/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

I like how this general has been colonized by a British guy and no one can do anything about it

>>2816236
Who invented political economy, again? 🇬🇧

>>2816241
Wrong!

>>2816247
Khaldun (1377 CE) was late to the party. He is actually the last in line of the ancient and medieval sources of economic literature (400 BCE - 1400 CE), which you may read here. 🙂👍

>>2816209
>Communism is not a proletarian movement, it is a priestly project of intellectuals. The proletariat lack any meaningful self-consciousness, and the communist has always found an astonishing frustration with the reactionary masses for these reasons
its true this has been the case historically, but you cannot be sure this will be the case in the future years, since there is really no subjacent logic to history, anything may happen
>Animals are often more rational than human beings.
we see a rationality in their behaviour, thats true, but they don't need "justifications" for what they do
Do you need a justification to breathe? Do you need a legal case for your heart to pump blood? No, it just happens, and if communism and the proletariat become one and the same and an international revolution is realized the same will apply to it, it will just happen, doesn't really need a justification
>It just sounds like you are being wilfully ignorant to avoid ethical responsibility.
and you are avoiding answering to whom am I or the proletariat or anyone supposed to "justify" anything if its not to the delusions of progress you (correctly) ask marxists to abandon

>>2816279
>its true this has been the case historically, but you cannot be sure this will be the case in the future years
Its not in the class interest of workers to have the government take all their stuff, so why would they be communists? Trade union consciousness is immediate to the interests of workers (e.g. higher wages), but the interests of labour are also an impedement to the larger communist struggle. Thus, Marx, Engels and Lenin complain of the anti-immigrant attitude of workers (indeed, Fascism is begun by proletarian violence against Italian immigrants in France; t. the Aigues-Mortes Massacre of 1893, which as Kevin Passmore tells us, inspires Maurice Barrès in his politics, to later call himself a "National Socialist", in 1898, 21 years before Rudolf Jung's "Nationalsozialismus"). Moishe Postone also tells us of the proletarian character of Fascism, where it regards the spectre of finance capital versus industrial capital. His ultimate point relates to Marx's Critique of Political Economy, that "labour" as substance of value, is spiritualised as capital, and so the problem begins in its original abstraction. The reason the proletariat is reactionary, is because they identify with the abstraction, when labour in and for itself is capital, as I demonstrate here: >>2803677
So, this is the criticism of the politics of labour generally, which is lost on most communists, who think that the working class is the subject of liberation, rather than Humanity generally. The "worker" is already dehumanised as "labour". The politics of labour is the basis of Liberalism however, by right of private property, for as Locke tells us, right is first granted by means of mixing labour and nature (with alienable property henceforth being the germ of capital). Marx himself cannot quite escape the justice of labour, by suggesting its compensation under communism, according to measure, and so labour as political subject remains inherently problematised, yet all politics depends upon it, since all politics is class warfare, and class is based in the ownership of property, instituted by laws. So, all politics is simply a question of law - this is why some say that communism is a sort of anti-politics (e.g. the withering away of the state), but the state is really just preserved under different titles.
>It will just happen, doesn't really need a justification
This is immaterial of the object of discussion. We are discussing political belief and support, and all belief must be justified. You are saying that you are not a communist when you say it requires no internal justice, so I would hope that you are at least honest about that.
>to whom am I or the proletariat or anyone supposed to "justify" anything
We can answer this negatively; are there things you would not do? If so, why not? What would stop you from hurting others for selfish gain? The fact that our behaviour is internally regulated means we have an inherent standard of morality.

watch this and tell me things are the same now

>>2816311
>Its not in the class interest of workers to have the government take all their stuff
what stuff?

>>2816680
gimme that toothbrush crackkka

was thinking today about modern economic input output systems like the ISIC:

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

ISIC Revision 4 (2008) broad structure
Section A – Agriculture, forestry and fishing
Section B – Mining and quarrying
Section C – Manufacturing
Section D – Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply
Section E – Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities
Section F – Construction
Section G – Wholesale and retail trade; repair and selling of motor vehicles and motorcycles
Section H – Transportation and storage
Section I – Accommodation and food service activities
Section J – Information and communication
Section K – Financial and insurance activities
Section L – Real estate activities
Section M – Professional, scientific and technical activities
Section N – Administrative and support service activities
Section O – Public administration and defence; compulsory social security
Section P – Education
Section Q – Human health and social work activities
Section R – Arts, entertainment and recreation
Section S – Other service activities
Section T – Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use
Section U – Activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies

And whether these could be mapped on to Marx's two departments (Means of production and Articles of consumption) or whether the entire question is flawed and bourgeois input-output systems exist specifically to mask this distinction.

There has always been this tension between "leftcom ultra" and "dengoid opportunist" interpretations of Communism. You can always quote a young version of Stalin (or whoever) and see a more "pure" version of Communism that hasn't yet been "betrayed," because you are looking at the writings of a young communist who has not yet seized power, has not yet had to deal with the contradictions of wielding power, has not yet become a world-historical figure dealing with bourgeois encirclement and geopolitical diplomacy. As Parenti tells us:

<The pure socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

- Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, 1997

Also it is always easy to quote those who never had to wield power on the scale of something like a nation, people like Marx, Engels, Bordiga, pure theoreticians, and wax poetic about internationalism, the proletariat having no nation, etc. But even in Marx you see a tension between this idea of the proletariat having no nation, with the idea that the proletariat must necessarily seize power on a case-by-case basis in existing nations. We also know of the law of uneven development: Cpitalism does not develop societies at the same pace or in the same way. Some countries, regions, or industries industrialize rapidly, while others remain economically dependent or underdeveloped.

I think one of the chief tensions within Marxist theory is it tries to give the proletariat this heroic, moral, world-historical role of abolishing its own oppression, while at the same time trying to sound less philosophical and more scientific, placing things like development of the productive forces and the accumulation of capital at the center of its theory. Young Lenin writes:

<Marx and Engels were the first to show that the working class and its demands are a necessary outcome of the present economic system, which together with the bourgeoisie inevitably creates and organises the proletariat. They showed that it is not the well-meaning efforts of noble-minded individuals, but the class struggle of the organised proletariat that will deliver humanity from the evils which now oppress it. In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society.

- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, [Eulogy for] Frederick Engels (1895)

You can see this tension even within 24 year old Lenin. Which is it? Is socialism the result of "the class struggle" of the "organized proletariat" which "deliver humanity from the evils" or is it "not the invention of dreamers" but "the development of the productive forces."

Depending on the rhetorical tact being taken at any given moment by any given Marxist, either the class struggle, or the productive forces, is centered as the real mechanism of action for societal change. We know the development of the productive forces and the class struggle are not literally identical, since the ruling class compels the working class to develop productive forces, and the working class has often resisted the development of productive forces.

So this is the reason I think for the "split" between the "ruthless realist" Marxists who center the development of the productive forces, and the "proletarian supremacist" Marxists who center class struggle. Because early theory wasn't always clear which should be the most important. It oscillated based on the topic being discussed. What I would like is for these two groups to harmonize so that victory can be achieved. This is not intended as an anti-Communist critique.

>>2820852
>Which is it? Is socialism the result of "the class struggle" of the "organized proletariat" which "deliver humanity from the evils" or is it "not the invention of dreamers" but "the development of the productive forces."
A slightly more mature Lenin gives an explanation (1902):
<We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. In the period under discussion, the middle nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group, but had already won over to its side the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm
Thus, there are thinkers and there are actors, and the working classes have never of their own self-consciousness bloomed with the dreams of communism, or even social democracy. Indeed, the vast majority of socialist intellectuals had no belonging to the working class, and so exist in sympathy, but ultimate antagonism to them. Marx himself realises the disconnect of Communists proper from the working class as such (1848):
<The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
A working class party such as the Chartists had their own literature, yet they never invoked the calls of communism; even Robert Owen criticised the Chartists, and so sectarianism sprang up early. Indeed, we see Marx's criticism of currently existing socialist movements:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm
So then, I think it is most wise to view Communists as having an inevitable separation from the proletariat as such, and so their movement must be considered too universalist. I relate the immanent particularism and fascism of the proletariat here: >>2816311
Indeed, Marx's great trouble with the working class from 1869 onwards was their national chauvinism, as we may read:
<The English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish question is so important for the social movement in general. […] And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/letters/69_12_10-abs.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm
Engels already identifies this competition as early as 1845:
<it is easy to understand how the degrading position of the English workers, engendered by our modern history, and its immediate consequences, has been still more degraded by the presence of Irish competition.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch06.htm
As yet, we may go further back to the Peasant Revolt of 1381, where we see English guilds terrorise and murder Flemish immigrants in London, just like the Aigues-Mortes Massacre of 1893, which sparked the neologism of "national socialism". What is common between both events "trade union consciousness" as Lenin says. So then, at least, the working class is extraordinarily disappointing to the communist, and at most, they are an enemy. It's difficult for a communist to not be an elitist, since they are not merely patrician, but Caesarian, in attempting to save the plebs from themselves. In all things, as Kant says, "honesty is the best policy, but honesty is better than policy", so that is where the fifth international must begin.

