from them, but also on account of the excellence and purity of their substance" directly linking cost to usefulness. This is contrary to Aristotle's own view however, who claimed that Iron is more useful than Gold, with the expensive quality of Gold merely being its scarcity, which Aquinas makes no comment on. So then, is it usefulness by which we measure the worth of something? In reply to Objection 2, Aquinas does comment upon supply and says that it is the quantity of supplied goods which acts as a measure of their worth, yet he also says that the just price of goods must be set by the state, as well as by custom, and that it is these which establish value. So then, standard prices are set by the state, and it is this which Aquinas appears to see as the basis of worth, but can a state not likewise set a false price for a real one? In reply to Objection 3, Aquinas invokes Augustine with a reference from "City of God", Bk.11, Ch.16 (426 CE) in which two values are set upon things, one according to (i) Nature and the other according to (ii) Need, or desire. Augustine writes that although Man may be a better thing by Nature, he is less worthy than a jewell in terms of price, and Aquinas adapts this into his current argument, claiming "the price of things salable does not depend on their degree of nature, since at times a horse fetches a higher price than a slave; but it depends on their usefulness to man." This again is contradictory, since as Aquinas must imply from previous comments, that which is in most abundance must have a lesser worth, but what is most plentiful must be used most. If I am misinterpreting him, then it does not explain why Gold is worth more than silver, if it has a lesser supply.

In Article (3), reply to Objection 4, Aquinas makes interesting comment, that where competition exists, prices will stabilise at a newer rate (e.g. equilibrium) and so the value of a good is relative to this factor. Combined with earlier comments, Aquinas appears to provide a more sophisticated account of the worth of things thus, which is relative, not absolute.

In Article (4) he answers with extensive reference to Aristotle (Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 3) in viewing the immorality of the tradesman, yet Aquinas says that there is nothing inherently sinful in trading if it be lawful, and so be a means to a different end than profit itself. When trade is for profit alone, it is sinful, but not if it is for public good. Here is a concluding remark: "a man may take to trade for some public advantage, for instance, lest his country lack the necessaries of life, and seek gain, not as an end, but as payment for his labor." This seems ambiguous, for he is either referring to the labour of the tradesman himself, or those who are hired by tradesman. In his reply to Objection 3, he says that it is improper that Clerics ought to make a profit, for it is a business with an evil end, and so is a secular affair. This is the end of Summa ii-ii, Q.77, so we shall proceed.

In Summa ii-ii, Q.78, the 4 articles concerned with "The Sin of Usury" are as follows: (1) Whether it is a sin to take money as a price for money lent, which is to receive usury? (2) Whether it is lawful to lend money for any other kind of consideration, by way of payment for the loan? (3) Whether a man is bound to restore just gains derived from money taken in usury? (4) Whether it is lawful to borrow money under a condition of usury?

In Article 1 he makes this answer: "To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice […] Accordingly if a man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would be selling the same thing twice, or he would be selling what does not exist, wherefore he would evidently commit a sin of injustice. In like manner he commits an injustice who lends wine or wheat, and asks for double payment, viz. one, the return of the thing in equal measure, the other, the price of the use, which is called usury." Thus, Usury counts as a "double payment"; a payment for what is, and what is not, according to what is consumed in the substance thereof. Aquinas relates this to rent, which in the place of a dwelling charges for the use of something, without its consumption, and so entails inequality - yet Aquinas says that this is lawful, for the property owner permits the conditional use of his property to a tenant ("usufruct"). It is lawful, but is it just? Aquinas makes no comment. So then, we may divide the forms of exchange between (i) Justice and (ii) Injustice (including Usury), with the forms of the use of commodities being (i) Consumption and (ii) Usufruct. Rent necessarily counts as a form of usufruct, wherein something is used, but is not permitted to be consumed (destroyed). This is "lawful" but must also be unjust, for nothing equivalent is given, so then, law cannot decide justice. Aquinas admits this in his reply to Objection 3, where he writes: "Human laws leave certain things unpunished […] Wherefore human law has permitted usury, not that it looks upon usury as harmonizing with justice, but lest the advantage of many should be hindered." He also calls Usury "quasi-usufruct", and so we see that to Aquinas, Usury, like Rents, are unjust, but legally given.

Ibn Khaldun's "Mudadimmah" (1377 CE) is a book ranging many topics, but what concerns economics is Chapter 5, "On the (Various) Aspects of Making A Living…" Which is said by some (e.g. Paul Cockshott) as having a Labour Theory of Value. Indeed, (Ch. 5, Sct. 1) opens with the description, "Profit is the value realized from human labor", but we must read more. He begins by seeing that Man must acquire the produce of the world, and beyond this, must trade. Khaldun thinks this is a natural outgrowth of his powers, and for which purpose man makes profit, originally by "barter". Ibn imagines that there is "profit" gained from nature alone, however, such as rainfall which makes plants grow, and for which he says that man's efforts must be combined with it (e.g. William Petty, 1662). Khaldun defines two sorts of "profit" then, one according to need and the other being "capital accumulation", given from extending beyond his needs. He divides these two things between consumption (sustenance) and accumulation (profit). He then attributes "profit" to two forms in the same manner, between "sustenance" and "accumulation", seeing them as caused by acquirement (property) which he sees as based in labour, fundamentally. He adds that gold and silver are the measures of value (of all capital accumulation) and that "they are the basis of profit, property, and treasure", conflicting with earlier claims. He does say that "The labor and expenditures that have gone into them show themselves in the price of grain" seemingly referring to a cost of production theory. He concludes on these words: "It has thus become clear that gains and profits, in their entirety or for the most part, are value realized from human labor. The meaning of the word "sustenance" has become clear. It is (the part of the profit) that is utilized." We may define terms.

To Khaldun then, it appears that any gain (or "profit") is due to labour, by the acquirement of property (t. Locke). Of property, there are two modes, use (consumption) and conservation (accumulation), or "sustenance" and "profit" proper. These things are measured by money, which requires gold and silver to value them. The price of things are also composed of their expenditure, and so the cost of production is returned as cost to consumers. With this, we can move into the second section.

Section 2 concerns "Livelihood" (ma'ash). Here he lists different ways that sustenance and profit may be obtained, including taxation, attained through political power ("imarah"; which he properly calls a form of customary theft, or appropriation, and in the manner of Al-Harari calls "unnatural", while the rest are natural). Other means of gaining a livelihood are: (i) hunting and fishing, (ii) agriculture, (iii) craft and (iv) commerce (of which he writes: "observing the market fluctuations which affect it" - he speaks later on supply and demand and the principles of mercantile profit in this way). Of the different means of making a living, he calls Agriculture the primary (for which he says there is no theoretical knowledge necessary), and so ascribes its invention to Adam. Of crafts he attributes it to Idris, and of commerce he continues: "[it is] designed to obtain the (profit) margin between purchase prices and sales prices. This surplus makes it possible to earn a profit. Therefore, the law permits cunning in commerce, since (commerce) contains an element of gambling. It does not, however, mean taking away the property of others without giving anything in return. Therefore, it is legal."

In Section 3 he elaborates the notion of Imarah, seeing that political authority must seek to employ "soldiers, policemen, and secretaries" and for which "[he] will provide for their sustenance from the treasury", which are means of making a living by primary appropriation (e.g. Smith's "unproductive labour"). On servants, Khaldun claims that the luxurious grow pridefulness in their idleness, so hire others (for which they are paid a wage). Khaldun comments that it is "unmanly" to depend on the labour of others in this way. On discussing servants, Khaldun says that only the best are paid the highest wages (like Aristotle claims) and so only the wealthiest may afford the greatest service. In Section 4 he gives examples of scams which people pepetrate, namely giving treasure hunters maps to buried treasure, and with magical spells to unlock wealth - of which he calls an unnatural livelihood.

In Section 5, he discusses those of high rank, and that they get rich from the unpaid labour of those who serve them, such as he writes: "People help him with their labor in all his needs, whether these are necessities, conveniences, or luxuries. The value realized from all such labor becomes part of his profit. For tasks that usually require giving some compensation (to the persons who perform them), he always employs people without giving anything in return. He realizes a very high value from their labor. It is (the difference) between the value he realizes from the (free) labor (products) and the prices he must pay for things he needs. He thus makes a very great (profit). A person of rank receives much (free) labor which makes him rich in a very short time." In Section 6 he also sees that the value of labour is based on its division, and demand: "The value realized from one's labor corresponds to the value of one's labor and the value of (this labor) as compared to (the value of) other labor and the need of the people for it." In Section 7, he explains that this is the reason why priests are not generally wealthy, "the common people have no compelling need for the things that religious (officials) have to offer." So then, demand is what drives value.

In Section 9, Khaldun returns to commerce and makes this judgement: "It should be known that commerce means the attempt to make a profit by increasing capital, through buying goods at a low price and selling them at a high price, whether these goods consist of slaves, grain, animals, weapons, or clothing material. The accrued (amount) is called "profit" (ribh)." So then, (ribh) is the result of "market fluctations" as said earlier. He continues in Section 10: "When goods are few and rare, their prices go up […] they will be found in large quantities, and the prices will go down." So then, he perceives the fact of supply and demand in pricing. He also looks at hoarding, or monopoly, in Section 11. In Section 12 he also sees how low prices (due to excess supply) leads to lesser profits, so is harmful to mercants. He somewhat invokes class war in this regard, between affordability and profitability: "Likewise, while the prices of sugar and honey remain low, everything connected with (these commodities) is adversely affected, and the merchants who deal in it stop trading […] Low prices for grain, and of other things that are traded, are praised, because the need for grain is general and people, the rich as well as the poor, are compelled to buy food. Dependent people constitute the majority of people in civilization." Of merchants in general, he comments in Section 14 that they tend toward wickedness and so inferior in manliness.

Beginning in Section 15, Khaldun discusses crafts, for which he says: "It should be known that a craft is the habit of something concerned with action and thought […] A habit is a firmly rooted quality acquired by doing a certain action and repeating it time after time, until the form of (that action) is firmly fixed […] The mind, (however,) does not cease transforming all kinds of (crafts), including the composite ones, from potentiality into actuality through the gradual discovery of one thing after the other, until they are perfect." These two causes of craftsmanship are reminiscent of Plato. In Section 16, Khaldun discusses the development of craft from the simple to the composite by a development of society from the "bedouin" to the "sedentary", for which he says of a developed civilisation: "Then, when the city is organized and the (available) labor increases and pays for the necessities and is more than enough (for the inhabitants), the surplus is spent on luxuries." Thus, Khaldun perceives that it is the surplus of production which leads to the higher development of craft: "When civilization flourishes and the luxuries are in demand, it includes the refinement and development of the crafts." The survival of craft depends on the rate of its demand, however, as he writes in Section 18, but also adds that by subsidy, crafts may persist: "it is the ruling dynasty that demands crafts and their improvement. It causes the demand for them and makes them desirable. Crafts not in demand with the dynasty may be in demand with the other inhabitants of a city. However, that would not be the same thing, for the dynasty is the biggest market."

Craftsmanship which is established by habit also gives fixity in the soul, as he adds in Section 21, which denotes the limiting powers of a division of labour, for he who is only good at one thing lacks skill in all other areas of life. In Section 22, he gives a list of some basic crafts, beginning with what is (1) Necessary: (i) Agriculture, (ii) Architecture, (iii) Tailoring, (iv) Carpentry and (v) Weaving. After this are crafts which are (2) Noble: (i) Midwifery, (ii) Writing, (iii) Publishing, (iv) Singing and (v) Medicine. On singing, he writes this in section 31: "The craft of singing is the last of the crafts attained in civilization, because it constitutes (the last development toward) luxury with regard to no occupation in particular save that of leisure and gaiety. It also is the first to disappear from a given civilization when it disintegrates and retrogresses." Thus we may understand the development of craft from necessity to luxury as bound to leisure, or general uselessness, and for which purpose, it is least conserved in times of necessity, as Khaldun tells us. This movement is implied as that of the rational soul (Sct. 32), which from potency comes to be actual through progression of the faculties. Thus what is highest of civilisation is seen as the cultivations of these powers of luxury, which as Khaldun perceives, must develop from the simple to complex. For this reason, Khaldun perceives writing and arithmetic to be the highest art and craft, for it conserves the mind by the transcription of letters and numbers, which condense mind into intelligible forms. The most simple society is therefore least educated, while the most developed society is most intelligent. Thus concludes Ibn Khaldun's economic writings.