>>2816630
I would first substitute Schor's quote with J.S. Mill's from 1848, that he doubts whether "labour-saving devices" have saved anyone labour, but rather, that labour has a greater demand because of their supppication. We see this with the cotton gin in the 1790s, that the demand for slave labour increased with the additions of tools and capital. So then, saving labour by advanced technique actually increases labour. Marx's further point is that the productivity of labour is inverse to its returned product, and so the more that man makes, the more impoverished he becomes. Lao Tzu makes comment on this, that where there is nothing done, there is nothing left to be completed - Democritus also tells us that poverty is not the lack of goods, but is rather the increase of demand. Thus, as Christ said, the poor may be rich in spirit by their lack of worldly goods. The system of capital accumulation (M-C'-M') presupposes the expansion of production by the expansion of consumption, and thus a cycle of eternal poverty, or prospectivity unto future production. The central issue of both capitalism and communism is thus what Baudrillard sees as the System of Production, since Marx's basic criticism of capital is its inhibiting faculty for production based in the profit motive. The political consequences of Productivism is as Mao described it; the bluntness of a gun pointed at your head, with the final social incentive being this fatality (like the whip which commands the service of slaves). Thus as Marx writes, communism is born from capitalism, and to me, that is precisely its original sin. So, to return to the original idea of the video; it is the compulsion to production in general, not in particular, which creates the slavery, poverty and misery of labour.

Upon the content creator's claim that there is a "natural" working day (4-6 hours), doesn't he find it suspicious that only humans have this imperative to calculate labour according to a plan of production? Why don't other primates or mammals similarly work according to a reliable pattern? Because the working day is a product of class society, of course, not a "natural" phenomenon. If there is any "labour" in nature, it is from the sun.

The idea of leisure coinciding with wages is present in economic literature, that the more people are paid, the less they feel they have to work, giving a baseline salary. Thus, the lowering of wages gives incentive for longer hours, and this is clearly strategic of capital. We see the first labour laws in England, The Statutes of Labourers (1349-51) set a wage cap for workers and also revoke retirement, so that people would work longer and harder for less (since the wage here is clearly proportional to marginal output, and inverse to total output). 30 years later we get the Peasants' Revolt (1381), and some see the Statute as momentous of this, although it was moreso the poll taxes imposed on the public meanwhile.

On the segmentation of workdays and non-workdays, the maximum difference between a modern wage slave and a feudal peasant is between 40% and 50% of days off in a year, which is less severe than first imagined. Now, this is avoiding the gruesome context of the struggles labour during the industrial revolution, which subjected people from 12-16 hour work days, and which was only relieved over a century by legal battles. As Marx comments, the Statute of 1496 set the working day from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. (15 hours), whilst also offering a total of 4 hour breaks, leading to 11 hours - he uses this as a polemic that the 15th century worker displayed a greater liberty than the industrial worker, who toiled without breaks. So, from the genesis of capitalism in England (e.g. ~1450, according to Marx and Engels) to the industrial revolution and beyond (1850), working conditions have gotten longer and the means of leisure have been abolished in 400 years. By comparing today's situation to the medieval, it ignores the rise of capitalism from before the 20th century, yet we see the positive power of capital arrest labour from 1350, and so this period of decline for labour can be measured since then, for a length of time of 500 years, which afterwards had its struggle and partial success since (1850 being the year of the Factory Act, which limited labour for women and children, from around 72 hours to 60 hours a week). The video creator is still correct however that even 700 years later, leisure has never been reclaimed to its former status, except for the exceedingly wealthy. Even the archetypal period of consumerism and the suburb was present in the UK and US from 1950-80, and afterwards, there has been compulsory austerity and class warfare against the working class. So, the era of lifestyle leisure lasted 30 years in the present saga of 700 years.

The video creator's insight into the mechanical clock orienting production by the abstraction of time is quite interesting, since it shifts perspective from quality to quantity, the same movement Guenon describes as essentially modern. The video creator sees 1611 as the genesis of this "clock-mania", which is also when the KJV Bible was published, which as an "authorised" translation, imposed "crown copyright" for printers, effectively creating an important piece of intellectual property (which is still in effect today). The first official legal case of copyright was in 1710 (The Statute of Anne). Copyright has historical precedence in ancient and medieval society however, which mainly concerned holy texts. We may read of the treatment of Shudras in the Gautama Dharmasutra, XII.iv-v (400 BCE):
<Now if he listens intentionally to (a recitation of) the Veda, his ears shall be filled with (molten) tin or lac. If he recites (Vedic texts), his tongue shall be cut out.
https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/gautama-dharmasutra/d/doc116312.html
Here, having unauthorised access to knowledge leads to extreme punishment. We see this in the west as well, such as the censoring of the Wycliffe Bible (1395) due to its ability to reach the masses, since the Bible was still mainly written in the Latin Vulgate. The Bible then was considered the property of the Catholic Church, and later on, King James considered "his" translation to be property of the Church of England.

The video creator then properly speaks upon capital as a state-sponsored entity, which has an overt partnership, yet jumps to "industrial capitalism", rather than giving notice to the previous "agrarian capitalism" (e.g. 1450-1750) which also operated its class war by primitive accumulation. This is more original and more relevant to the question of corruption generally. Further on clocks, the creator makes a strange comment that the capitalist had a psychological motivation to control labour rather than to merely instrumentalise it in production - this is an unnecessary and irrelevant speculation of material history. He digs himself deeper when he says that "it wasn't about profits, it was about power", which is completely ignorant - it reduces a global system to a psychodrama; far too personal.  Night labour is also discussed, which Marx makes note of also; that capital requires a 24-hour feast.

The video creator pinpoints the year 1664 as the shift in the culture of work, beginning with Palmer's payment of the church to ring their bells from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. I should also note Marx's comments:
<Protestantism, by changing almost all the traditional holidays into workdays, plays an important part in the genesis of capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm#92a
In the 17th century, we see Christmas become illegal in Scotland (1640) and England (1647-60). Puritans in America also banned Christmas, such as in Massachusetts (1659). Jevons (1878) comments upon the misery England has suffered since the time of the 16th century, when medieval fairs and amusements were overtaken. Only in the late 19th century and 20th century onwards do we see a consideration for cultural amusement, such as the officiation of sports like Football (1863-), Tennis (1874-), Olympics (1896-), etc. Now, all of these had previous forms in one way or another, but now they were made official and commercial. We see the first Olympic Games in history, in 776 BCE, which bears resemblance to traditional "funeral games", such as we read in The Iliad (800 BCE), and so we see this transhistorical and intervening period of human history bound within a single continuum, such that people openly compared Babylon to Rome, and now Rome to America. There is no new thing under the sun.

On newspapers, the system of knowledge-production already serves class interests, as I relate. Even most privately, priesthoods often begin as cults, like Pythagoras, who in his tutelage, gave abstinences to his followers, and heretics were also murdered. The promise of the esoteric is inherently exclusive, and guarded by loyalty in power. Of course, the most common form of knowledge today is fictional, and we see so many communities orient themselves around these manifestations; esoterically and exoterically. Indeed, every thing creates its own knowledge and ignorance, whether spoken or written, and so the titular "renaissance man" is only hopelessly romantic, but this brings up a more interesting point; if knowledge-production expands itself by "surplus knowledge" (t. Zizek), then the system of knowledge leads to its incommensurate divisions; of culture into subculture, and so we lose "Society" in place of "societies", but this is how its always been…

>>2820912
>As yet, we may go further back to the Peasant Revolt of 1381, where we see English guilds terrorise and murder Flemish immigrants in London, just like the Aigues-Mortes Massacre of 1893, which sparked the neologism of "national socialism". What is common between both events "trade union consciousness" as Lenin says. So then, at least, the working class is extraordinarily disappointing to the communist, and at most, they are an enemy. It's difficult for a communist to not be an elitist, since they are not merely patrician, but Caesarian, in attempting to save the plebs from themselves.
Most disappointingly of all, I have seen people on here accuse you of fascism for noticing these things, and treating them as a real problem to deal with, as opposed to letting them be ignored, so they can fester, and metastasize.

>>2820933
Well, I certainly have a reminiscent fascism in my ardent anti-communism, and liberals are most often associated with fascists in communist spaces, so its understandable. 😛 In any case, let's forgive those who know not what they do. 🙏

I do struggle with the politics of labour, since to me, an enlightened Marxism is about overcoming the abstraction of labour as such, while the state (as class dictatorship) inherently relates to labour by property, and so all politics is a politics of labour, essentially. Only liberalism and socialism formalise this, such as in Locke (1690), who sees the right of property being based in labour, and even Proudhon (1840) later on, who declares that "property is theft!" still holds to the principle of "possession", which is essentially directly-used property. Marx (1848) of course struggles with property, by seeing how communism both negates and affirms property, along the identical lines of capitalism. I offer my thoughts on Tawney (1920) who sees politics as a matter of right, yet this is not a modern manifestation either, but ancient, such as we read in Cicero (44 BCE):
<For the chief purpose in the establishment of constitutional state and municipal governments was that individual property rights might be secured. 
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de_Officiis/2B*.html
The notion of politics being based in property (e.g. class) goes back theoretically to Plato, then Aristotle and then Polybius, who see the basic political science concerning the ordering of classes (e.g. monarchy, oligarchy, democracy) based in the class which rules the state. So, all politics is class politics, which then presupposes classes, and a state. I resign myself to the social contract upon this concern, that the polis will always exist in antagonism to the oikos (with ancient themes upon this struggle of civil society as early as Sophocles' Antigone, 440 BCE), and so the public and private distinction will always exist in civil society, and thus, labour retains its abstraction in politics and law. But life shouldn't just be politics.

Politics is a lesser theory and practice upon the world, since it is circular (e.g. anacyclosis). It is circular upon the same problem of the social contract; mutual self-interest and mutual opposition; prerequisite trust and inherent suspicion, etc. Plato resolves the question of politics in its very proposition; a benevolent dictatorship is by definition the best form of politics, since it is also an absolute anti-politics. He extends this to also comprise the invisible hand of Justice. Lao Tzu makes the same comment; that the good emporer rules so that the people may imagine to rule themselves. While the law may only be a pale reflection of righteousness (道), there is still the spirit working within the written law: ἀναρχία = νόμος. 🙂👍

>>2821010
If history is perfectly cyclical with no variations, then why discuss anything?

I have heard it said that outsourcing is not only a conspiracy of the bourgeoisie looking for the cheapest source of labor power abroad, but that it is also a conspiracy of the bourgeoisie in the shipping industry to increase their profits, since the more commodities need to cross an ocean to reach their consumers, the better off they are.

>>2822318
> it is also a conspiracy of the bourgeoisie in the shipping industry to increase their profits, since the more commodities need to cross an ocean to reach their consumers, the better off they are.
believe it

>>2821013
do you really expect me to watch a video from some avatarfag chud who draws himself as a soyjak wearing a fez and a bismarck suit

Can anyone summarise Marx's argument in the chapter on the conversion of surplus value into capital?

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm

I've read the entire chapter and have walked away feeling as though I've stared into a black hole

<Did Stalin and Mao differ on commodity production under socialism (so what was planned to take place following the Cultural Revolution?)
<Did Mao reference M&E Critique of the Gotha Programme and/or labor vouchers or was the limited chinese agricultural work-point system initiated independently of Mao/Cultural Revolution Group?
Longer exposition of question seen in original question in the ML-MZT / MLM thread, yet to be answered:
>>2825634

>>2826930
The chapter explains how a capitalist turns surplus value into more capital. This process is called accumulation of capital. A capitalist gets surplus value from the workers' unpaid labor. The capitalist can use part of the surplus value for his own enjoyment. He can turn the rest into new capital. The new capital buys more machines and more workers. Those workers then create even more surplus value. Over time, the original money the capitalist started with becomes very small. Almost all of his capital comes from unpaid labor. The laws of buying and selling seem fair at first. But under capitalism, these laws change. The capitalist ends up owning everything. The worker ends up owning nothing but his own labor power. The chapter also says some economists made mistakes. They thought all capital goes to pay wages. That is wrong. Some capital buys machines and materials too. Other economists said capitalists save by giving up pleasure. This is called the abstinence theory. Marx says that is silly. The real source of capital is the worker's unpaid labor. Many things affect how fast capital grows. These include how hard workers work, how productive machines are, and how much capital is already in use. The last part of the chapter attacks the idea of a fixed labor fund. That idea says there is a set amount of money for wages. Marx says that is not true. The labor fund can change. Capitalists can send their money to other countries too. So the worker has no fixed limit on his wages from nature. The limit comes from the capitalist's need for profit.

Section one explains how surplus value turns into new capital. A capitalist gets surplus value from workers. He does not eat up all of it. He uses part of it to buy more machines and more workers. The new workers then make more surplus value. Over time, almost all of a capitalist's money comes from unpaid labor. The old laws of fair exchange get turned around. The capitalist ends up owning everything. The worker ends up owning nothing but his ability to work.

Section two describes a mistake made by old economists like Adam Smith. They thought all capital is spent on wages. They said workers eat up everything that is saved. That is wrong. Some capital buys machines and raw materials. Those are not wages. The economists got lost because they did not look closely at how things move through the market. Marx says he will fix this mistake later in his book.

Section three talks about how a capitalist divides surplus value. One part he spends on himself. The other part he saves and turns into new capital. The capitalist feels a fight inside himself. He wants to enjoy life. He also wants to get richer. Old economists said saving is a kind of suffering or abstinence. Marx says that is a silly idea. The real job of the capitalist is to make production grow. He forces workers to produce more and more. The capitalist's own fun does not stop him from getting richer.

Section four lists things that help capital grow faster. These things are separate from how much the capitalist saves or spends. One thing is how hard the workers are made to work. Another thing is how productive the machines are. Nature also gives free help, like land and minerals. When machines get better, old capital acts like new capital without extra cost. Science and technology give capital more power to grow. The more capital there is, the bigger the difference between what is used up and what is still there.

Section five attacks the idea of a fixed labor fund. Some economists said there is a set pile of money for wages. That pile cannot grow. Marx says that is not true. The labor fund changes all the time. Capital can grow fast or slow. Capital can even be sent to other countries. The worker has no fixed limit set by nature. The only limit comes from the capitalist's need for profit. So the so called labor fund is just a trick to make capitalism look natural and fair.

>>2827012
Thanks

>>2826494
the US is juggling like six potential crises right now:

1. running out of strategic reserves of oil
   
2. AI bubble popping (biggest and most flimsiest bubble in US history, accounting for over 90% of claimed GDP growth)
   
3. losing taiwan to china
   
4. losing ukraine to russia
   
5. being unable to stop iran from blocking hormuz
   
6. the domestic crisis of poverty and cost of living

An individual price may deviate from a value, but collectively…

thinking about u today

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKcwEC4jDwiN5sOIay2qkpjTuvRTvkdso

Trying to learn how to research better lately

>>2816311
>Its not in the class interest of workers to have the government take all their stuff

What stuff uygha? We talkin about proletariat or petit bourgeoise?

The problemn of your analysis of class interests is that is merely based on (some cherry picked examples of) historic class behaviour. But all hitherto behaviour does not exhaust a given entity's capabilities, and in the case of rational agents it does not necessarily reflect it's real interests. Rational agents get constantly stuck in local optimums, and a given local optimum doesn't become the summum bonum just because it ends up iterating itself indefinitely. I don't think that you also include in your analysis historical working class behaviour that does coincide with Marxism. But any given data can be interpreted in so many ways, and I don't think Marxism is any least compatible with the available data than your liberal view, which cheats itself into applicability by abstracting away all the relevant concrete conditions with notions such as "universal humanity", but more on that later.

On the other hand Lenin himself acknowledges the fact that the labour movement by itself only reaches economism, but the fact that the direction of the labour movement comes from without through the communist party does not erase the fact that the problems of the working class have to do with the constitution of capitalism and not only some of its effects. Therefore, the interest of the working class will always lie in the abolition of capital, not its reform, regardless of the success or lack thereof the communist party finds in its goals, for the sheer entropic force of capital will do away with all of the patches and overrule conscious management. The abolition of the former is non-negotiable for the rising of the latter as society's organizing force.

It is not at all surprising that the working class in itself has difficullties reaching this conceptual level since it has no time left for highly technical intellectual endeavours. Myself as a student of philosophy had hardly any energy left to study after working when I did both things at the same time, and I don't think the notorious enshittening effects of wage labour need any introduction.

Which goes to show, these problems are not merely economical even though political economy forms its most fundamental and determinant dimension. The full range of human development, the maximum amount of information, not only in the sense of data, but also in the sense of form, can only be achieved by superseding capital as the main societal force. It is not that labour is the subject of liberation as opposed to, and in spite of, other sections of humanity, but rather, labour, due to its material and concrete conditions, is the only section of humanity whose interests and constitution CAN lead to a liberation extending to, and for the sake of, humanity in general. It is the subject of liberation not in the sense that it is the entity to be liberated, that ought to receive the liberation, but in the sense that it is the liberating entity, the agent of liberation which by liberating itself abolishes all forms of slavery alltogether. To put it in other words: given the heterogeneity and conflicting interests in the concrete (fundamentally determinant) economic divisions of society, that is, classes, the labouring class is the only one with an initial condition that CAN generate a behavioural pattern able to demiurgically reconfigure the whole system, since all other divisions are either impotent or inherently stuck in local optimums (lumpens, petit bourgeoise) or have a vested interest in the present state of the system (capitalists, as in grand bourgeoisie, rentiere class). So it turns out the working class is not the privileged point of view due to it being the unprivileged moral subject, as in Christian axiology, but rather because of the privileged potential capabilities for optimization it naturally is equipped with due to its place in the system. Even an hypothetical, miraculously enlightened bourgeoise would have difficulties establishing a new social order due to the fact that its inertial interests will fight against their own conscious behaviour, a friction the working class doesn't have to grind through at all, since it's interest are completely compatible with the goal.