>>2725300
Supply and Demand is just a logistical sum.
As we see with: >>2726637
Artificial scarcity regulates (effectual) supply, which can occur reversely, where if Company (A) overproduces, they can sell goods for a higher price so as to meet a margin of demand which suffices profits against production costs. For example, if one lowered prices, demand might increase, but not a rate to meet supply, so securing profits means shedding excess supply by limiting total demand. In other words, when Company (A) sheds its supply of donuts and locks up its bins, this means that they are not selling at equilibrium, but are overcharging to gain a profit. The classical theory of value maintains that with free market competition, Company (A) would be forced to meet equilibrium to take up market share, but since there is a lack of sufficient competition (e.g. Monopoly, probably due to IP, which was only legally invented in the 18th century) the business is able to raise prices, and therefore they necessarily create waste, as a measure of their gains. To put it arithmetically, if my spend £100 on creating 100 products, yet can only reasonably sell 50, then to make a profit, I must sell each product for at least £2. Some companies work with charities to give away their excess supply (when I was in a homeless hostel, a local supermarket truck dopped off goods; of course, state intervention seems necessary, either by controlling prices, or legally possessing the surplus of business. Raising aggregate demand by monetary stimulation also serves similar ends, which is why cutting welfare is short-sighted, since the entire economy shrinks).

Mods, put smith anon inside a rocket and launch it into the sun.

>>2726637
Ibn Khaldun (c. 1337 CE) also writes on the conflict between profit and production in the Muqadimmah (Ch. 5, Sct. 10-12), where he sees that the abundance of goods leads to less profits, and so a decline in trade, yet the abundance of goods is beneficial for the public:
<When goods are few and rare, their prices go up […] they will be found in large quantities, and the prices will go down. […] When the prices of any type of goods […] remain low and the merchant cannot profit from any fluctuation of the market affecting these things, his profit and gain stop if the situation goes on for a long period. […] Likewise, while the prices of sugar and honey remain low, everything connected with (these commodities) is adversely affected, and the merchants who deal in it stop trading. […] Low prices for grain, and of other things that are traded, are praised, because the need for grain is general and people, the rich as well as the poor, are compelled to buy food. Dependent people constitute the majority of people in civilization.
https://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter5/Ch_5_10.htm
https://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter5/Ch_5_12.htm
This then demonstrates an elementary division between use-value and exchange-value, which is understood by class struggle. The internal opposition of a commodity's qualities is recognised as early as the Ancient Greeks, such as in Xenophon (360 BCE) and Aristotle (330 BCE).

>>2726944
>Raising aggregate demand by monetary stimulation also serves similar ends, which is why cutting welfare is short-sighted, since the entire economy shrinks

sh-shut up. the handouts will stop libtard. except for israel, because god blesses those who bless israel. economics 101 baby

>>2728412
let him cook

>>2728415
the food is long past burnt

Smith Anon, since you read authors with a fine toothed comb and highly critical acumen, I wanted to know if you had ever read Carlo Cafiero's summary of Capital Volume 1. I find this to be an interesting historical anomaly because I have seen anons on here criticize Cafiero's summary for revising and/or deviating from and/or oversimplifying Marx, but Marx himself seems to not have been troubled by it, and responded positively to it while he was still alive. But Cafiero himself was an anarchist trying to build a Marxist/Bakuninist synthesis, something Marx probably would have disliked had he known, especially since this was after Marx's works written against Bakunin in the early 1870s.

>>2725300
A 500 year old scam. The other day I was reading one of the last things David Graeber wrote, an essay on how economics/classical PE has been fraudulent since the 16th century debates on exogenous vs endogenous money that have been raging on forever, and how the monetarist liberals keep "winning" it without evidence. Aka the side that benefits the rich and punishes the workers
>To put it bluntly: QTM is obviously wrong. Doubling the amount of gold in a country will have no effect on the price of cheese if you give all the gold to rich people and they just bury it in their yards, or use it to make gold-plated submarines (this is, incidentally, why quantitative easing, the strategy of buying long-term government bonds to put money into circulation, did not work either). What actually matters is spending. Nonetheless, from Bodin’s time to the present, almost every time there was a major policy debate, the QTM advocates won. In England, the pattern was set in 1696, just after the creation of the Bank of England, with an argument over wartime inflation between Secretary of the Treasury William Lowndes, Sir Isaac Newton (then warden of the mint), and the philosopher John Locke. Newton had agreed with the treasury that silver coins had to be officially devalued to prevent a deflationary collapse; Locke took an extreme monetarist position, arguing that the government should be limited to guaranteeing the value of property (including coins) and that tinkering would confuse investors and defraud creditors. Locke won. The result was deflationary collapse. A sharp tightening of the money supply created an abrupt economic contraction that threw hundreds of thousands out of work and created mass penury, riots, and hunger. The government quickly moved to moderate the policy (first by allowing banks to monetize government war debts in the form of bank notes, and eventually by moving off the silver standard entirely), but in its official rhetoric, Locke’s small-government, pro-creditor, hard-money ideology became the grounds of all further political debate.
>According to Skidelsky, the pattern was to repeat itself again and again, in 1797, the 1840s, the 1890s, and, ultimately, the late 1970s and early 1980s, with Thatcher’s and Reagan’s (in each case brief) adoption of monetarism. Always we see the same sequence of events: 1. The government adopts hard-money policies as a matter of principle. 2. Disaster ensues. 3. The government quietly abandons hard-money policies. 4. The economy recovers. 5. Hard-money philosophy nonetheless becomes, or is reinforced as, simple universal common sense.

>>2729431
the __ ideas are the ideas of the __ class.

>>2729431
>its a scam
It's a shame Marx fell for the "scam" too, I guess… 🤷‍♂️
<the oscillations of market prices, rising now over, sinking now under the value or natural price, depend upon the fluctuations of supply and demand.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch02.htm#c9

>>2729264
Before reviewing the work, I want to make an introductory comment on simplification in general. Not many people know that there is a primary synopsis of Capital, written by Engels himself (1868):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/1868-syn/
Marx also makes early comment as to the serialisation of Capital by French editors in the 1872 preface:
<I applaud your idea of publishing the translation of “Das Kapital” as a serial. In this form the book will be more accessible to the working class, a consideration which to me outweighs everything else.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p2.htm
Thus, Marx clearly cared for simple presentation and exposition, despite his verbose style, as he admits of in the beginning of the 1873 preface. Of course, monopoly is often a great source of profit, which is why the esoteric is beneficial to academics, who make currency for themselves, like the priests who guard the sacred texts from the public. I have previously cited David Harvey and his purposeful problematisation of common sense in "A Companion to Capital Vol. 1" (2010), in which he makes distinction between Marx and Ricardo in nonsense terms, qualifying the adjective "socially necessary" as though it were obscure jargon which revealed the secret heart of analysis (2010):
>"Ricardo appealed to the concept of labor-time as value. Marx uses the concept of socially necessary labor­ time. What Marx has done here is to replicate the Ricardian conceptual apparatus and, seemingly innocently, insert a modification. But this insertion, as we shall see, makes a world of difference."
<Companion to Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 1
Of course, we do not "see" anything which Harvey purports to give us, but he instead only heaps on confusion, opinion and misinterpretation (which I won't waste time discussing). The contradiction is clear; Marx wanted to make Capital readable to the working class, yet Harvey obscures Capital from the working class by the work of intellectualising the mundane and confusing the coherent. This is the wickedness of all those who speak against simplification and common sense. But you will notice that many people who by condescension display pity for the poor feel this way as well, that they imagine that they must spread "noble lies" to convince them of ends which are unspeakable to the common man - which in itself denotes an evil design; why would you have to lie to be convincing, unless the truth which you held was so abominable to common sentiment? Hence you will have the priestly vanguard at the pulpit, simplifying, but with an elitist disdain, and above all things, resisting inquiry as hostility. So then, are we to simplify for the sake of truth, or convenience? If for the sake of truth, we must then not have either condescension or deception; "brevity is the soul of wit".

Beginning with Carlo's Capital, we have a note upon translation, which by this time, Capital was limited to the German, Russian and French, with the first English edition being published in 1886. Marx died 3 years earlier. Carlo also gives a tragic fact that by this time (1878), Marx had failed to publish Capital Vol. 2 (1885), despite already having the groundwork and notes for Capital, cumulatively from the period of 1857-67. Of course, Engels only published the unfinished manuscript of Capital Vol. 3 in 1894, 11 years after Marx's death, and 1 year before his own demise. The unpublished "theories of surplus value" was also only brought into completion by Kautsky around 1910, and so it took over 40 years to convert Marx's notes into his "Critique of Political Economy" series (talk about procrastinating!). Many of the secondary and tertiary texts of Marx were also only published in the 20th century, largely through the USSR, by "progress publishers" (1931-). Carlo writes:
<Meanwhile Marx can fulfill his promise, giving us the second volume of Capital, which will deal with The Process of Circulation of Capital (book II), and with The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole (book III), and the fourth and final volume which will explain A History of Economic Theories.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cafiero/1879/summary-of-capital.htm
The promise was unfortunately failed to be kept.

If we begin at the end, with Marx's reply to Carlo:
<The sincerest of thanks for the two copies of your work! At the same time I received two similar works, one written in Serbian, the other in English (published in the United States), but they both are faulty, wanting to give a succinct and popular summary of Capital and clinging, at the same time, too pedantically to the scientific form of discussion. In this way, they seem to me to miss more or less their principle purpose: that of moving the public for whom the summaries are intended.
We can see that the attempt to summarise Marx's work is still of chief interest to Marx himself, and its offers are giving, but not receiving of Marx's own praise. Marx as yet praises Carlo for his efforts:
<And here is the great superiority of your work.
He makes no comment on the content of the work itself (barring the preface) but still offers his politeness.

Beginning with Chapter 1, we have this comment:
<A commodity is an object that has two values; a use value and an exchange value, or an appropriately determined value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cafiero/1879/summary-of-capital.htm
This is clumsy language, but it begins in Marx himself, who by self-revision, attempts to clarify himself:
<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. […] It never assumes this form when isolated, but only when placed in a value or exchange relation with another commodity of a different kind.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
So we can forgive Carlo for this attribution, but in calling exchange-value an "appropriately determined value" makes it a normative statement, which is misplaced vocabulary; i.e. the exchange-value of a commodity is not determined by its appropriateness, but its reality.

Next is this error:
<A commodity can never be exchanged with another, if the labor that is needed to produce one is not equal to the labor that is needed to produce the other. This law must be kept well in mind, because above it is founded everything that we will see said afterwards.
In the first place, he mistakenly implies that money is itself not a commodity according to Marx, and he also says that all trade is strictly and necessarily equivalent. If this were the case, no one could ever overcharge or under-pay, which by all common accounts, is a false assumption. But again, this problem begins in Marx, whose analysis appears to mostly concern trade at equilibrium, and so people falsely believe that the market price of goods is the same as natural price. Marx himself says that goods may be traded unevenly, like the wage, which fluctuates according to supply and demand:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/wages.htm

Next he writes:
<Carefully examining the formula of capital, it can be noted in the last analysis that the matter of the accrual of capital is resolved in the following way: finding a commodity that profits more than what it costs […] This very singular commodity indeed exists and it is called labor power, or labor force.
This is not an incorrect summary, but he only gets to what makes labour-power unique two chapters later.

He writes this:
<Now, the labor that is needed to produce labor power is equal to the labor needed to produce the things needed by the worker, and as a consequence the value of those things necessary to the worker is equal to the value of their labor power.
This is true, except that later in chapter 8, he writes that "salary cannot represent the price of labor power", appearing to confuse "labour" for "labour-power", as per the Marxist jargon, so again, we can forgive him. It must be stated, to Marx, the wage is the full and equal price of the commodity called "labour-power". This differs from the Smithian view that profit comes from underpaying labour (the same way Keynes explains depreciation as a tax on labour). The latter are British common sense, the former is contrived by this "law of exchanges" which appears to most men, as justifying exploitation. To say that "profit is not theft" is to appear complacent.

Carlo finally gets to surplus value in chapter 4:
<Labor power, producing a greater value than how much something is worth, that is a “surplus,” has created capital; enlarging then this surplus value with prolongation of the workday, has given sufficient nourishment to the capital  for its infancy. […] The work done from A-C, with which the salary’s value is produced, is necessary labor, while the work done from C-B, which produces surplus value, is called exploitation.

He then speaks of relative surplus value:
<The first was absolute surplus value, this is relative surplus value. Relative surplus value is founded upon the decreasing of necessary work; the decreasing of necessary work is founded upon the decreasing of wages; the decreasing of wages is founded upon a decrease in prices of things that are necessary for the worker; therefore relative surplus value is founded on the depreciation of the commodities that the worker uses.
This references the fact that if capital (c+v) can reduce (v) it gives a greater share to (c), relatively increasing surplus value. Relative surplus value is measured by intensity of labour, while absolute surplus value is measured by duration.

Carlo then speaks of a contingency in the law of value which appears to contradict earlier claims of necessity:
<And there would be an even quicker way of producing relative surplus value, someone will say, and that would be to pay the worker a salary less than that which he is due, that is not to pay him the proper price of his commodity, labor power. We cannot consider this expedient, used often in fact, minimally, because we aren’t admitting that it’s the most perfect observance of the law of exchange, according to which all commodities, and consequently labor power as well, must be sold and bought at their proper value.

He also speaks of the other end of relative surplus value:
<Now the capitalist needs to make himself a larger place in the market to sell a double quantity of his commodity; and you can do this by somewhat restricting the price. […] As you can see, the capitalist gains a great profit from this growth of production. […] Their extraordinary gain, however, that which represents the difference between the value of the commodity and the price at which it is sold, doesn’t last long, because right away the new or perfected system of production becomes adopted by all out of necessity.
Here, the capitalist outcompetes his competition by the intensity of labour reducing the value of commodities in the same duration, lowering the social average.

Chapter 5 is a rather flowery interval into Chapter 6, which concerns cooperation and divisions of labour. This intensity of labour then adds plentifully to the capacity of production, such as dividing the manufacture of pins into 20 separate roles, in turn, creating 20 pins in the same time that it could take to make 1. Marx also says that this is a qualitatively capitalist character of production, say, as opposed to earlier artisinal crafts, which limited production to the sufficiency of a single skilled worker (e.g. blacksmith). After this is chapter 7, where he describes (c) and (v):
<Capital is divided into constant and variable. Constant capital is that which is represented by raw materials and the means of production. […] Variable capital is that which is represented by salary, by the price that is of labor power. The first is called constant, because its value remains constant in the value of the commodity, of which it is a portion; while the second is called variable, exactly because its value grows coming in to make a portion of the value of the commodity. It is only variable capital that creates surplus value; and the machine only makes up a portion of constant capital.
And so he describes how the capitalist universe operates without the constraints of day or night:
<The capitalist, therefore, breaks down all obstacles of time with the machinery, all of the limits of the day that were imposed on labor in manufacturing. 

In chapter 9, he discusses the variation of wages:
<The accumulation of capital, therefore, makes a great number of hands useless; it creates, that is, a surplus laboring population […] produces the effect of making wages sink […] a great number of women and children come to be employed for the momentary need of capital, past which, these people go on to increase the counties’ overpopulation of workers.
He fails to discuss the counter-tendency that a rise in wages also occurs by increased demand with little supply (e.g. Ch. 25), thus linking capital investment, unemployment, and wages, as Marx attempts to do, after the initial writings by Smith on the same topic.

In chapter 10 he discusses primitive accumulation:
<And here by means of such horrors, by means of so much blood the expropriation of the agricultural population is completed, and the formation of that working class, destined to feed modern industry. […] And this is pure, or bourgeois, history, a sad history of blood, which would deserve to be well read and meditated on by you
Here I would criticise Carlo on an historical point, in that the bourgeoisie (e.g. burghers; city-dwellers) did not initiate primitive accumulation in England, it was in the country, by landed gentry, in seeking acquisition of agrarian property, that land was concentrated, and disciplined, such as against the serfs of Europe, or the slaves in the US. Marx also attests to this point.

In his conclusion, Carlo sees that revolution is a quality of all natural objects, by the laws of motion, so sees that all things in society must change. For this purpose, he sees the capitalists as reactionary:
<Now, if revolution is the law of nature, which is all, it must necessarily also be the law of humanity, which is a part of nature. […] But the bourgeoisie are too fearful and pious to be able to appeal to the natural law of revolution.
But this is rather short-sighted and un-Marxist, for ley us recall what Marx wrote of capitalist development:
<The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
Thus to Marx, the capitalist era is exceedingly "revolutionary" in itself, with constant technological development and changing social relations. The only backslide is as Marx says, that development reaches its limit at the margin of profit, which causes destruction:
<The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
So then, war is a necessary part of capitalist society. Carlo appears then contrary to opposition of this thinking, by bringing out a thirst for war and revolution. This of course is an infantile error of Anarchy, which supposes metaphysical transgression, but of course, our darling Heraclitus, Lao Tzu or Francois Quesnay perceive that Chaos can possess its own Order, and so what is constantly changing may retain permanence (this is vitally explored by Slavoj Zizek, who sees the proper place of passivity in deconstructing power).

So then, that would be my review of the work, which has some basic errors but is largely correct, but I would first recommend Engels' synopsis, since if anything, he was more acquainted with the source material. It is also shorter than Carlo's work, which is surprising.

On this talk of Bakunin, I will relate what I wrote concerning Zionist accusations against Marx:
>>2722058
Anarchism is twins with Fascism in my opinion, but explaining that would require a more detailed post.

>>2726971
Experiments in "free money" (Freigeld) have been previously theorised and practiced. It was first theorised by Silvio Gesell in his book "The Natural Economic Order" (1916) in which Gesell promotes the idea of money as a depreciating asset to increase spending (what we generally refer to as "inflation" nowadays). The rate of depreciation he suggested was around (5%), while most central banks today aim for (2-3%) inflation per year, which then measures "growth" according to spending. Gesell perceived that a major issue was that while money was hoarded (i.e. saved) it appreciated, at the expense of the general economy (e.g. recession), where prices fall due to a lack of demand, by a lack of money (which by the "paradox of thrift", in turn, made savings equally worthless). Thus, it is impossible that the value of money can increase proportionally to the economy and so the currency must depreciate, but so long as it depreciates at a rate which is at least equal to the rate of real growth, then it balances itself out, and so money retains its real value, while its nominal value steadily increases.

The conservative hallucination is confusing the nominal for the real, where they think that the depreciation of the dollar is inherently impoverishing, but we can dispell the trouble by an easy example: let's say that the dollar has lost 1,000% its value, since 10 cents used to buy what now costs $1, we must then assume this has happened to all things, including labour. If in the same time, median wages have moved from $1 to $10, then by proportion, the value of commodities is not at all affected by the depreciation of currency, since the real difference is still 1:1. What Marx then calls "exchange-value" we may call the "real price" of things, which is measured by adjusting wages to inflation, making the wage the primary determinant of commodity values (since it is the wage which purchases commodities). Complaints about inflation then offer an interesting insight, they are not merely economic illiteracy, they are a form of class war, of savers versus spenders.

The practice of Gesell's Freigeld occured in the village of Wörgl, 1932-33:
<Mayor Michael Unterguggenberger created an emergency program which resulted in a regional “Economic Miracle”. He used free money in accordance with Silvio Gesell’s theory. This regional currency was the first sovereign, democratically legitimized citizen´s money. Its sucess was the rapid circulation and the ability to use it to pay taxes and convert it into national currency. […] During the 13.5 months of the currency experiment, around 100 people were employed, some directly through the construction programs and some in supplier companies. The number of unemployed fell by 16% in Wörgl, while in Austria it rose by 19%. In order to avoid buying the stamps to compensate for the shrinkage, the AB notes are passed on quickly and circulate 9 to 10 times faster than the national currency, the shilling.
https://unterguggenberger.org/the-free-economy-experiment-of-woergl-1932-1933/
The experiment was ultimately terminated by the national government, because it was clearly too competitive against existing options, which required submission to the terms of the system, and those who were the masters of wages and their dispensation. Money then, is not just a tool, but a political device to enforce power. For more information, you can read Keynes' "Tract on Monetary Reform" (1923), who discusses, by illuminating lucidity, the situation, that proportional wealth is directly measured by currency holders, which divides along classes. Thus, Keynes properly calls inflation a "tax"; namely, a tax on labour. Thus, the capitalist state also uses inflation to exploit labour, by not adjusting rates of pay to inflation rates.

I'm proud to produce my second edition of an english translation for Antoine Montchretien's "Treatise on Political Economy" (1615), Book One. This book is known as the text in which the neologism "political economy" was coined, and precedes English writers such as Munn (1640s) and Petty (1662) by decades. I have divided the text into seven parts, with custom paragraphing, since the original transcript, delivered from Marcel Riviére (~1856) is poorly edited.

The term "political economy" to Montchretien refers to the continuity between economics (household management) and politics (which he perceives in opposition to Xenophon and Aristotle), from the same principle of properly organising labour (which he tasks toward politicians and public policy). Much of his focus is also based in protecting national industry against foreign competition, by mercantilist ambitions, especially against the English and Dutch, while also borrowing some of their ideas, like mass factory systems and vocational colleges. He does admit to comparative advantage in some industries however, such as in Spanish sails for ships. There are other parts of his work which are interesting, but not worth divulging at the present. In any case, I have made the study of history more accessible by this labour. 🙂👍

>>2731135
>It's a shame Marx fell for the "scam" too
Marx never fell for it, buddy. He saw that political economy was capitalist apologia. Doesn't "Critique of political economy" say anything to you?

>>2731144
fake smith. smith does not use capital letter

>>2731154
> let's say that the dollar has lost 1,000% its value, since 10 cents used to buy what now costs $1, we must then assume this has happened to all things, including labour.
in real life the prices of different commodities change at different rates, no? I have seen food and fuel get more expensive while phones become less expensive.

>>2731155
wow this place has really hardcore anons compared to 4tard

>>2731435
Marx attributes the market price of commodities being determined by supply and demand - yes or no?
Here is a primary source to help you along:
<the oscillations of market prices, rising now over, sinking now under the value or natural price, depend upon the fluctuations of supply and demand.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch02.htm
>Critique of political economy
What does this mean to you?
>>2731723
>in real life the prices of different commodities change at different rates, no?
Yes, which all relate back to the price of labour.
>I have seen food and fuel get more expensive while phones become less expensive.
The new iPhone is more expensive than the last. But in any case, the depression of the price of goods should be due to rates of supply which exceed the supply of money. If monetary inflation occurs at 5% every year, yet the price of electronics recedes at 5% then the sum must be made that the supply of electronics is at 200% the rate of supply of money, which if the rate of inflation is 2% means that electronics would have to increase their supply at a rate of 4%. A reduction in the cost of production would also be concurrent with increased supply. Other factors which might inflate food prices besides monetary depreciation is "velocity of money", which is the volume of spending within a particular market. For example, in wealthier areas, the same goods as in poor areas may be more expensive. Other factors like rent and transport costs are considered, but even in the same district, some goods sell for higher because more money is present.

Conservatives often invoke this point when they discuss minimum wage, since if the price of labour increases, then the prices of necessaries will increase, which is true, but its about rates. If the median wage increases at 5% per year yet general inflation is at 3% then goods are still more affordable at this margin. The alternative would be an "iron law" which arrested growth for the working class at subsistence levels, since profits would always be primary in considering costs, which is an inadvertent class war discourse the conservative invokes, for if he really believed that wages were not permitted to raise above a minimum standard, then doesn't this say something about the system itself, rather than the quality of labour which workers possess? (especially as he twainfold worships the unearned income of billionaires like Donald Trump). The conservative is doubly contradictory on this point, since they also oppose wage controls by unions, which according to supply and demand, will only cause a margin of unemployment (or else a lack of profits), but unemployment to the conservative ought to be a speculative asset to "job creators" - yet, labour is only received if it is maximally exploitable, that is what is unspoken in this extended narrative. What the conservative is really doing is displaying loyalty to profit. But the larger issue is that he is prescribing ends, rather than describing means. Again, if increasing real wages leads to inflationary spirals, then why would one support capitalism to begin with?

>>2731435
you're right in thinking marx had a critique of political economy. it's important to realize that marx still wanted to develop a scientific understanding of the substance and magnitude of value, and consequently he did not think prices were purely fiction, nor supply and demand. exploitation isn't merely a "scam" but a material condition of the mode of production.

>>2731435
> Doesn't "Critique of political economy" say anything to you?
https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/r.htm#critique
<Critique is the practice of exposing the social basis underlying an argument. Marxist critique is generally immanent critique, that is, critique springing from inside.

<Critique differs from simply countering an argument with a different one or proving it to be wrong, in fact, critique implicitly recognises that the argument it opposes is right, but right in the context of a specific form of social practice which may not be declared.

<Immanent critique accepts the terms of a theory and pursues it thoroughly and consistently until it arrives at contradiction with itself, as must any consistent theory which pretends to be complete. This disclosure of the immanent self-contradiction implicit in a system of ideas opens the way to disclosure of its social basis and interest.

<Critique has its origin with Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason can be said to mark the beginning of modern philosophy. For Kant, Criticism was a “third way” between dogmatism and scepticism. See his Impossibility of a Sceptical Satisfaction of Pure Reason in its Internal Conflicts. Instead of simply considering whether a given statement was true or false, Kant subjected to scrutiny the ‘categories’, the concepts themselves, through which the question was posed. Kant proved that Hume, the proponent of scepticism, was in fact dogmatic, since he denied absolutely, but without proof, the possibility of knowing the cause of things.