You are also wrong in regards to the Marxist account of "universal humanity", which has a Hegelian root. In its origin, Marxism is a heterodox deviation of hegelianism, and I consider some Hegelian elements it maintained far from dysfunctional atavisms, but fully functional organs carried through the new philosophical taxa. Human form can only be said to develop in partaking in the universal culture, that is, science, art, philosophy, even crafty know-hows (when linked to intrinsic interest of its operator and not done in the alienating wage-labour manner), for a human really actualizes its potentialities by roaming outside its local, immediate medium, first by sustaining its present form through economical activity, and then reaching for the global medium through culturization. A human individual placed to grow in a vacuum isolated from a social window will be but an empty husk devoid of any concrete activity. Stepping outside the immediacy of its bodily and spatial medium one begins to inform itself by contact with the universal, i.e. the non-local, for instance by learning a foreign language, history etc. We must start from the initial condition that the world has determinations and its entities are continuously being determinately produced and reproduced in concrete processes, processes which in human society are called history. From this it follows that a given human cannot simply inform himself in just any way: the only meaningful manner is to interact with the given institutions and disciplines which have accumulated a content that he alone will never catch up to. He himself is the product of such a racing society is making from the past millions of years since anatomically modern humans are event a thing, or we could even arbitrarily stretch the process as far back as the limits of science allows us to. This is why a given human can only REALIZE "universal humanity" by mastering the arts, the sciences, philosophy, a craft, or even sports, a discipline as great as the ancient depictions of the athletes brings to light in sculpture. But the human capacity to reach this universality on a massive scale is inhibited precisely by wage labour and capital. And whatever is not inhibited by 8+ hours of wage labour is done away with the drug market, the entertainment industry and social media industry, the culture industry etc., whose present goal seems to be the slow lobotomization of humanity at the lowest possible cost, for the mindless accumulation of capital for a bunch of monopolistic enterprises with known ties with one another. A mass of fully informed, cultured humans is not at all impossible as nietzscheans pretend it to be, picturing it as a limited thing for a leisuring class in spite of a mass of slaves. It is just that the present state of things determines the most of humanity to have nothing better to do than employ it's pluripotent activity to the one dimensional toiling for another person to accumulate more wealth than himself.

You are wrong when you say that marxism failed to consider universal humanity. He himself was deeply concerned with this throughout all his career, even though his work not always reflects this, but Capital and especially the grundrisse never disowned the matters touched in the manuscripts and were in fact developed from it. Even if Marx himself didn't give a shit later on, which is what Althusser et al try to do in their effort to delete Hegel from Marx, Marxism itself as a independent theory provides a system in which you can freely add this element. The above exposition on human universality shows why the working class interests in the abolition of capital as the organizing force of society aligns with universal human interest, or rather, REALIZES it. "Humanity generally" is an expression that would only have any reality after abolishing the present state of things, ex post facto. But humanity as you put it is just an ex ante abstraction since the current concrete form of humanity is not at all aligned with itself in its supposed form and interests. And if we, right now, say general interest of humanity we automatically abstract all concrete realities and contradictions, which brings as a result a proportional level of unreality to it's actual concept. At most, it can only function as a heuristic device or limit-concept ( the Kantian *Gremzbegriff*), but frankly I can only see the typical liberal rights as a reactionary bourgeoise attempt at elevating capitalist social relations as some sort of universal morality, a metaphysical carbon copy of empirical positive right, especially commercial contracts and such. Depicting universal humanity as real in actuality only shows the unwillingnes of working through its concept throughout the real history and present state of what it is supposed to represent, i.e. real concrete human beings and their activity, and divides the whole of reality in what is and what ought to be, which are not at all alike, and turns either one or the other into an empty illusion, or into the wretched shadow of its counterpart, which is to absurdly claim in your subjective mind an advantage over the real thing. As if mind was some plain spiritual blanket you could superimpose on reality, but reality has a lot of lumps and clots, and a lot of spikes also, which inevitably pierce and break the blanket: the white blanket of universal rights and humanity will always be painted grey on grey with the tinge of real social conditions. Which is not to say that mind has no ability to formulate universal values, but it is to say that these values do not have their locus in abstraction but in concrete conditions, the very self-same societal, historical, institutional realities which form the conditions of possibility for rational mind to begin with. Mind is but a link in the circuit formed by this social realities, which is why both Marx and Hegel understood the sociality of reason, hence why these universal forms such as general humanity lack any meaningful content unless they go through said circuit and account for it. To do otherwise is to bring forth the inherent formalist pretension of an impossible birds-eye-view, positioning oneself in an intelligible realm outside concrete reality.

>>2816279
>Do you need a justification to breathe? Do you need a legal case for your heart to pump blood? No, it just happens, and if communism and the proletariat become one and the same and an international revolution is realized the same will apply to it, it will just happen, doesn't really need a justification

I don't agree at all with this statement. Communism would not bring humanity to a natural homeostatic state where our activity would reach the same spontaneity as the animal, vegetal, fungal, etc. kingdoms. In fact, capitalism is much closer to such a thing precisely because it is a spontaneous irrational force which organizes the whole of society, which sweeps away matter and form from the hands of self-conscious, rational agency. Communism would in fact be "justificative" as in, conscious and rational agency would exponentially increase in all areas. I believe even the concept of "family" and other such merely traditional, unconscious, merely inherited forms of regarding oneself and others would be done away with, that is, would turn out to be unjustified. Family, homeland, etc., which form the lazybed of self identification, would come under scrutiny and revealed to be unjustified. The thing that most reflect the "unjustified" are precisely these remnants of merely inertial societal structures that are but a sediment from the ancient regime.

But there's still truth in what you said that a lot of forms of mediation, especially belonging to the sphere of right, justice, the law, the state or whichever way you want to call it, would be abolished or suspended. I believe that a certain analogy can be made with the aristotelian suspension of justice in friendship. But far from reducing the cost of social interaction, the social capabilities of humans, emancipated from the irreflexive structures of family, country etc., would have to be greatly increased, for with family you don't have to choose but you do have to actively move around in the world in order to establish friendship. The bourgeoise cult of brotherhood will be replaced by the communist ideal of friendship.

Even less of a tranquile and homeostatic state would life be without the struggle for material survival. Instead of minding our business most of the time, we would all be inevitably faced with the empty void, with the sheer problem of existence, the world, whatever you want to call it, and the greatest of all intellectual efforts would be massively distributed, unlike today where a lot of people have no time to even consider such a thing, and the little time the majority of people do mind it, they only fathom the mere tip of the tail of that monster, only for it to bring them great anxiety. They have no time nor intellectual, emotional, expressive means to endure the tornness (the Hegelian *Zerrissenheitof*) of the darkest nights of consciousness. The lack of time is proportional with the inertial adoptions of the structures I was just talking about on a massive scale, and the abundance of time will bring a proportional amount of intellectual development that paired with the new mode of production as it's condition of realizability will give birth to an unprecedented mass of highly informed human beings.

We can read in Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War" (411 BCE) the rate of wages per rank of soldier:
<Potidæa being blockaded by a force of heavy infantry (each drawing two drachmae a day, one for himself and another for his servant) […] the rate of three Aeginetan obols per day for a heavy-armed soldier, archer, or light soldier, and an Aeginetan drachma for a trooper […] the treasury giving a drachma a day to each seaman […] targeteers, Thracian swordsmen […] each man was a drachma a day
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h.htm
The Drachma is 4.3g of silver, and there are 6 obols in a drachma. The Roman Denarius was roughly equivalent to the Attic Drachma, and its original value was for 10 asses (from whence it derives its name; dēnī). We read in late 1st century literature such as The Book of Matthew (20:2) that the wage was set at one denarius:
<After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+20%3A1-16&version=ESV
And so there seems to be a customary rate for labour. The same passage tells us that the working day for agricultural labourers was 12 hours. Rates were daily, not hourly, and the custom of paying per day, not by week, seems to have been expected (Deut 24:15):
<You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+24%3A14-15&version=ESV
Marx writes that the exploitation of labour is made possible through the delay of payment, whereby the labourer credits the capitalist in advance (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
So the ancient practice of daily wages empowered the labourer, and Thucydides also writes of the tactics used by employers to delay payment and diminish wages:
<Henceforth becoming his adviser in everything, he cut down the pay from an Attic drachma to three obols a day, and even this not paid too regularly; and told Tissaphernes to say to the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, whose maritime experience was of an older date than their own, only gave their men three obols, not so much from poverty as to prevent their seamen being corrupted by being too well off, and injuring their condition by spending money upon enervating indulgences, and also paid their crews irregularly in order to have a security against their deserting in the arrears which they would leave behind them.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h.htm
So then, the delaying of payment is coincident with the diminishment of the wage, as a system of control and discipline, rather than economic necessity, as written.

>>2833486
You might find this interesting

>>2831860
I thoroughly recommend the obsidian + zotero workflow

>>2833603
please explain like i'm dumb, old, stinky. why wouldn't i just pirate PDFs and take notes in a word editor like i have for almost 20 years?

Ancient cuneiform tablets elaborating "ration lists" per monthly allotment of labour is given from two pre-Sargonic sources; the Tell Beydar archives (2400-2350 BCE) and the Enumus archives of Girsu (2350-2300 BCE). The allotments assort by divisions of labour, with the median rate being 60-90 litres of barley per head (or 2-3 litres per day) - to read more on this, see: "Home and Work in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia" - Walther Sallaberger and Alexander Pruß (2015). Rates differ from later on, as we read from (RSO 83 361 no. 37:1–4):
<464 men for 1 day, their barley is 4,640 liters [= 10 liters of barley per 1 man]; 3,248 men for 1 day, their silver is 9,744 grains of silver [= 3 grains of silver per 1 man]
This is from the Ur III period (2100-2000 BCE). We can see citation of the ruler Ur-šaga in (Princeton 2 34:1–8):
<[under] Ur-šaga; 20 hirelings, the wage of each (man) is ½ shekel of silver (and) 60 liters of barley
Now, wages here are extremely relative, which must show a difference between skilled and unskilled labour (also based in the number employed). We can further compare this to the Isin-Larsa period (1900-1800 BCE), where in the "Laws of Eshnunna" (1900 BCE) we get a series of fixed prices, or exchange rates between goods:
<1 kor barley for 1 shekel silver
<6 minae wool for 1 shekel silver
<3 minae copper for 1 shekel silver
<2 minae refined copper for 1 shekel
Here, prices are based in relative weights between the assorted goods (there are 200 litres in a kor; 200 grains in a shekel and 60 shekels in a mina). If the earlier period paid out basic wages 3:1 in barley and silver, the later period pays out 10:1, showing a ~300% reduction in the value of silver, which may be due to greater supply. The exchange rate between copper and silver is also relative to quality, and we may further read from the famous tablet "Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir" (1750 BCE):
<When you came, you said to me as follows: "I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots." You left then but you did not do what you promised me. […] On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and Umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper.
Thus, 1 mina of silver (1.25 pounds) is equal to 1,080 pounds (~850 minae) of refined copper ingots. In 1900 BCE then, the exchange rate between refined copper and silver is 120:1, while in 1750 BCE it is 850:1, showing a massive increase in the value of silver, relative to a depreciation in the value of copper. The supply of copper was increased by trade networks. In the contemporary "Code of Hammurabi" (1750 BCE) we get set prices for wages in different positions:
<If any one hire a day laborer, he shall pay him from the New Year until the fifth month (April to August, when days are long and the work hard) six gerahs in money per day; from the sixth month to the end of the year he shall give him five gerahs per day. […] If any one hire a skilled artizan, he shall pay as wages of the . . . five gerahs, as wages of the potter five gerahs, of a tailor five gerahs, of . . . gerahs, . . . of a ropemaker four gerahs, of . . .. gerahs, of a mason . . . gerahs per day.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp
There are 24 gerahs in a shekel, so wages have increased from 1900 BCE, and interestingly, the day labourer is paid at the highest rate, compared to the artisans, who all seem to make 5 gerahs a day. Here, we also see the rate of wages affected by the seasons, which was also a feature in medieval wage systems. Comparing the mesopotamian wage from over 700 years then, we see that it began at 2-3 litres of barley (~1 grain of silver) from 2400-2300 BCE, rising to 3 grains of silver from 2100-2000 BCE, and rising again to 5 gerahs (~40 grains of silver) from 1800-1700 BCE. This increase is concurrent of the level of economic activity, reflected in the exchange rate between copper and silver. Wages then seem to rise with development.

>>2833595
Thanks for the sourcebook. I used it to add to my post above. 🙂👍

Explanation for rate of profit falling?

>>2836826
Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall (TRPF) holds that the general rate of profit, expressed as surplus value over total capital advanced (s / (c + v)), tends to decline over the long term as a consequence of the accumulation process itself. In their competitive drive to increase productivity and extract relative surplus value, capitalists continually revolutionize the means of production, substituting machinery and fixed capital for living labor. This raises the organic composition of capital, which is the ratio of constant capital (c) to variable capital (v). Since only living labor creates new value and surplus value, the mass of surplus value (s) can rise, but the total capital advanced grows still faster; the denominator expands disproportionately relative to the numerator, exerting a persistent downward pressure on the rate of profit. This is, however, a “law of a tendency” because a host of counteracting influences can temporarily offset, suspend, or even reverse the fall: a rising rate of exploitation (increasing s/v), the cheapening of the elements of constant capital, the expansion of the industrial reserve army that depresses wages, foreign trade that lowers the value of both means of production and means of subsistence, and the export of capital to regions with a lower organic composition. Yet these counter-tendencies are themselves contradictory and often only intensify the underlying dynamic, for example by further raising the organic composition on an expanded scale. The tendency thus manifests itself not as a smooth linear decline but through recurrent crises of overaccumulation, where surplus capital cannot find profitable outlets, resulting in the devaluation and destruction of capital, concentration and centralization of capitals, and a chronic pressure toward stagnation. In this way, the TRPF encapsulates the historical limit of capitalism: the very development of the productive forces, driven by the pursuit of profit, progressively undermines the profitability that sustains accumulation, revealing the system as a historically transitory form.

Now one point of controversy is the question "Wait, why can only living labor create new value? What about AI? What about machines? What about slaves? What about livestock?" For Marx, the claim that only living labor creates new value is not a technological or physical statement but a categorical one grounded in the specific social form of capitalist production. Value, in his analysis, is not a transhistorical substance (another point of controversy) like embodied energy or general usefulness; it is the abstract social labor that becomes objectified in commodities under conditions where "freely contracted" (coerced by poverty) wage-labor and generalized commodity exchange are the norm. Machines and AI, no matter how productive, merely transfer their own value as commodities piecemeal into the final product through wear and tear; they cannot add more value than they themselves embody because they are themselves products of past labor, dead labor, and the capitalist pays for them at their value … Wait. Does the capitalist always pay exactly the value of the machine, or only on average? The answer is only on average. In Marx’s framework, value is the center of gravity around which market prices fluctuate. Individual capitalists can and do swindle one another, buy below value, or be forced to pay above value due to monopolies, information asymmetries, or sheer luck. These isolated cases of unequal exchange redistribute existing value. The swindler gains what the loser loses. but they do not create new value. So while the statement “the capitalist pays for them at their value” is a necessary theoretical simplification for analyzing the system as a whole, it is not a claim that every transaction happens at the exact value. In the long run, competition tends to enforce exchange at value (or prices of production) on average, precisely because persistent deviations reward some capitals and punish others, triggering movements of capital that erode the discrepancy.

Slaves and livestock, while biologically "living," do not create new value in the strictly capitalist sense because their activity is not performed under the wage-form: the slave is owned as a commodity and does not "freely" sell labor-power as a commodity, so the surplus they produce appears directly as surplus product consumed by the master, not as surplus value mediated through a wage contract. Thus, when accumulation systematically replaces living wage-labor with dead constant capital, it simultaneously reduces the sole source of new value and surplus value relative to the total capital advanced, driving the organic composition of capital upward and exerting the downward tendency on the rate of profit, a dynamic that no machine, no matter how sophisticated, can counteract because it cannot perform the social function of value creation upon which capitalism’s profit rests.

Crucially, this averaging process does not undermine the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Whether a particular capitalist got a bargain on their machinery or not, the machine itself only possesses the value determined by the socially necessary labor-time required to produce it, and that is the maximum it can transfer to the product. Any extra profit from paying less than value is not a magical expansion of value out of the machine, but a captured slice of surplus value generated elsewhere. The systematic rise in the organic composition of capital is a process measured in value terms, where the mass of constant capital grows relative to variable capital. That dynamic holds regardless of the daily noise of market haggling. Even the counter-tendency of the cheapening of constant capital, which raises the rate of profit by lowering the value of machines, operates as a real reduction in the labor-time needed to produce them, not merely a run of lucky discounts.

There are other side-questions and controversies (like the question of whether value is transhistorical) but I think I covered the main ones which immediately orbit the TRPF question.

>>2836884
>Value, in his analysis, is not a transhistorical substance (another point of controversy) like embodied energy or general usefulness; it is the abstract social labor that becomes objectified in commodities under conditions where "freely contracted" (coerced by poverty) wage-labor and generalized commodity exchange are the norm

Now to address this in a separate post because it arises from the first question but is somewhat unrelated: Why is value not a transhistorical concept in Marx's analysis? Won't products of human labor always be commensurable for their socially necessary labor time even if wage labor and capitalism are abolished?

Marx draws a sharp line between labor-time as the immanent measure of the expenditure of human effort and value as the social form this labor assumes under capitalism.

In any mode of production, there is a limited total of social labor-time to be distributed among different productive activities. As Marx writes,

<"every child knows that any nation that stopped working, I will not say for a year, but for a few weeks, would perish."

All societies must allocate their available labor in some proportion to meet their needs. In this sense, the substance of all material wealth is nature plus labor, and the magnitude of any product can always be traced back to a certain amount of labor-time.