<Hegel was the first to develop criticism systematically. Hegel’s critique was based on the understanding that every thought was just one stage in the unfolding of the Absolute Idea; he developed the art of uncovering the internal contradictions within an argument which would lead it, by its own logic, to an opposite position. Hegel saw human history as expressing successive stages in the development of the Idea. Every truth is for Hegel, then, a relative truth, since it expresses one stage in the unfolding of history.

<The Young Hegelians called themselves “Critics”, and Marx ridiculed their criticism in The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism.

<One of the Young Hegelians, Ludwig Feuerbach developed a new approach to criticism which he turned against Hegel. Feuerbach took statements of Hegel and interchanged the subject and object, showing that the sentence made more sense this way. For example, whereas Christianity asserted that the family was an image of the Holy Family, Feuerbach asserted that the Holy Family was an imaginary image of the Earthly family. (See Essence of Christianity.) In his early work, such as Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx uses Feuerbach’s method

<But Marx soon discovered the limitations of Feuerbach’s criticism as a one-sided contemplative materialism.

<Thus, Marx restored a valuable element of Hegel’s critique, in Hegel’s conception of ideas and theories expressing interests in “a particular form of society”. Social relations underlie ideology and provide the key to understanding ideology, but at the same time, ideology provide the clearest possible window into social relations.

<Thus, Marx entitled his magnum opus, Capital: Critique of Political Economy, and in Capital Marx’s aim is to understand the nature of bourgeois society by critique of its expression in the theoretical formulations of the political economists.

"Critique" in its full context is not simple criticism in the colloquial sense.

>>2739199
nice try they are just going to wait 10 replies and say it again lol

correction only works if your opponent isnt knowingly wrong on purpose to confuse people

Fourier (1808) called political economists "charlatans", while Saint-Simon praised them (1817). Owen (1813) is ambivalent, but still retains the Labour Theory of Value, and the Ricardian distinction of vaue from wealth, up til his final texts, as in 1848. Saint-Simon also discusses the relationship between politics and political economy in his 8th "Letter to an American" (1817). He writes:
<political economy is the true and sole foundation of politics
This is equally according to Montchretien (1615). From this, he lists consequent conclusions, such that, since only workers are productive, they should be in charge of government and industry, and if this is the case, there will be no wars, since war is damaging to industry, and industry is progressive of moral development. So then, Saint-Simon appears to justify socialism on the very basis of political economy, not in spite of it. This was equally true of the "Ricardian (Smithian) Socialists" (1816-32) who appealed to the working class by using the Labour Theory of Value to demonstrate legitimacy (Engels also claims in his review of Zur Kritik, that the German proletarian parties were speaeheaded by the literature of political economy). Proudhon also concludes on this point (1847), in seeing that the resolutions to economic "contradiction" is by asserting non-contradiction in its place, as in The Law of Exchanges (A=A), such that the basis of society (mutuality) is the human essence (i.e. liberty, or equality), and so as he furthermore exposits, revolution can only return us to a more primitive state (this eschatology is of course christian in origin). Proudhon in 1848 called Smith one of his "masters". The equivalence of exchange was previously theorised by Owen and Warren, and applied in Utopian Socialism, and explicitly adopted by Marx via "labour certificates". Here, we have the pre-Marxist attitude toward political economy, where we can basically say that Adam Smith might be the principle theorist of modern socialism.

Before Marx's "Zur Kritik" (1859) or "Das Kapital" (1867) was Engels' "Outlines of A Critique of Political Economy" (1843), which Marx develops from in his 1844 Manuscripts, but in reference to this, he also makes exception to Adam Smith (Third Manuscript, Sct. 1) in seeing Smith's "enlightened" political economy, and as being equally in the spirit of Luther, by locating wealth in Man, as his subjective essence (i.e. labour and property) rather than in nature alone. From this basis, Marx develops the concept of Man's social antagonisms, as that being a conflict of labour against itself by different forms. In Sct. 2, Marx defines the contradiction of private property in its developed state as being the precise difference between capital and labour (which Engels in his Critique, also sees; private property as the contradictory basis for which all further contradiction manifests from).

If we may speak of Engels' Critique, we may simplify many points: (i) Liberal economics conserves much of  mercantilism in its theory and practice, (ii) Wealth cannot be measured nationally, e.g. England is both rich and poor (iii) Buyer and Seller exist in antagonism, (iv) The bourgeois abolition of the family, (v) Use-Value and Exchange-Value antagonise each other, (vi) Land is divided between its demand and intensity of yield, (vii) Labour and Capital are artificially separated by different modes of property which mark the distinction, (viii) the form and content of labour is differentiated between its mode in wages, and what remains in capital, (ix) Competition leads to monopoly and vice-versa, (x) Value cannot be reliably measured, since it is always changing with supply and demand, (xi) "People starve from sheer abundance", (xii) Property is set against itself by competition, which breeds monopoly, and so private property abolishes itself by manifesting inequality.

Much of this is later transposed into the Manifesto (1848). Marx of course adds to this in his own way in the 1844 Manuscripts, but only properly returns to Political Economy in 1857, with the Grundrisse; the "groundwork" for his Critique of Political Economy. It has its initial adaptation in his Zur Kritik (1859), while at the same time, Marx is writing the manuscripts for later publishing in the Capital tetraology (he mostly completes these by 1865, from thence writing Capital Vol. 1 in 1867, yet never being able to publish the rest. Capital Vol. 2 was published posthomously in 1885, and Capital Vol. 3 was published in 1894, with Kautsky publishing Theories of Surplus Value around 1910).

On the matter of Marx's "Critique" itself, it is massivsely misunderstood. Marx makes comment here on his previous Critique of Hegel's notion of jurisprudence:
<My inquiry led me to the conclusion that neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended whether by themselves or on the basis of a so-called general development of the human mind, but that on the contrary they originate in the material conditions of life
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm
Engels applies the same application in his review:
<The purpose of a work like the one under review […] is from the beginning designed to give a systematic résumé of the whole complex of political economy and a coherent elaboration of the laws governing bourgeois production and bourgeois exchange. This elaboration is at the same time a comprehensive critique of economic literature, for economists are nothing but interpreters of and apologists for these laws. Hardly any attempt has been made since Hegel’s death to set forth any branch of science in its specific inner coherence […] The working out of the [dialectical] method which underlies Marx’s critique of political economy is, we think, a result hardly less significant than the basic materialist conception Even after the determination of the method, the critique of economics could still be arranged in two ways — historically or logically. […] The logical method of approach was therefore the only suitable one […] economics is not concerned with things but with relations between persons, and in the final analysis between classes […] Although a few economists had an inkling of this connection in isolated instances, Marx was the first to reveal its significance for the entire economy thus making the most difficult problems so simple and clear that even bourgeois economists will now be able to grasp them.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/appx2.htm
From both accounts therefore, Marx's "Critique" appears to simply be grounding political economy in primary causes, which comprises the "science" of the work, in identical fashion as Marx seeking to describe the "laws of motion" of Capital, later on. The method of inquiry is theoretical, or logical, and so attempts to capture the world of political economy into a coherent sequence of immanent contradiction, and unity by higher conception (which has inner necessity by logical development). So then, the "critique" is not some sort of denial of political economy, but is an attempt to totalise it as a "science".

>>2741135
Yes, such are the terms of the "Paradox of Tolerance".

>>2739199
Yes, yes but Marx still quite
literally criticized political economy as a sham, didn't he? He talks about its complete decline after Ricardo
>>2741135
Meds

>>2742998
>he literally criticized political economy as a sham, didn't he?
Did he? You sound unsure.
>He talks about its complete decline after Ricardo
Yes, he discusses the timine here:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm
The period of "classical political economy" (1662-1820) is superseded by a period of "vulgar political economy", ended by the repeal of the corn laws (1820-46), and which then moves to "syncretism", such as in Mill (1848), concurrent with continental revolution. The change in circumstances, Marx explains, is due to the initial contest for power by the bourgeoisie, and finally, their political ascendancy, which betrays the previous discourse by a new-found loyalty to capital. Marx hardly ever criticises classical political economy, because of course, that's where most of his ideas come from. The most he speaks on it is here:
<Classical Political Economy nearly touches the true relation of things, without, however, consciously formulating it. This it cannot, so long as it sticks in its bourgeois skin.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch19.htm
This is only in reference to substituting "labour" for "labour-power". But where does the theory of labour power come from to begin with? We may read:
<One of the oldest economists and most original philosophers of England — Thomas Hobbes — has already, in his Leviathan, instinctively hit upon this point overlooked by all his successors. He says: “the value or worth of a man is, as in all other things, his price: that is so much as would be given for the use of his power.” Proceeding from this basis, we shall be able to determine the value of labour as that of all other commodities.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch02.htm
So then, the classical economists merely "overlook" Hobbes (1651), but as yet, retain his meaning, elsewise it could not be so said by Marx and Engels, that Adam Smith (1776) discovered the source of surplus value:
<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
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch00.htm#1885
Engels also spares us the time of Marx's Chapter on Smith in Theories of Surplus Value (1863) by speaking on Marx's only real difference from Smith on this topic:
<Marx’s surplus-value, on the contrary, represents the general form of the sum of values appropriated [as opposed to their particular forms; i.e. profit, rent, etc.]
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch00.htm#1885
So in each case, the real difference is really very slight, which shouldn't be surprising, since Marx himself admitted to sit on the shoulders of giants.

The first labour law in England was the "Ordinance of Labourers" (1349), which compelled all people below 60 to work, it set a maximum wage of £2/y and a net work day of around 10 hours. This was then strengthened by "The Statute of Labourers" (1351) which had its means to regulate wages from the increasing real wages seen in the market, due to the demand for labour, incurred by the plague. Thus, the state saw to arrest the labour market by setting the price of labour directly, as well as increasing the supply of labour by compulsion. Despite this, wages tended to increase throughout the 14th century, and had doubled by the beginning of the 15th.

By this time, the guilds had largely managed urban affairs, where trades and craft where based, with members having mutual protections, as opposed to the population of the country, whose agricultural labour was based in serfdom or slavery. We can read guild law codes, such as the Carta Di Bologna (1264) or Les Règlements de Londres pour les Maçons (1356), which set up systems of apprenticeship, fair pay and the like.

We see the overhaul of local guild powers in the "Statute of Artificers" (1562) which sought to regulate wages and movement for the workers in cities, by placing powers over guilds in their admission of apprentices, effectively de-skilling labour, while at once limiting wages, even imprisoning those employers who agreed to pay workers more than what was permitted. Some base this shift in the idea that by this time, labour had greater imperative in the country than the towns, by a focus on agricultural exports than local crafts, as per the mercantilist swoon of early capitalism, eventually culminating in the East India Company (1600 CE).

If we track this from the tendency of primitive accumulation to dispossess peasant farmers by landed gentry, then we see how a focus on the country brings the original momentum for capital, while the town or city becomes central with later industrialisation in the 18th and 19th century, by which time, the bourgeoisie (burghers; city-dwellers) ascend in political prominance, while the country and village declines. At once however, the country becomes depopulated of labourers as they centralise into cities, while the aristocracy dwells in the greenery. Marx discusses this in the union Britain makes with Ireland (1801), that the British lords expel the Irish country into English cities, as they appropriate the land for themselves. We can see in romantic poetry like William Blake's Jerusalem, an appraisal of the "green and pleasant land" of England, against "Satanic Mills".

In reading the mercantilists, I stumbled upon Josiah Child's discussions on the rate of interest (1668):
<the Low Interest in Holland, proceeds from their abundance of money
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A32837.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
This interested me because of what Smith wrote, that the rate of profit cannot be uniformly measured, but must proceed from the rate of interest, which by its market rate, tracks spending, which Smith claims has been increasing in England since Henry VIII (Holland having an abundance of money in circulation and having low interest rates would then be concurrent). In looking for more material, I then found Marx discussing Child:
<During the entire 18th century there is the cry, with Holland referred to as an example, for a compulsory reduction of the rate of interest (and legislation acts accordingly), in order to subordinate interest-bearing capital to commercial and industrial capital, instead of the reverse. The main spokesman for this movement is Sir Josiah Child, the father of ordinary English private banking.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm
This is quite right, as we may read directly (1668):
<It being the necessary and never-failing consequence of a high Interest all the World over, to enrich a very few, and impoverish all the rest of the Nation
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A32837.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Child further speaks on the fact that the Dutch owe their riches to the purposeful reduction of the rate of interest in borrowing money. Marx quotes an obscure passage from an unknown source which aligns with previous comments from Child, that the lowering of interest (that is, of making borrowing money easier) often acts as a cause, not an effect, of wealth, by increasing commerce. Marx then sees this transition of banking from the point of usury to productive investment as the pivot by which industrial capital gets a stronghold, especially through central banking (central banking as an institution beginning in Sweden, 1668, later being adapted by the English in 1694):
<This violent battle against usury, this demand for the subordination of interest-bearing capital to industrial capital, is but the herald of the organic creations that establish these prerequisites of capitalist production in the modern banking system, which on the one hand robs usurer's capital of its monopoly by concentrating all idle money reserves and throwing them on the money market, and on the other hand limits the monopoly of the precious metal itself by creating credit-money.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm

Child himself also proposed a "poor relief" program in 1670:
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A32836.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Which amounts to an agenda to achieve full employment (this program was also on the mind of Montchretien in 1615), to resist a tendency of crime or vagrancy in the lower classes. He looks at other places, such as Holland and Paris as examples of this working. The Tudors from the period of 1530 to 1601 had previously attempted to manage the newly-created paupery spawned from capitalist conditions, initiated under Henry VII (1485-1509), which had unleashed masses of unemployed persons, compelled to work for wages. The creation of "poor laws" then necessitates the existence of a mass of poor people, which had not existed before this period in English history. Laws which criminalised begging also emerged from 1494 onwards. Along with this basic question of how to facilitate the non-working poor where also more "progressive" elements, such as in John Bellers' work (1695):
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A27366.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Which can be seen to precede Robert Owen's vision.