Value is not simply labor-time, but abstract labor that becomes objectified in commodities and takes the form of a social relation between things. This happens only when production is carried out by private, independent producers who connect socially not through a plan but through the exchange of their products. In such a society, the specific labor of the tailor and the weaver cannot be directly social; they are only recognized as part of society's total labor if their products are exchanged. The exchange reduces their qualitatively different labors to a common abstract substance (value in Marx's system) which appears quantitatively as exchange-value. Thus, value is "purely social," a phantom-like objectivity that arises uniquely under generalized commodity production in industrial society.

In a communist or socialist society, Marx envisions a situation where labor is directly social. Imagine a producers' association that consciously plans production. Labor-time spent on tailoring or weaving would be recognized as part of the total social labor a priori, not post festum through the market. The products would no longer need to be commodities confronting each other as values; they would simply be the planned output of social labor. As Marx writes in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, after the capitalist mode of production is abolished, the share of each producer is determined by their labor-time contribution, but this labor-time no longer appears as the value of a commodity; instead,

<"the individual labor-time of the individual producer is the portion of the communal working-day he contributes, his share in it."

>>2836884
Does each article of a commodity give less profit as time goes on?

>>2836884
>they cannot add more value than they themselves embody because they are themselves products of past labor, dead labor, and the capitalist pays for them at their value
This is also the case for workers, whose value is measured by the wage, which is a consumption fund for existing commodities (e.g. dead labour). Thus, the value of labour-power is an accumulation of dead labour. The same logic applies to slaves and animals, which also produce a surplus, the same as the machine and worker. The only difference is that the worker is paid a wage. Thus, the valueless slave is suddenly valuable as soon as you represent his consumption by money; this is the great delusion of "value" as a speculative entity:
<In slave labour, even that part of the working day in which the slave is only replacing the value of his own means of existence, in which, therefore, in fact, he works for himself alone, appears as labour for his master. All the slave’s labour appears as unpaid labour. In wage labour, on the contrary, even surplus labour, or unpaid labour, appears as paid. There the property-relation conceals the labour of the slave for himself; here the money-relation conceals the unrequited labour of the wage labourer. [Marx, Capital Vol. 1, Ch. XIX]
>In the long run, competition tends to enforce exchange at value (or prices of production) on average
You seem to be presuming conditions of perfect competition. We live in a controlled market dominated by monopolies, so prices are mostly manually set for profit margins; the "law of value" is not present today (this is also true for things like wage controls on labour):
<The exchangeable value therefore of a commodity which is at a monopoly price, is no where regulated by the cost of production. [Ricardo, Principles, Ch. XVII]
>the surplus [slaves] produce appears directly as surplus product consumed by the master […] the social function of value creation upon which capitalism’s profit rests.
Consumed? Slavery has been extremely profitable for capitalists, because of the surplus commodities slaves produce for sale. This is a transhistorical reality:
<Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cot-ton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that gave the colonies their value; it is the colonies that created world trade, and it is world trade that is the precondition of large-scale industry. Thus slavery is an economic category of the greatest importance. […] Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America off the map of nations. Thus slavery, because it is an economic category, has always existed among the institutions of the peoples. Modern nations have been able only to disguise slavery in their own countries, but they have imposed it without disguise upon the New World. [Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, Ch. II]
>>2836893
>Why is value not a transhistorical concept in Marx's analysis?
It is:
<The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. It therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days. [Marx, Capital Vol. 1, Ch. I]
<In a word: the Marxian law of value holds generally, as far as economic laws are valid at all, for the whole period of simple commodity production – that is, up to the time when the latter suffers a modification through the appearance of the capitalist form of production […] Thus, the Marxian law of value has general economic validity for a period lasting from the beginning of exchange […] which in Egypt goes back to at least 2500 B.C., and perhaps 5000 B.C., and in Babylon to 4000 B.C., perhaps to 6000 B.C.; thus, the law of value has prevailed during a period of from five to seven thousand years. [Engels, Capital Vol. 3, Supplement]
This is why money is 'the form of value':
<The value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form, is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless, the human mind has for more than 2,000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it all [Marx, Capital Vol. 1, 1867 Preface]
>Value is not simply labor-time, but abstract labor that becomes objectified in commodities
And commodities are a transhistorical phenomenon.
>the share of each producer is determined by their labor-time contribution, but this labor-time no longer appears as the value of a commodity
It's identical to the wage, but it's not a wage, because… Reasons. The realist cares about the content, while the mystified cares about the misrecognised form.

>>2837425
>And commodities are a transhistorical phenomenon.
Laughing, not only is this not true but you need it to be every time you contend with Marx.

A commodity is a historical phenomenon unique to bourgeois capitalist society due to its manners of circulation

>>2837425
> value is measured by the wage
Likewise value isn't measured by the wage but merely part of its phenomenal form involved in the production of surplus value

You have so brutally misunderstood Marx, please read Harvey's companion

>>2838303
>>2837425
You will inevitably counter quote with a section from volume 1, so I will qualify "manners of circulation" which you come close to understanding but ignore. Capital is a historical phenomenon, and always has been

>>2838317
Manner* holy shit fucking autocorrect

>>2836884
>Now one point of controversy
for there to be a controversy this has to be a point held by someone of note, or that has at least indicated they have the slightest idea what the fuck they are talking about

post dismissed

>>2838303
>not true
From the *first* chapter of Marx's Capital Vol. 1:
<The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. It therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
>>2838317
>Capital is a historical phenomenon
Is capital the same as commodity production?
>>2838304
>value isn't measured by the wage
The wage is the value of labour-power, yes?
The wage pays for commodities, yes?

>>2838695
Hilarious, your own quote:
>though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days.

>Is capital the same as commodity production
You've thoroughly misunderstood what capital is

Not responding to you further as you will just go in circles

>>2838698
You seem to have skipped over the first part:
<[commodity production] makes its appearance at an early date in history
But I understand; your pride is wounded.
>You've thoroughly misunderstood what capital is
Where do I misunderstand? You substitute the term "commodity" for "capital" and now you run away. I'm sure you won't reply again either, as a man of honour, so I suggest that instead of reading Harvey, you actually read Marx's own words. If that will be all, so mote it be.

Sigma trilionaire grindset.

>>2838718
benjamin norton quotes form some finance people suggesting NASDAQ and wall st rewrote the rules for the space X IPO. this could be a pump and dump.

>>2836826
long term, bourgeois societies are unable to replenish the labor pool it needs for consumption, exploitation, etc

>>2838725
>elon is trillionaire

if it's a pump and dump he will come out even richer in the end.

he has about $576.60 for every second he has been alive.

clearly he works harder in 1 second than the third worlders who live on 1 dollar a day mining cobalt work in an entire year…. right?

he earned every dollar by innovating (crashing rocket ships) creating jobs (causing problems) and taking on risk (gambling with subsidies) or something… all while zonked out on ketamine and seig-heiling at GOP conventions

>>2838499
are you trolling dude. anon was just trying to get out ahead of counter arguments that often spring up in this very thread

>>2838947
Don't forget his relentless tweeting.
>>2838725
We've had plenty of trillionaires before…

>>2836903
if the cost of their production decreases, yes. but there are contrary tendencies. for example a supply chain shortage

>>2838951
>We've had plenty of trillionaires before…
he's the world's first USD trillionaire. Some argue that Roman emperors may have been inflation-adjusted USD trillionaires but it's basically impossible to get accurate statistics on their net worth and accurate inflation statistics going that far back.

>>2833616
If notes on same platform, no search. If obsidian and no word, link between note. Note from 10 years ago, keyword matches, go back, reread, idea you could no get other way like this. Note over note link, accumulate, unsuspected links. Zotero connector, highlight text you can import. Easily import excerpts, keep unified linked library of knowledge. Example: I highlight blue with bibliography items I want to read later, I highlight in orange everything that has to do with concept of value, in green every paragraph I find especially inspiring, then keep an automated templated like this: imports blue highlighted text into a section of note titled "bibliography" organr and green in respective titled section. Automate lot of stuff this way.

>>2833616
Also:
Keep unified calendar task manager, word written counter. Lots of community made add-ons to do every stuff with words you can imagine.

Only problem: if you get obsessed with it, you can end up loosing more time on fixing your obsidian than actually using it. Keep it basic and fix as need arise, don't fix before need

>>2838948
>legitimizing smith anons delusional rambling
please dont

>>2838968
>if you get obsessed with it, you can end up loosing more time on fixing your obsidian than actually using it.
that's my usual problem
>>2839003
>>2836884 was not smith anon. that anon is explicitly arguing against points smith anon has made in the past and has a completely different writing style. it seems like you just a saw a long post and your eyes glazed over and you started frothing at the mouth.

>>2839003
furthermore, here is proof that >>2836884 is not smith anon
>>2837425 was smith anon replying with direct arguments against >>2836884 .

>>2836884 is not smith anon
>>2837425 is smith anon

>>2839030
>it seems like you just a saw a long post and your eyes glazed over and you started frothing at the mouth.
of course it did

>that anon is explicitly arguing against points smith anon
oh, so legitimizing smith anons delusional rambling? the frequency and volume of his incorrect opinions does not justify giving them attention

>>2839036
your goal is to fill the thread with 1 sentence posts like "I didn't read that" and to ramble about smith anon when he's not even the one you're responding to. like you aren't even here to be on topic but to wreck the thread. fuck off.

>>2839164
>implying the thread was ever not wrecked from the start
>implying this is a website for serious discussion
(You)

>>2839425
>the site sucks so I have to make it worse
you're like a person who drives from a rich neighborhood to a poor neighborhood just to litter

Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) and Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening Up (ROU) were both attempts by communist-party-led governments to use market mechanisms to strengthen socialist states. However, they differed significantly in scale, duration, goals, and outcomes.

The NEP was introduced in 1921 after the Russian Civil War and allowed peasants and small businesses to engage in limited private trade while the state kept control of major industries. Deng's reforms began in 1978 after the Cultural Revolution and also reduced economic controls, but they went much further by encouraging private enterprise, foreign investment, and participation in global markets. Both policies reflected a pragmatic belief that some market activity could help achieve socialist goals, but Lenin saw the NEP as a temporary measure to restore economic stability, whereas Deng's reforms became a long-term transformation of China's economy. The NEP helped the Soviet economy recover but was ended by Stalin in the late 1920s, while Deng's reforms continued and contributed to decades of rapid economic growth in China. In short, both policies used markets to revive socialist economies, but Deng's program was broader, more enduring, and far more integrated with the global economy.

However, just because Stalin ended the NEP, does not mean he ended foreign direct investment in the Soviet economy. Consider:

<"The modern factories that defeated the Germans in World War II had their origin in the many technical agreements signed with foreign firms […] By March 1930 the [USSR] had signed 104 contracts. Of the 104, 81 were with American or German companies […] Over 400 American engineers made the architectural drawings for the Magnitogorosk plant, the largest project in the First Five-Year Plan. […] In May 1930, McKee waws hired to supervise the construction as well. By 1931, 250 American engineers were working on the project […] McKee brought in engineers from General Electric to work on the huge electrical installation. New open-hearth furnaces were designed by the Freyn Company […] the American Morgan Engineering Company […] and the German Demag A-G.”

- Walter Dunn Jr., The Soviet Economy and the Red Army 1930-1945, 1995

Formally, Joseph Stalin ended the NEP by abolishing private agriculture, collectivizing the countryside, and imposing centralized planning through the Five-Year Plans. In that sense, the NEP clearly ended. The limited domestic market economy that Lenin had permitted was largely dismantled.

Stalin's industrialization drive was not based on complete economic isolation or pure autarky. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviet Union purchased foreign technology, hired Western engineers, licensed industrial processes, and contracted with American and German firms to build factories and infrastructure. The massive industrial complexes that became the foundation of Soviet heavy industry were often designed or assisted by foreign experts. In that respect, Stalin's policies retained a form of Leninist pragmatism. Ideologically, the Soviet government condemned capitalism, but practically, it was willing to use capitalist expertise and technology when it served Soviet development. Ironically, what followed the NEP was in one waty closer to the ROU than what came before: Lenin's NEP allowed market activity within the Soviet economy, but Stalin's industrialization, even though it eliminated domestic market mechanisms, it still continued to draw on foreign capitalist resources from outside the Soviet economy. Foreign direct investment: An opening up.

Regarding the perennial bugbear of "commodity production" Stalin said:

<Certain comrades affirm that the Party acted wrongly in preserving commodity production after it had assumed power and nationalized the means of production in our country. They consider that the Party should have banished commodity production there and then. In this connection they cite Engels, who says: "With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer". These comrades are profoundly mistaken. Let us examine Engels' formula. Engels' formula cannot be considered fully clear and precise, because it does not indicate whether it is referring to the seizure by society of all or only part of the means of production, that is, whether all or only part of the means of production are converted into public property. Hence, this formula of Engels' may be understood either way. Elsewhere in Anti-Duhring Engels speaks of mastering "all the means of production," of taking possession of "all means of production." Hence, in this formula Engels has in mind the nationalization not of part, but of all the means of production, that is, the conversion into public property of the means of production not only of industry, but also of agriculture. It follows from this that Engels has in mind countries where capitalism and the concentration of production have advanced far enough both in industry and in agriculture to permit the expropriation of all the means of production in the country and their conversion into public property. Engels, consequently, considers that in such countries, parallel with the socialization of all the means of production, commodity production should be put an end to. And that, of course, is correct. There was only one such country at the close of the last century, when Anti-Duhring was published - Britain. There the development of capitalism and the concentration of production both in industry and in agriculture had reached such a point that it would have been possible, in the event of the assumption of power by the proletariat, to convert all the country's means of production into public property and to put an end to commodity production.

- Stalin, Economic Problems of the USSR, 1951

Also:

<In speaking of the capitalists who strive only for profit, only to get rich, I do not want to say that these are the most worthless people, capable of nothing else. Many of them undoubtedly possess great organizing talent, which I do not dream of denying. We Soviet people learn a great deal from the capitalists.

- Stalin, Marxism Versus Liberalism, An Interview With H.G. Wells, 1934

So it may be more accurate to say that Stalin ended the NEP's economic structure but preserved a certain pragmatic willingness to use capitalist tools for socialist ends. In that limited sense, one can argue that the NEP survived "in spirit," though not in its actual institutions or policies. Many historians would also note that this pragmatic borrowing from the capitalist world resembles one of the features later associated with Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

China remains socialist because the state retains control over the commanding heights of the economy and because political power remains in the hands of the Communist Party. In this view, markets are tools, not the defining feature. The CPSU meanwhile, dissolved itself and caved to a neoliberal counter revolution. Critics say the CPC may as well have dissolved because they have betrayed socialism. They point to billionaires, stock markets, and trade with Israel. What are your thoughts?

>>2842600
>In short, both policies used markets to revive socialist economies
Almost as if the desire to abolish markets is in itself irrational.
>Lenin's NEP allowed market activity within the Soviet economy, but Stalin's industrialization, even though it eliminated domestic market mechanisms, it still continued to draw on foreign capitalist resources from outside the Soviet economy.
We can read the primary statistics from USSR (1929), which detailed the imports and exports of the country:
<The principal countries taking Soviet exports are England (26 per cent), Germany (22 per cent), Latvia (7.5 per cent), France (1 per cent), Persia (5.6 per cent) […] The principal Soviet exports are grain products, oil products, furs, timber, dairy products, manganese ore, oil cake and flax and tow […] The principal Soviet imports are cotton, industrial machinery, non-ferrous metals, leather, wool, tea, paper and cardboard, woolen yarn and agricultural machinery. Imports of cotton, machinery and metals play a larger comparative role in the general import scheme than they did before the war, and imports of consumption goods have fallen off.
https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/1928/sufds/ch12.htm
So, the USSR imported from the world market and exported to it as well, in the typical state-capitalist style.
>China remains socialist because the state retains control over the commanding heights of the economy and because political power remains in the hands of the Communist Party. In this view, markets are tools, not the defining feature
Doesn't this justify the statement that "socialism is when the government does stuff"? China itself attempts to say that you can have billionaires in socialism so long as capital is subordinated to politics - here, so long as the government is "sovereign" there is socialism, but what of fascism? If the nation is put ahead of capital, is this also socialism? The positive theory of socialism is undeveloped, because it has no precedence. Marx already identifies the various socialisms of his day and combats each of them, so "socialism" isn't enough:
<Reactionary Socialism […] Feudal Socialism […] Christian Socialism […] Petty-Bourgeois Socialism […] German or “True” Socialism […] Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism […] Critical-Utopian Socialism…
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm
<when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto […] in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm

>>2842902
the workers movement is stuck in a phase of apophatic theology. it can only say what is wrong. it cannot say what is right.

>>2842916
Well, the worker's movement is not the same as socialism or communism, as Lenin informs us (1902):
<The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.[2] The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm
Trade union consciousness develops in positivity to its reactionary object, as I argue, concerning the particularism of labour, which eventually becomes Fascist (I take this both from Kevin Passmore and Moishe Postone). The early Marx holds to the negativity of the proletariat in its international coalition (1848), yet later on, sees the internal contradiction where it concerns immigration (1870), in that the competition for wages incentivises hostilities. This is identified by Engels as early as 1845 with Irish immigrants in England. Marx holds to the position that this is irresolvable except by Irish independence and a cultivation of its own labour force, and as he writes most radically, the "English working class will never accomplish anything" until it has overcome the Irish question (1869). Thus, we see an earlier optimism in Marx broken up by the counter-revolution of proletarian nationalism. The term "national socialism" later emerges in 1898, following the Aigues-Mortes Massacre (1893), where French workers killed Italian immigrants. This has former precedence in the peasant revolt of 1381, where English guildsmen murdered Flemish guildsmen in London - thus, "trade union consciousness" leads to this sort of reaction, as a direct interest for the protection of labour. The worker's movement then has no broader project than this, which is why theories of socialism cannot regard the proletariat as their revolutionary subject. Indeed, even Marx's communism is supposed to be an abolition of the proletariat, but the proletariat cannot abolish itself.

>>2842941
> even Marx's communism is supposed to be an abolition of the proletariat, but the proletariat cannot abolish itself.
why do you think that is, and who is supposed to do it, if not them?