I was listening to this extremely weak criticism against Josiah Child written by Murray Rothbard:
https://mises.org/podcasts/audio-mises-daily/sir-josiah-child-false-friend-freedom
Which is continuous of his primary arguments in "The History of Economic Thought"; that the detestment of usury from the time of the Ancients is a false consciousness, since according to the Austrian Theory (Since the time of Bawerk in 1884, since I recall Menger making a contrary argument to this), usury is justified under the pretence of time-preference - which then later becomes standardised as the justification for capitalist profit by people like Hoppe. Aristotle calls usury "unnatural", Aquinas calls it a "double payment" and Child sees it as artificially uncompetitive. Of course, the Bank of England is a perfect invention after this dispute, since it allows credit to be (theoretically) issued in the national interest, rather than the private interest of bankers, which Rothbard presumes to be superior, or at least primary, to collective claims. Of course (which then also justifies loan sharking under the same pretext). A free market of banking has never been sufficiently advanced as a working theory anyway, so we can only speculate as to what Rothbard ultimately desires. Even a neo-mercantilist like Yarvin has an unfounded disdain for regulating interest rates. I guess he is not as "post" libertarian as he wants to be…

Chapter 21 of John Bates Clark's "Distribution of Wealth" (1899) concerns "The Theory of Economic Causation", which chiefly discusses the "exploitation" of labour, but we may read preliminary comments in Chapter 12: "Labor, like commodities, is subject to a law of marginal appraisal. The rate that the market puts on the final unit of the supply of each of them, it puts on the entire supply. As the last unit of consumers' goods is a price-making one, so the last unit of labor is the one that fixes wages."

To Clark, following from the theory of "final utility" by Von Thünen (1823), wages receive a diminishing return by incriment of employment, meaning that the more people who are employed by a (fixed) quantity of capital, the less that each will recieve by additional units of labour. This is a macroeconomic argument which advances from Jevons' (1871) prior argument of the marginal product of labour equating with wages; i.e. the longer one works, the less he receives per unit of labour, which is the same as Marx's argument regarding the length of the working day. Equally, the marginal product of labour is counterbalanced by its total product, demonstrating the deficit between wages and profits.

Like Jevons, Clark places the rate of wages at (M0; or in this case, C), which is the threshold of negative marginal returns, fixing the value of labour. To Clark then, wages are fixed at the level of subsistence, based on the optimal rate of employment per capital, which diminishes the marginal product of labour down to its basic rate of return.

He speaks of the first incriments of labour in production as being more productive than the next, seemingly proving a state of exploitation between (L¹) and (L²). He writes that (L¹) is "over-saturated" with capital, which raises its price, by a transfer of capital's product into labour, while what is given by additional labour (L²) is a lesser product, but, only by a diminished share in capital. Thus, Clark sees that the source of productivity is not in labour, but in capital, which enhances labour. He draws up a basic sum to demonstrate the point: let (C) be Capital and (L) be Labour. A marginal product is then made by a sum of (C+L), but with each addition of (L), the more that (C) must be shared among (L).

Thus, he writes: (C+2L)/2. So then, Clark bases the diminishing marginal product by additional labour on the increasing share of capital amongst labourers, which divides capital further, until at M0, only the product of labour remains. If we follow the sum, we see that L retains its constant magnitude, while C declines with each addition of L (e.g. C/Lª) - this reverses the Marxian argument, which sees the declining value of commodities due to a declining content of variable capital compared to constant capital (e.g. v/cª). This he adds, expresses the standard of wages, proving that the rate of wages is determined by marginal productivity and employment, not the total product of labour, which as previously discussed, is inverse to its margin.

This then implies that the rate of wages is composite to the transfer of capital into labour, making higher wages a form of exploitation against capital, since it combines its final product with itself. What is at least theoretically important in this observation is the acknowledgement that profits are entirely relative to wages, and thus inversely proportional as revenues. Jevons also sees this by highlighting higher wages as shortening the working day, thus lowering the total product of labour.

On profit in particular, Clark takes a mercantilist view that equilibrium of supply and demand annihilates profits (Ch. 12), and so the entrepeneur can only pay out wages and interest in production, while net profits can only be made by selling products higher than what they cost. This view then dispells any notion of surplus labour, yet Clark does speak of a natural surplus of consumption compared to production in Chapter 24, showing a difference between "effective utility" and "absolute (utility)" in production, measured by inputs and outputs (what can be compared to MP and TP).

In the same chapter, he also properly invokes cost as disutility, but fails in equating the value of cost to utility, since even Jevons speaks of the validity of Smith's "paradox of value". Similarly, Clark sees that bread and butter are more important things than diamonds, yet attempts to equate them by "effective utility" in cost, thus invoking a labour theory of value of sorts (where to Jevons, labour is measured by disutility, or subjective deficit). This is what he writes: "Price is, then, an indication of the social cost of acquisition of different commodities." In Chapter 25, Clark further writes that in equilibrium, commodities sell at their cost of production.

The product must be greater, however, since otherwise one could not make things greater by their usefulness, but only equal to suffering. So then, the difference between (effective) utility and (absolute) utility must represent profitability (where to Marx, surplus value is also a result of surplus utility; e.g. labour-power's use-value extends beyond its exchange-value). If we gladly measure effective utility against absolute utility then, we see that as absolute utility increases, effective utility must decrease, making production cheaper as prices become lower by increased efficiency. The only issue is the simultaneous cheapening of labour, which makes production inefficient, by raising real prices, and so shrinking markets. This then introduces a dilemma for the utilitarian; where as Jevons has precedence, they must promote the propensity of public consumption over the private interests of profiteers and monopolists, whose ends are based in the inefficiency of production, which in this view, is simply an aspect of consumption.

The issue with Clark's view then appears to be that he fails to perceive the Smithian insight that the "net profit" of the entrepeneur in sale can be achieved at equilibrium, by selling the surplus product at its value, rather than above its value; i.e. Clark supposes the natural value of production to be (c+v), not (c+v+s). Clark presumes (s) to only be a result of disequilibrium, which is more in line with the Austrian school than Jevons. Once it is accepted that this is the case, then we can also see how wages are undervalued by the deficit between efficient utility and absolute utility, and thus, the difference between the marginal and total product, which separates at the threshold of diminishing returns for labour. To conclude, we may read Clark's comments in Chapter 1: "The indictment that hangs over society is that of "exploiting labor." "Workmen" it is said, "are regularly robbed of what they produce. This is done within the forms of law, and by the natural working of competition." If this charge were proved, every right-minded man should become a socialist; and his zeal in transforming the industrial system would then measure and express his sense of justice."

If supply and demand aint real how come the price of oil is increasing after Iran war?

>people are now ignoring adam smith anon
a shame

>>2752815
>If supply and demand aint real how come the price of oil is increasing after Iran war?
it's real, if the guy in the OP video weren't vulgarizing the subject matter, he would elaborate on the way a commodity's supply can be made artificially expensive through various means. It is less that supply and demand are a "scam" and more that price is manipulable through the monetary system, especially in a place like the USA
>>2752914
I read the thread but don't always have things to add.

>>2752914
He won then

>>2752950
Why do they have to manipulate anything? Cant they just declare that a commodity x now costs y dollas?

>>2753015
As I discuss here: >>2726944
Effective supply can be artificially constricted, but only where there is a lack of sufficient competition, since a state of "perfect competition" lowers prices down to the cost of production, by raising effective supply to meet demand. What can limit competition can be regulations like intellectual property which create monopolies of a particular brand for goods and services. Distributors even base their operations on certain contracts that control for the products they deal with. For example, brand deals like Coke or Pepsi limit their usage in different businesses. Coke is partnered with McDonalds while Pepsi is partnered with KFC. In a theoretically "free" market, Coke would not have Intellectual Property rights over their recipe, and so KFC could partner with a Coke clone, effecting competition to the ends of cheaper prices. A big component of this is in technology and engineering, which are patented to stop competition from effecting an alternative. Certain technologies also make operating systems exclusive, by software and hardware monopoly, like Apple. Intellectual Property itself is an 18th century legal fiction (e.g. "The Statute of Anne", 1710), although it has a certain precedence in the 1611 "authorised" KJV, which limited distribution based on "crown copyright" publishers and printers; its currently illegal to copy and sell the KJV by an unauthorised publisher in the UK.

So, "manipulation" is a way that merchants constrict the market to gain a profit in the mercantile sense, rather than the "liberal" sense of perfect competition. Since the early 20th century, it has been a Keynesian truism that the market effectively operates at imperfect competition, which is why meeting effective supply by raising effective demand is universally adopted. Some ctitics say that deregulating protections for capital will balance markets more effectively, creating bipartisan efforts on the left and right to abolish IP, for example. If there were no patents, for example, then certain reciprocal trade deals which compromise technological development wouldn't have to occur. But this is the Marxist truth of the situation, that profits are at odds with productivity, so capitalists will prefer to regress development than to advance it beyond a threshold, which makes prices so low that profit is erased. Of course, we see a new leftist support for patent protections over artistic works, seeing the freedom of information as endangering to public morality.

Here, I have constructed two english translations for very important works of 17th century French political economy. First is Antoine Montchretien's "Treatise of Political Economy" (1615), from whence the neologism of "political economy" arises. The second translation is Boisguilbert's "Detail of France" (1695); the expanded second edition of 1707, which includes other works, including his "Factum" (1706) and "Dissertation" (1707). This work is also where Marx sees classical political economy begin in France, historically developing from the earlier work of William Petty (1662).

On a larger point of 17th century political economy, I will make general comment regarding the turn to free trade, from the writings of William Potter (1651), to Josiah Child (1668) and John Law (1705), who all advocated for the lowering of interest to expand the supply of money. Boisguilbert is equally seen as advancing the laissez-faire tradition, contrary to thinkers of the early 17th century like Montchretien, who guards trade in the typical mercantilist fashion, as a weapon to use against foreigners, rather than a source of mutual benefit - such as we see develop in the second half of the 18th century, particularly with Adam Smith (1776). So then, these texts are important in showing the difference between the attitudes of the century, earlier and later.

>>2752914
its not relevant at all. im glad people are ignoring him i only wish he would fuck off and stay gone

>>2753442
>relevance
The thread is about political economy, sir.
Please don't browse places you find personally uninteresting, rather than impressing your flippant opinions upon the subject matter. If you wish to contribute to discussion, however, I certainly expect less emotional disturbance than what is currently given, especially concerning a parasocial relationship. Now that this has been clarified, try to stay on topic. ☺️

For any lingering dissatisfaction, I suggest therapy, or at least a healthy sense of prioritisation.

>>2753478
>The thread is about political economy, sir.
dont post about alchemy in the chemistry thread

>>2753549
Do you have anything to contribute?

>>2753553
this site is anon, if i did or did not you would not know either way

>>2753558
So, no.
Please remain relevant to the thread, thank you.

I have translated 3 Latin texts which concern the topic of money, namely "A Letter on Credit Sales and Usury", by Thomas Aquinas (1262), "De Usuris", by Giles of Lessinus (1278) and "The Method of Minting Coins", by Nicolaus Copernicus (1526). The first is very interesting in light of Aquinas' later writings on usury (t. "Summa Theologica, II-II, Q.77-78", 1274 CE), but also where it concerns contemporary theories of interest, which if we read Irving Fisher (1912-30), he attributes the rate of interest to "time-preference" or "impatience" (what he credits Bohm-Bawerk as seeing in the "undervaluation" of future goods). Aquinas similarly bases interest in the sale of "time" itself, but as an act which he considers as usurious, or incurring an unjust price to loans by creditors. In the Summa, he elaborates that what is sold by interest is a "double payment" for the use of something, and thus, what is sold above value is insubstantial (the letter helps us connect the insubstantial cause to temporality). De Usuris (1278) is said to be the earliest economic treatise on a particular topic (usury), spanning 21 chapters, and what of course, is deemed immoral. Giles similarly connects the surplus of usury to time in chapter 4, showing a continuous conception. In Copernicus' work, we see an early example of both Gresham's Law of monetary debasement, and a quantity theory of money also, which links monetary supply to rates of circulation and productivity. In the end, he sees that the state should fix the value of coin at 20:1 per pound of silver, inflating the contemporary rate of 12:1, but adding that custom will abide by this adjustment, which he also concludes, is an ancient practice. Another manuscript of this century, John Hales' "Discourse" (1551) discusses the value of money - we see later of course, the enthusiasm of commerce into the mid-17th century, following William Potter (1650), for credit money to rapidly circulate at the discount of "usurious" bankers. Aiding this plea comes the creation of central banks (initially theorised by Potter's "land bank" and Child in 1668, who wanted to pledge land as a security for public credit).

>>2753478
>The thread is about political economy
This thread is actually about pseuds jerking off to paragraphs on books and a nitpicking that rivals Jordan Peterson

>>2753596
criticizing someone for inane ramblings is very relevant to the thread, since it has been the main topic ever since he took over by force.

>>2753011
sustained willpower of ignorance is not winning. opponents giving up because you are incapable of learning or understanding is not winning.

>>2753599
Are you translating texts that were previously untranslatedi nto english, or are these just your own personal efforts at translating something for the sake of translating it? did you use AI or learn the language first?

>>2753549
>dont post about alchemy in the chemistry thread
the history of chemistry and the pseudoscience it emerged from from is part of understanding chemistry. also that today's scientific paradigms might be tomorrow's pseudoscience.

>>2753599
interest is just hedging against inflation. the natural rate of interest is the rate of inflation. if you give a guy 8 bucks at 0%, and he gives you 8 bucks back a week later, you lost money, that's cuck behavior. the money literally inflated a little bit in that 1 week. you gotta find out how many cents it inflated and charge him that interest

>>2753232
How does this explain oil getting expensive?

>>2753623
If you don't like citations from the work of political economy, don't enter the thread on political economy. 🤷‍♂️
>>2753749
You are the only person inanely rambling.
Please desist and be relevant. Thank you.

>>2754156
These texts were previously untranslated for public access.
I'm also currently transcribing and translating political texts, such as "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" (1707) and Quesnay's "Despotisme De La China" (1767), since Vincent de Gournay supposedly traces back his popularisation of the term "laissez-faire" from Quesnay's writings on China, with "laissez-faire" being a translation of "Wu-Wei" (the taoist principle of active passivity). I noticed in reading Rousseau's "Discourse on Political Economy" (1755) that he often praises China (particularly for their sales tax), so it must have been a contemporary fascination of the French Enlightenment to look eastwards. In Rousseau's "Social Contract" (1762) he also defines a Republic as being able to consist of a monarchy, so I wonder if Quesnay also justifies the "despotism" of China in a similar manner (which I suppose he will, given his first "maxim", concerning the "unity of authority"). Don't forget also that Lao Tzu promoted state dictatorship; but under the rule of a wise emporer, the people are imagined to rule themselves (this is the same idea which Plato has in his text "statesman", which introduces the "forms" of government we see in ancient political science, from Aristotle, to the "anacyclosis" of Polybius). I'm using google translate to convert them into english, and OCR to extract some texts from PDFs.

>>2754481
> "laissez-faire" being a translation of "Wu-Wei" (the taoist principle of active passivity)
wow, lol
> it must have been a contemporary fascination of the French Enlightenment to look eastwards.
the more things change the more they stay the same, eh?
>I'm using google translate to convert them into english, and OCR to extract some texts from PDFs.
are you worried about things being lost in translation? I have read many translators' prefaces in books, and they can get very touchy about this stuff.

>>2754508
I'm an autodidact, not a scholar, so i bear no ultimate responsibility, especially if I'm the one primarily affected by these readings. In any case, something is better than nothing.
>>2754354
Prices are determined by effective supply and demand (Adam Smith uses the term "effectual" to distinguish existing goods from goods which are on the market, so you can have an existing supply which is ineffective, the same way ineffective demand is desire without available money). So, oil prices are higher because there is less effective supply, or available oil on the market, as it was initially deduced. Supply and demand is a law; even Marx agrees, which is why its criticism is oblivious. But lets say that its all made-up; why cant I sell a chocolate bar for £1,000,000 and become rich? We see then, that in markets, competition decides.
>>2754159
Adam Smith writes that the natural rate of interest is related to market activity, where he sees that the rate of profit and wages is also concurrent with it:
<According, therefore, as the usual market rate of interest varies in any country, we may be assured that the ordinary profits of stock must vary with it, must sink as it sinks, and rise as it rises. The progress of interest, therefore, may lead us to form some notion of the progress of profit […] Since the time of Henry VIII the wealth and revenue of the country have been continually advancing, and, in the course of their progress, their pace seems rather to have been gradually accelerated than retarded. They seem not only to have been going on, but to have been going on faster and faster. The wages of labour have been continually increasing during the same period, and in the greater part of the different branches of trade and manufactures the profits of stock have been diminishing. […] the diminution of profit is the natural effect of [.] prosperity […] As riches, improvement, and population have increased, interest has declined
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch09.htm
He compares England against other nations, such as Holland, Scotland and France, seeing that the difference in the market rate tracks the prosperity of the country (the same as Josiah Child saw in Holland, that its rate of interest was lower, and therefore it had more money - but not so much that money was produced beyond its real product). So then, national rates of interest we can relate to economic activity in general. If we compare international rates of interest, we see this:
https://www.voronoiapp.com/economy/Real-Interest-Rates-by-Country-in-2025-4920
Which generally tracks real interest rates from poorest to richest countries, but its not an exact science.

As a macroeconimic addendum, we can see Smith base the rate of interest and profit with rates of production, where he attributes lower rates of profit due to higher investment in capital (which theoretically raise the demand for labour). We can then formulate a sum between real capital raising real production, causing a decline in the rate of interest, expanding the money supply. He thus implies that this extra money which circulates enters into the new wages of labour (the cycle he portrays is the same as Marx's; that the demand for labour raises wages, the rise of wages produces more labour, and more labour reduces wages). He thus places the agency of interest (saving/spending) in capital investment (what Marx would characterise as a superior form of saving, where money multiplies itself in an active hoard; M-M'). So then, capital investment is a form of saving, which allows a greater threshold of borrowing, to circulate the real product. As capital intensifies, interest is lowered and money multiplies. We can then understand interest in these Smithian terms, between what is saved by capital and spent by labour.

This can be related to the later Austrian notion of temporal valuation in production from the time of Menger (1871), that capitalisation means investing money into the production of future goods (as opposed to immediate consumption). Thus, all capitalist production is a means of converting present value into future value, which has the same prospectivity as saving, while consumption is a means of spending. So then, in a commonsense manner, wherever money is spent, it cannot be saved so as to be productive. So then, capital investment is a form of saving, which allows for greater spending, as a corresponding effect. If interest balances spending and saving, then more saving requires equal spending, otherwise there will be recession, and this will cause a "paradox of thrift". If we take time-preference as a cause of interest rates, then we see that investment represents a valuation in future goods, while spending is the valuation of present goods, which are balanced, while if spending outpaces production, interest rates will rise due to "bad credit" in the population, as a means to manage money supply.

The Keynesian theory of liquidity-preference is an aspect of time-preference, which assesses the dynamics of saving and spending according to demand for cash at the intersection of the rate of interest. When the rate of interest is high, it gives incentive for saving, but when it is low, the demand for money increases, because it is cheaper. Your remark that "the natural rate of interest is the rate of inflation" is close to this, except that the causation is unstated. To Keynes, the rate of inflation is determined by the rate of interest, which can be controlled by the central bank from the supply of money. Keynes also relates investment to interest, seeing that the "marginal efficiency of capital" (MEC) can be pushed to the rate of interest, which if we follow "Keynes' Law" of the market, leads with demand, which causes an increase in supply. Overstepping this bound can then lead to oversupply, and so Keynes sees the rate of interest (which regulates money supply) as the limit of economic activity - the same as Smith and Child, but by alternative explanations. The rate of interest then, according to many, is a macroeconomic centrality.

>>2754481
>These texts were previously untranslated for public access.
i wonder why? thanks for being chatgpt no one else could have done it!

>>2754640
Many important texts are currently unavailable or untranslated, such as William Potter's "Key of Wealth" (1650), Von Thünen's "Isolated State" (1826) and Gossen's "Laws of Human Relations" (1854). Von Thünen elaborated a marginal theory of "natural wages" (continued into Clark, 1899 - who I have reviewed). Clark contends that "exploitation" exists in Von Thünen's theory, so I would have liked to read it directly, except that it is all in German. Gossen is also credited as the founder of marginal utility theory by Jevons, yet its hard enough to even find the German copy of his work. Free PDF websites are being completely scrubbed from the internet, forcing people to have to buy books rather than read them for free. We know that they're trying to end the internet archive, and even wikipedia is suffering. Copyright and monopoly is killing the net; even Marxists.org is losing pages due to claims from sources like MECW. I have been searching for a page on Marxists.org of Marx discussing Boisguilbert, but even this seems to be deleted, for whatever reason (and this is important, since Marx is the inventor of the neologism "classical political economy", as cited by Keynes, yet future archivists can only rely on secondary sources, the same way Montchretien's "Treatise" is the neologistic foundation of the entire school of thought, yet is relegated to obscurity - its totally inefficient and corrupt). The digital Library of Alexandria is being looted and set alight piece by piece as bandwidth is increasingly privatised. This is the true contradiction of the age, and one which strikes between quality and quantity. But maybe people just don't give a shit about these intellectual traditions; maybe I'm just an autist. Even so, this should make these fields unregulated, not crippled by restriction. The internet is getting worse; it is no longer an opem market.

>>2754692
>Many important texts are currently unavailable or untranslated
wow are you gonna do those too? how do you manage to have the time to post and also translate? your so cool smith-kun!

do you post these anywhere else or just on leftypol? you should share your hard work with all of humanity. in fact people should pay you for it

>>2754692
>Free PDF websites are being completely scrubbed from the internet, forcing people to have to buy books rather than read them for free
ironic since the capitalists already used those same PDFs to provide training data to their large language models. only they are allowed to use free knowledge, it seems. meanwhile most people neither know nor care. they hit you with the vid related reaction if you even bring it up.

>>2754707
In the last thread, I've shown how many pre-modern class societies have been understood as monopolising knowledge (which itself is in some way an esoteric structure of demand). Hindu brahmin for example, were instructed to torture any labourer to death who would happen to read the holy books (like how the Latin Vulgate monopolised Bible reading in the middle ages, and all translators were called heretics, like John Wycliffe - The Catholic Church of course, being The Beast). I relate this ultimately back to James Frazer's anthropology, where he writes that the original kings of men were also priests, with this division of labour beginning with the downfall of magical communities.
>>2754707
I just post here. It suffices.
In terms of archiving, I already perceive Ragnarok; I cannot revive the dead language of these hieroglyphs. I only strive for a selfish satisfaction, to comprehend a canon; to construct a history of thought which has limited utility. What does bother me however are the Marxist pharisees who believe but do not really know; like followers of LaFargue, to whom Marx replied "I am not a Marxist". What then is this Star of Remphan? If one seeks to know, then know - and know how to know. If Marx was so brilliant, and he read all these figures, then why not follow in the footsteps of the great man? So then, I only grow weary of hypocrisy, not ignorance as such.

Cont. from:
>>2754159
>>2754569

To speak further on the natural rate of interest, we may look at comments made in the 17th century. First is the writings of William Potter, who in his "Humble Proposals" (1651) suggests an increase in the circulation of trade by low-interest currency; presenting a demand-side economics by which he asks to "advance trade, employ the poor, diminish interest, improve public revenues; and prevent the cruelty of creditors, and the injustice of debtors." So then, a greater supply of money corresponds to a lesser rate of interest, but in this case, established by law, not by nature. Next is Josiah Child and his "Brief Observations…" (1668) in which he takes the same position, of seeking to set the rate of interest by law rather than by custom, as he writes directly:
<To illustrate this, let us impartially search our Books, and enquire what the State and condition of this Kingdom was, as to Trade and Riches, before any Law concerning Interest of Money was made. The first whereof that I can find, was Ann 1545, and we shall be Informed that the Trade of England then was Inconsiderable, and the Merchants very mean and few: And that afterwards, viz, Anno. 1635 with ten Years after Interest was brought down to eight per cent there was more Merchants to be found upon the Exchange worth each One thousand Pounds and upwards, then were in the former dayes, viz. before the year 1600 to be found worth One hundred Pounds each.
Thus, Child states very directly that under conditions of the free market, trade moves slower than when it is stimulated into action (since credit is more cautious and self-interested), which he gives by empirical example. For context, the rate of interest was legally adjusted from 10 percent to 8 percent in 1623, and from 8 percent to 6 percent in 1660. Child's desire is for the rate to be lowered to 3 percent, since he sees this as a cause of prosperity by an increase in money for trade. In his "Short Addition" (1670) to the work, he adds that Holland's rate of interest is given by laws, not markets, since they have followed England (this is later repeated by Locke in 1691, who still contends that a natural, or market rate of interest exists alongside its legal rate).

Following from this is the supply-side argument, which puts emphasis on a natual rate. First is William Petty (1690) in "Political Arithmetic", Chapter 6:
<But the natural fall of Interest, is the effect of the increase of Money […] Moreover if rented Lands, and Houses, have increased; and if Trade hath increased also, it is certain that money which payeth those Rents, and driveth on Trade, must have increased also.
To provide a basic theory of this is to say that where there is more money, there is more competition between borrowers, and so the rate of interest reaches its natural or competitive rate, at the rate of available spending, which as Petty adds, is determined by real productivity, measured by trade. We can see the same conclusions made by Locke, in his "Considerations…" (1691):
<Interest […] is low in Holland: but it is so, not as an effect of law, or the politic contrivance of the government, to promote trade: but as the consequence of great plenty of ready money, when their interest first fell.
So then, Locke equally sees the supply of money as the cause of the rate of interest, but with the supply of money being caused by real production, in trade, which is a contrary view to Child's demand-side economics.

Moving into the 18th century, we can read from George Berkley (1735) in the "Querist", Part II, Q.12:
<Whether a national bank would not at once secure our properties, put an end to usury, facilitate commerce, supply the want of coin, and produce ready payments in all parts of the kingdom?
This again links the rate of interest (e.g. usury) to the supply of money, where if there is a greater supply, the rate of interest will be lower. Continuing into Joseph Massie and his "Natural Rate of Interest" (1750), we see that he qualifies a "natural rate", not simply by supply, but by demand (pp. 20-21), seeing how an increase in the supply of money at one time by excessive demand can raise the rate of interest. He says therefore that fluctuations in the rate of interest are determined by rate of demand for money, but at a natural rate, supply meets demand. Thus, the natural rate the supply of money in equilibrium with demand. Following from Locke's argument as to interest being a measure of trade capacity, Massie disputes this (pp. 43-44) by comparing historical prices to a proportionate rate of interest, showing that if prices, money supply and rate of interest were all proportional, then the rate of interest ought to be regressively exponential, but this is not the case. Massie then makes his conclusion (pg. 48), that borrowing is for the ends of profit, and so interest must share in the profits of borrowing. Thus, it is the rate of profit which sets the natural rate of interest. This rate of profit he relates to competition amongst traders, of which Holland has most, then England, and so on. He also adds (pg. 54) that profit may be in line with industriousness, which he defines as a capacity to invest in the future (e.g. Menger, 1871). Capital investment then, he defines as prospectivity.

Repeating my earlier citations on interest, we may return to Smith in light of his predecessors, showing that the man did not fabulate theories out of thin air. To begin then, with The Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 9:
<According, therefore, as the usual market rate of interest varies in any country, we may be assured that the ordinary profits of stock must vary with it, must sink as it sinks, and rise as it rises. The progress of interest, therefore, may lead us to form some notion of the progress of profit […] The wages of labour have been continually increasing during the same period, and in the greater part of the different branches of trade and manufactures the profits of stock have been diminishing
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch09.htm
Here, Smith relates to Massie's point, that interest and profits are interlinked phenomena, which as time goes on and productivity increases, each are lowered. Smith similarly attributes rates of profit and wages (as inverse proportions) to competition. My added perspective of capital counting as a form of saving should also be considered, since this balances the national account between assets and liabilities. Proof enough is in how spending must be regulated by real production.

So then, what are we to conclude? We must first see that there is a contradiction between natural and legal rates of interest. Child does not deny a natural rate, but only sees that it is ineffectual to the ends of trade. Equally, Potter assumes that an increase in currency will increase productivity. Petty and Locke give primacy to the natural rate, which they see deriving from an increase in productivity, and thus the legal rate simply follows the natural rate. Massie agrees, but qualifies this by the rate of profit and competition as the primary cause. In Smith, we see that the rate of interest is basically identical to the rate of profit, which is determined not simply by competition, but the rate of capital investment, with larger capital stocks lowering interest. Here, capital acts as a form of prospectivity, which links to time-preferential theories by a sense of delayed gratification that adds value by futurity. Here, productivity is basically understood as a capacity to invest in capital, with spending being its counteractivity, through a national accounting of assets and liabilities. Keynes adapts this by identifying the threshold of capital investment (MEC) at the rate of interest, limited to liquidity-preference, or the demand for money. Thus, money (circulating capital) is balanced by fixed capital. This then completes the macroeconomic imago mundi.

For a Marxian addition, we can read from Capital Vol. 3:
<Since we have seen that the rate of profit is inversely proportional to the development of capitalist production, it follows that the higher or lower rate of interest in a country is in the same inverse proportion to the degree of industrial development, at least in so far as the difference in the rate of interest actually expresses the difference in the rates of profit […] In any event the average rate of profit is to be regarded as the ultimate determinant of the maximum limit of interest […] the general rate of profit appears as an empirical, given reality in the average rate of interest
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch22.htm
So then, Marx is in agreement; that the rate of interest is regulated by the rate of profit, which is proportional to the investment of fixed capital (i.e. productivity). He does show concern however, that the rate of interest on credit has a pre-capitalist existence, and so cannot be explained merely on the basis of capitalist relations, even if it inhabits a capitalist character. Marx distinguishes between profit and usury more clearly in Chapter 36, where as a precapitalist form of surplus, it is a drain on production by promoting consumption:
<Usurer's capital employs the method of exploitation characteristic of capital yet without the latter's mode of production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm
In the same chapter, Marx references Josiah Child, seeing the mid-17th century as pivotal in advancing from usurer's capital to industrial capital. Of course, this is initially performed by legal controls over interest, but later, the market is seen to decide its rate. Marx quotes Gilbart and his History of Banking in this regard:
<In our times, it is the rate of profit which regulates the rate of interest. In those times, it was the rate of interest which regulated the rate of profit.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm
So then, interest is relative to perspective, but in any case, it is symptomatic of exploitative relationships - the lender and the borrower; the creditor and debtor.

>>2754774
everyone on this board except you is more interested in geopolitics or national politics it seems. I come to this thread for the political economy stuff even though it's mostly you blogging. I like it. I don't have time to do the stuff you do. I have a kid.

>>2755315
I have no complaints against disinterest; its only unfounded prejuduce which is irksome. I exist to bore by scholastic erudition upon this dead science - but as I say, do not dress up Marx as a demystifier, as though the work of political economy is best undone. I only seek to know so that I may escape from my duty to know, and move on to better things. Political Economy is a closed concept; its just about formalising it into shapes and numbers, so that it may be left aside. Politics is the same, of course. All ideas are settled.
>The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
<Ecclesiastes 1:9

Materialist explanation for oil getting expensive?

>>2755328
>unfounded prejuduce
if only that were the case
>All ideas are settled.
in your dreams

>>2755338
High demand, Low supply.
>>2755412
>if only that were the case
A prejudgement is a case where a judgement is made of something before the person who judges it is adequately acquainted with its contents, thus creating an error, either by (i) false presumption, or (ii) false conduct. Thus, in the second case, one can be correct in their judgement, but not by knowledge, and so this correctness is accidental - thus, one can be right, but for the wrong reasons, nullifying this achievement. So then, prejudice is always illegitimate, since it always begins in ignorance, even if it ends in accidental truth. In the case of prejudice around political economy in this thread, it is mostly (i) an errroneous presumption or opinion.
>in your dreams
I fail to quite grasp the meaning of this. By identifying ideas, we already enclose them by identification; so ideas are self-evidently settled; its just that the thinker may falsely grasp it. Thus, progress in conception is not a movement of ideas in themselves, it is a movement from ignorance to knowledge. Thus, when we seek to know, we seek to stop thinking, for it is already complete. Marx himself gives this dissertation in the Communist Manifesto, that politics is the dialectic of class struggle, and the end of class struggle is therefore the end of politics. Thus, once a thing is grasped in its completeness, it may be sufficiently objectified as alienated knowledge (i.e. in the form of a book, which as Ibn Khaldun writes, is the appearance of mind).

>>2755909
yes i think a year of your posts qualifies as adequately acquainted. your claims that political economy is a closed concept and ideas being settled is obviously an ideological projection, a wish, an assertion of unfounded dominance where your arrogance matches your ignorance.

>>2755925
>yes i think a year of your posts qualifies as adequately acquainted.
There is a difference between experience and learning.
>your claims that political economy is a closed concept and ideas being settled is obviously an ideological projection
No, its a description of what ideas are. We learn a topic so that we no longer have to learn it. This is the difference between the attributes of Noesis (understanding) and Eikasia (imagination) in practical terms. We can consume fiction or entertainment endlessly, repeating the same songs on loop, but can we read the same book of non-fiction over and over? Can we tolerate the same lectures? No. So then, we learn so that we may know, and in knowing, we cease learning; ideas are complete, while what is incomplete belongs to sensation, and thus it may be indulged (the imagination being a part of sensation). This is also important in considering government; what belongs to necessity must be understood, while what is frivolous is inconsequential - this is true the constitutional basis of markets, for exampe, which begin by the faculties of the mind. If this cannot be accepted, then there can be no division between fact and fiction, since there is no division between imagining and knowing.
>an assertion of unfounded dominance where your arrogance matches your ignorance.
What am I ignorant of? Please educate me so that I may become a better person.

>>2756087
>There is a difference between experience and learning.
if only you could take your own advice

>>2756460
It's not advice, its a fact.
If people who read my content learned from it, they could not be critical of it, since it is true. Proof of this is in the fact that you cannot identify anything I've written as false, and so it is evidently true. But again, if I am ignorant, please educate me as to where I misunderstand.

Gossen's arithmetic in Chapter 1 of his "Laws of Human Relations" (1854) is plainly unintelligible, since variables are (i) inadequately defined and, (ii) equations are internally contradicted. He communicates well with shapes and words, but not numbers.

We may first analyse his pure algebra, as follows:
P = (p¹ + p² + p³ …)
E = (e¹ + e² + p³ …)
a = (p¹/n¹ + p²/n² + p³/n³ …)
w¹ = (P - E)/a
The issue in this formulation is that in the variable (a) is P, already included, which then subtracts from each, leaving w¹ = (E/n). Does this then suffice? No, since E and n are incommensurate; E is exponential and n is a relative magnitude. So, the equation is unintelligible. This is barring any elaboration as to the description of the variables, which only leads into further confusion:
P = relative duration of pleasure
E = absolute duration of pleasure
n = relative intensity of pleasure
a = duration/intensity
(from this, he also defines two contrary values; W¹ and w¹, which are inversely proportional, while E is proportionate with W¹; W¹ being defined as total pleasure. He also defines w¹ as inversely proportional to a, making n the determinate factor of w¹, as intensity)…
W¹ = Total Pleasure
w¹ = Marginal Pleasure (this assignment is conjectural, since Gossen never actually defines what w¹ is).
Gossen further establishes two opposed equations:
(i) W¹ = (P-E)²/a
(ii) w¹ = (P-E)/a
If we proceed from this we are immediately confused, since if E as total duration is the sum of all intervals, then E = P, since P is exponential of (p). Distinguishing between (e) and (p) is fruitless, since Gossen declines to properly clarify. If both are then identical, then one cannot be subtracted from another, without providing zero. Further, if we relativise (p) to marginal duration, it still makes no sense that it could subtract the total. The reverse could work, however: (E-p), but in this case, its further division by (a) is problematic, since (a) = (P/n), cancelling out the remainder, and so again we return to:
(i) W¹ = (E-n)²
(ii) w¹ = (E-n)
If we define the variables, we come to this:
(i) Total Pleasure = (Total Duration/Relative Intensity)²
(ii) Marginal Pleasure = (Total Duration/Relative Intensity)
This is unintelligible, since intensity is relative to relative duration (p), so if we return to (a) = (P/n), and (n) is inversely proportional to (a) by the value of (n), then isnt (w¹) just (n)? To make this clearer, it is written directly by Gossen that the larger that (n) is, the smaller that (a) is, which in turn makes (w¹) larger. So then, (n) and and (w¹) are directly proportional, but are they identical? If we continue with the conjecture that w¹ measures the margin of pleasure and marginality is defined by intensity (relative to duration), then they appear identical (since if n is relative to p, it must diminish at the rate of P, which is equivalent to E). We see this displayed in Table 1.2, where w¹ declines as E and W¹ increase. The only great confusion in the table is where the value of w¹ is given as 10 where E and W¹ = 0. This is pure nonsense and essentially dispells w¹ as marginal utility, so we must remove the variable of w¹ entirely.

If we then return to (a) = (pª/nª…), we have a sequence of values, between duration and intensity (the same measurements which Marx and Jevons attribute to labour). (a) then represents the series itself, which can be measured by the intervals (p) and intensity (n). This then displays a diminishing value of (n) with any increase of (p), e.g. (a) = (p⁶⁰/n³⁰). If we view (p) as additional of a sequence, then (a) must have its limit at one or below; e.g. (p³⁰/n³⁰). The value of (a) can never reach zero, so this cannot be the proper equation to encapsulate the investigation, since by addition of (p) we have increasing value, not a diminishing value, unless we reverse the variables: (a) = (n/p), which then seems to solve the problem, since if (p) increases, (n) must diminish in value if its magnitude is constant.

Thankfully, Gossen provides (E), which is the total duration of a sequence, and of any activity, it must have its temporal limits. In Table 1.2 we again see that where E is at its maximum value, W¹ is at its maximum value, while w¹ is at 0. Since we have lost w¹, we may continue with (a); where if (a) = 1>, E terminates (despite its fractional values still being positive integers). Some part of Gossen's earlier writing attests to this, where he writes that in a state of equilibrium, there is no pleasure received, and if we define equilibrium as self-identity, then the value of 1 may persist, if pleasure is added by multiplication rather than addition. So then, we have resolved some portion of Gossen's writing, that (a) is the sum of marginal utility (see: Marx and Jevons), which as a relative magnitude, regulates absolute values, such as total duration (E) and total pleasure (W¹).

Looking further, Gossen sees that intensity (n) may be augmented by the variable utility of another object (thus, he resolves pleasure, simply as a factor of differentiation, which is a notable concept). Here, he adds that variable consumption raises the value of (n) by an addition of (p). Thus, pleasure is augmented by modal consumption, which extends (E) by an addition of (p) relative to (n). An issue in this assessment is that Gossen is too abstract, by not giving context to the mode of consumption (and its internal limitations), thus theoretically extending (E) ad infinitum. He does address this in later chapters, but his scattered style does not lend itself well to comprehension.

So then, to sum up:
(p) must be relativised to (n), which is sequenced by (a). This allows (E) to express absolute magnitude without inference, and (W¹) can also be proportioned to (E). (a) must be multiplied to (E), not divided from it, so as to achieve termination by a value of 1 or below. If we were to write up a new sum then, it would be:

[W¹ = E*a]

Reading a commentary on Von Thünen's "Isolated State", Part II (1826), Von Thünen articulates "natural wages" as:
<w = √(ap)
Which is a balance between labour and capital (which Von Thünen describes as accumulated labour), conditioned upon the freedom of land in enterprise, and which demonstrates the socialist principle that where revenues are shared, an optimal portion of subsistence and surplus is arrived at. These "natural wages" are the wages of the hypothetical "frontier" or "isolated state". This differs entirely from the capitalist wage, as defined by Clark, in his "Distribution of Wealth" (1899):
<(C+ªL)/ª
Note that this is only possible where land as a resource is no longer subject to free enterprise, and so labour is centrally commanded rather than cooperated with. The insidiousness of Clark is not in his description of labour receiving less per marginal unit of capital, but that in his work, he calls the capitalist wage a "natural wage", which is contrary to Von Thünen's conception. What we can learn from Von Thünen then, is that land is naturally scarce, which competes its land rents against labour.

Gossen in his "Laws of Human Relations", Chapter 23 also sees land as a primary obstacle to freedom, otherwise suggesting the nationalisation of land:
<The abuse could be corrected in the most desirable way if the property rights to all lands were reserved to the community as a whole, which would then lease any parcel of land for productive purposes to the individual who would pay the highest rent.
He further sees that this private rent ought to have public redistribution. So then, the scarcity of land drives ground rent, paired with competition and capital, which diminishes the net value of labour. Rent then, is an impediment to "natural wages" and social progress, without the justice of making rent equitable to all.

>>2756935
>Proof of this is in the fact that you cannot identify anything I've written as false, and so it is evidently true.
well first, its not that i cannot, its that i wont, because i have before hundreds of times, and you know that. and second absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and you cant prove a negative. nice try tho

>>2757297
>well first, its not that i cannot, its that i wont
🤣 You are pathetic.
Please contribute to the thread, be relevant, or leave.

>>2757309
i dont see how your off topic personal questions relate to the thread

>>2757330
Here's the situation:
I am asking you to cite a source of disagreement you have with me on the subject of political economy, the topic of the thread, the only reason anyone should be here; you refuse, thereby clogging up the thread with irrelevant noise and a parasocial gaze, of you supposedly providing prior criticism… literally, whom'st are you, again? You are an anonymous pest, incapable of contribution, filling up digital space with clutter. Why are you here, exactly? You claim to have criticism of my writing, so what is it? Please provide something, - anything.

>>2757341
Here's the situation:
I have repeatedly cited the source of disagreement ywith me on the subject of political economy, and you brush such criticism off and repeat your incorrect points for over a year. You insist on posting false debunked anti-communist propaganda on a communist website and then feign confusion about opposition to your inane rambling, then claim victory when the stamina of your bullshit outpaces people who get tired of engaging with your stupididity… literally, whom'st are you, again? You are an anonymous pest, incapable of contribution, filling up digital space with clutter.

you know only 1-2 people at most read your posts. you would get more engagement with a no-follower twitter. im certainly not one of them, see greek statue and rambling and i just scroll past and insult you because i dont entertain crypto fascist propaganda.

>>2757350
>you brush such criticism off and repeat your incorrect points for over a year.
Give me a single incorrect point I have made.
Please - actually be relevant to discussion.
>debunked anti-communist propaganda
such as?
>literally, whom'st are you, again?
I'm someone you're obsessed with apparently, even referring to me by a pseudonym. Its creepy and reeks of mental illness.
>>2757357
>you know only 1-2 people at most read your posts.
anyone interested in political economy will find my posts valuable, since that is the topic of the thread; therefore, any person who engages in this thread finds my posts valuable, which must include yourself - unless you were in a thread for irrelevant purposes, which causes me to ask; why are you here, exactly?
>im certainly not one of them
You are replying to me right now; youre hopelessly invested in my effort if you have been wasting your life responding for over a year. Do you have any hobbies?
>i dont entertain crypto fascist propaganda.
Neither do I, which is why I can hardly tolerate communists.

smithanon is epstein

>>2757374
idk man maybe you should stop advocating murdering leftists because they vote in ways you dont like

>>2757377
What…? 🥱

>>2757384
oh right its not murder if you dont consider them people. my bad

having trouble with volume 2 of capital. it's much more of a slog than volume 1.

is supply/demand simply a free-market-ideology reframing of production/consumption?

>>2758006
?
>>2758130
If someone produces 100 of commodity (x) yet can only sell 50 of (x), is the value of the commodities determined in what is produced or in what is sold? As Marx writes in the introduction to the Grundrisse and at the conclusion of Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 1; production is determined by consumption, which is to say, supply is a property of demand, yet demand also depends on what is supplied. We may read thusly:
<Not only is production immediately consumption and consumption immediately production, not only is production a means for consumption and consumption the aim of production, i.e. each supplies the other with its object (production supplying the external object of consumption, consumption the conceived object of production); but also, each of them, apart from being immediately the other, and apart from mediating the other, in addition to this creates the other in completing itself, and creates itself as the other. […] This last identity […] [is] frequently cited in economics in the relation of demand and supply
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm
<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
So then, production has no "real" existence to Marx outside of what is constituted by consumption:
<Consumption produces production in a double way, because a product becomes a real product only by being consumed. For example, a garment becomes a real garment only in the act of being worn; a house where no one lives is in fact not a real house; thus the product, unlike a mere natural object, proves itself to be, becomes, a product only through consumption.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm
So then, as we see, production cannot even count as production where it is not consumed; can the same be said of supply? To those with common sense, a house is a "real" house even if it is abandoned, it just remains ineffectual of demand - so now we enroach upon the Smithian concept of effectual supply and demand:
<Such people may be called the effectual demanders, and their demand the effectual demand; since it maybe sufficient to effectuate the bringing of the commodity to market. It is different from the absolute demand. A very poor man may be said, in some sense, to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it. […] When the quantity brought to market is just sufficient to supply the effectual demand, and no more, the market price naturally comes to be either exactly, or as nearly as can be judged of, the same with the natural price. […] The quantity of every commodity brought to market naturally suits itself to the effectual demand.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch07.htm
Thus, we distinguish between (i) effective supply and demand, and (ii) absolute supply and demand. If I desire a diamond yet do not have the means to purchase it, my demand is absolute, but ineffective. The same can be said about the example of producing 100 of commodity (x) yet effective demand being at 50 (x). Thus, "demand" measures the rate of exchange, which in the market, has its capacity by the rate of income (e.g. wages). If people were paid more thus, more could be sold in production (this is called "Keynes' Law" in popular terminology, but which is present as early as William Potter, in 1650).

So then, we see Marx sophistically equate production with supply (in the typical Hegelian agony), while Smith confers that supplied produce may not reach the market, due to ineffective demand, thus constituting the degree of waste in an economy as the difference between absolute production and effective demand. Its perhaps for this reason that Marx only conducts his analysis at equilibrium so as to satisfy a mysterious "law of exchange". So, who is the "ideologist" here, exactly? The Liberal Smith or Communist Marx?

First we may read from Marx (1867):
<In every country in which the capitalist mode of production reigns, it is the custom not to pay for labour-power before it has been exercised for the period fixed by the contract, as for example, the end of each week. In all cases, therefore, the use-value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows the buyer to consume it before he receives payment of the price; he everywhere gives credit to the capitalist.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm
This comports to his earlier statements, that the labour-power of the worker is a rented asset, not a sold asset. So then, we can understand Marx's theory of surplus value by this entire relation; the disparity between the period of crediting labour and its compensation.

This consideration is repeated by Hoppe, but reversed into an uncritical capitalist apologia (1993):
<What is wrong with Marx’s theory of exploitation, then, is that he does not understand the phenomenon of time preference as a universal category of human action. That the laborer does not receive his “full worth” has nothing to do with exploitation but merely reflects the fact that it is impossible for man to exchange future goods against present ones except at a discount. […] The laborer enters the agreement because, given his time preference, he prefers a smaller amount of present goods over a larger future one; and the capitalist enters it because, given his time preference, he has a reverse preference order and ranks a larger future amount of goods more highly than a smaller present one. Their interests are not antagonistic but harmonious.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/marxist-and-austrian-class-analysis
Here we immediately encounter contradiction, since the usufruct of labour by the capitalist is immediate, yet the period of payment is prolonged by a fixed term of salary, stretching from a day, to a week to a month. If the worker was paid daily, we could justify the notion that the worker has a greater time-preference, but if a worker waits a month to be paid, at the same rate as someone who is paid weekly, does this not prove exploitation? An alternative can be easily fashioned, however. Short-term loans apply a greater rate of interest than long-term loans (e.g. mortgages) based on credit, which are also under the influence of time-preference for debtors. If rates of wages are dispensed at the same value but at different intervals, then the temporal difference can be scaled by rates of interest. The monthly wage worker thus contracts a lower rate of interest than the weekly worker. Thus, it is in the direct benefit of the worker to be paid as soon as possible and in the interest of the capitalist to delay payment; but this then makes the worker the creditor and the capitalist the debtor, reversing Hoppe's argument around time-preference.

Further, if we compare earlier arguments on interest to the condition of labour, we see then that as more workers compete for borrowers, the rate of interest on labour declines, lowering the wage and extending the period of payment. Thus we can conclude that labour as a rented asset appears to operate by the rate of interest. Time-preference proves the prospectivity of labour as a factor of production, which converts present value into future value by the delayed gratification of labourers, and if justice in government and revenue is in assigning value to those of lowest time-preference, then Hoppe is crafting the theoretical groundwork for socialism, especially in his arguments around Monarchy, since if responsibility is based on ownership rather than lending, and workers own their productive asset, as opposed to capitalists merely borrowing them, then workers have the greatest imperative to government and property. Hoppe also confers correctness to Marx on class:
https://mises.org/podcasts/human-action-podcast/hans-hermann-hoppe-what-marx-gets-right

>>2758401
>https://mises.org/
lol

>>2758587
Yes, that's where you find the writings of Austrian Economists. Thankfully, the site retains some liberal values by issuing free texts rather than imposing copyright. 👍

EKKKonomiKKKs is fascist.