>>2843037
>why do you think that is
I think the working class is a particular category, not a universal category, so its political interests are exclusive. Within the categories of political economy, we also see the fine difference between "productive" and "unproductive" labourers, the employed and unemployed, the wage worker and slave, etc.
>who is supposed to do it, if not them?
Enlightened intellectuals. All revolutionary movements are driven by intellectuals, even the Peasant revolt, which was led by John Ball and Wat Tyler, who were not themselves peasants. None of the leaders of the Bolshevik leaders were proletarian, etc. Caesar was a patrician, not a plebeian. The certain difference between theory and practice makes itself manifest, the same way Plato distinguishes the head and the legs of the body politic by divisions of labour.

>>2843096
>Enlightened intellectuals.
the pen is not actually mightier than the sword

>>2843108
I disagree.

>>2843096
>Enlightened intellectuals. All revolutionary movements are driven by intellectuals
what is an intellectual? in 550 BCE thales first defined an intellectual as a house husband who listens to mozart on 2x speed in one ear and the bible in chinese in the other ear while doing the dishes for his absent wife

Responding to this video by Neema Parvini on cost (you may know Parvini for previously failing to know Marx's theory of value, despite claiming to be an expert, leading to a complete tantrum against Jack Angstreich):

• The primary claim that the classical LTV "imbues" products with a "magical" value is total ignorance; labour is factored as a production cost according to the computation of real wages. This is why a bee which builds a hive imparts no intrinsic value onto its product.
  
• The revelation that "value is subjective" is not unique to any school of economics, but is implicit to all of them. To overstate this common sense infers a humiliating illiteracy where it concerns distinguishing Austrian and Classical notions of value. Ricardo writes this on the first page of the first chapter of his major work (1817):
  

<Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it. If a commodity were in no way useful, - in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification, - it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/ricardo/tax/ch01.htm
Thus, has Mr. Parvini even read the authors which he assumes to repudiate? It seems to me that Austrian thinkers are most cultish, even moreso than Marxists.

• The declaration that "tin was once more valuable than gold" firstly needs historical citation, but also, Parvini claims that tin was more scarce (already quantifying a cause for the relative valuation), yet concludes that it is the use-value which determines relative value (despite, as we read in Aristotle, that although gold was less useful than iron, gold was still more valuable on account of its scarcity - the total utility of a thing is inverse to its marginal utility; this once again is basic economics, which Parvini irresponsibly overlooks - the utility of water has always been greater than diamonds, so why are diamonds more expensive than water? That is the question Smith asks in Wealth of Nations, Bk. 1, Ch. 4). To clarify, Menger does not make the arguments that Neema makes, Neema is simply improvising nonsense. The actual Austrian argument is congruent with Cost of Production theories of value in the macro, since all of these economists are drawing from the same data.
  
• Psychological phenomena as to 'why' one buys either commodity (A) or (B) is irrelevant and trivial to the actual exchange itself, so should have no concern in the domain of "economic" research beyond marketing.
  
• The idea that "there is no objective cost" disregards the fact that production itself is a chain of valuations. The result of this process is the objective product. Denying the causation of production is a strange hill to die on. Neema claims that exchange is "pure supply and pure demand", but supply is limited by cost; that is the basic physics of the point. Is "supply" also "subjective"? Neema continues, stating that "price is a result of exchange, not cost", but once more, production costs are accounted for by its various exchanges. This is why cost is framed as a cumulative price of production.
  
• Neema claims that prices rise due to consumer demand, but this is caused by increasing marginal utility, based in the supply of goods, based in costs; t. Jevons:
  

<Cost of production determines supply. Supply determines final degree of utility. Final degree of utility determines value.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-theory-of-political-economy#lf0237_head_054

• Neema once more invokes supply of coffee as a cause for its resultant rate of demand, displaying contradiction in his notion of valuation. If supply affects demand, then demand is caused by supply, making supply primary - thus, costs irresistably slip back into the framework. Parvini denies costs as a cause of value, yet constantly appeals to it unknowingly. The fact of its unintentional repetition displays the evidence better than I can.
  
• Finally, Parvini claims that interrupting price signals by regulating prices leads to socialism and poverty. Of course, there is no comment here upon the price fixing by private monopolies to increase marginal profits. Why is price fixing for private gain a non-issue to Parvini but price fixing for public gain an apocalyptic blunder?

H.H. Gossen is often considered the father of Marginal Utility Theory; at least as early as Jevons' Second Preface to Theory of Political Economy (1879). Gossen's major work was his "Entwickelung" (1854) which in its time was poorly-received, but has since been celebrated. Gossen himself in his preface declares the Copernican Revolution which he has established in economic theory. Unfortunately, Gossen died shortly after in 1858, mostly forgotten until later on.

Gossen's book is sorted between four parts:

• Part I: The Isolated Individual (Chapters I-VI)
  
• Part II: The Exchange Economy (Chapters VII-XIII)
  
• Part III: The Individual and Society (Chapters XIV-XVIII)
  
• Part IV: Social Reform (Chapters XIX-XXV)
  
  

Gossen's primary belief appears as deist, whereby the "laws of human enjoyment (pleasure)" are realised by the "Religion of the Creator", summed up here (Ch. XXV):
<"He made egoism the sole and irresistible force by which humanity may progress in the arts and science for both its material and intellectual welfare."
Part of the purpose of his polemic is to replace the need for socialism, since he sees what is common to economic justice is the renumeration of the social product to the labour expended on producing it; thus, it is by proportion of utility (commodity) to disutility (labour) which is most fair. He sees that in the current system, this does not occur, so seeks various reforms, including the nationalisation of land, for the sake that the rent is shared as a fund for social development rather than private extraction, as he formulates in Chapter X, that where rents are given, the value of labour is depleted, and so rents should be subjected against capital instead, for the benefit of labour (Ch. XXIII). Gossen favours a system of free exchange, but within the structure of reason, in state and citizen. Henceforth, I will provide summaries of the chapters of the book.

Chapter I:

• Value is understood as "pleasure" alone, which is subject to the laws of diminishing marginal utility, and so with added constant consumption, value decreases (e.g. increased supply lowers demand). Variable consumption prolongs the duration of pleasure, however, by an augmentation of value. The strategy of pleasure therefore concerns the efficient consumption of various resources, rather than of constant resources.
  
  

Chapter II:

• Life activity is generalised as "labour", and labour is presumed to accord to its object of pleasure. The activity thus renders an appreciating return to begin with, until the threshold of diminishing marginal returns. Labour is calculated as a unit of "disutility", and utility is reckoned to find equivalence to it for the sake of pleasure (this is also the marginal theory of wages proposed by Jevons, and for which reason, proves the exploitation of labour by the extension of the working day, such that wages are higher for lesser working days).
  
  

Chapter III:

• Gossen criticises the notion of "absolute value", and rather sees the relativity of value based in quantity of commodity supplied. For the same reason, he criticises the miser (hoarder) as "irrational" for the sake that money, like all other goods, should decline in value with each addition to its supply, which as Gossen claims, is an exception which proves the rule (a primary criticism of capital, e.g. making money from money ad infinitum).
  
  

Chapters IV-VI:

• Gossen relates the strategies of life pleasure according to a ratio between utility and disutility (consumption and production, in crude terms), where the aim of life is to create a positive balance. He also introduces a notion of time-preference in accounting for prospective reward via investment (this is especially relevant to Chapter VII, where greater skills are rewarded with greater pleasure).
  
  

Chapter VII:

• The Chapter opens with Axiom 7.1: (i) increase the number of pleasures as much as possible, (ii) increase skill and strength as much as possible, (iii) reduce one's labour as much as possible and (iv) be most efficient in applying skill and strength to achieving satiation. All of this is self-evidently sound, that the true object of utility is a positive balance between leisure and work.
  
• By the laws of diminishing marginal utility, the act of exchange is a relationship of pure gain, whereby (A) and (B) trade a surplus of good which they do not desire, for one which they do. Without exchange, surplus is waste, but with exchange, surplus turns from liability to asset, and so doubles the value of each commodity by the act. Exchange then, is a multiplier of value, based upon the more primary division of labour which facilitates it. An ideal distribution in exchange is one where products are shared most evenly, but even imperfect competition in trade yields benefits to both the buyer and seller.
  
• Gossen bases the measure of value in labour (with price acting indirectly of real value), as a standard of disutility which is met with a corresponding product returned for it. Gossen thus ascribes to the classical macroeconomics of accounting for labour as value. Accordingly, labour is renumerated from production by the amount of pleasure which its commodities provide, making skill (e.g. demand) the standard of wages. Unskilled labour therefore naturally receives a lesser reward than skilled labour, which Gossen sees as a natural disparity between ambitions for life pleasure (Jevons does the same where he says that some people prefer lower incomes because their desire is less. The Austrians are more critical upon this point by seeing how these cheap desires are short-term, not long-term, which reckons with economic justice more completely).
  
• Supply and demand lower the price of goods indefinitely, due to the desire to sell the total stock, benefitting consumers but ruining the producers.
  
• In a system which accords to the Laws of Pleasure, there is perfect economic justice, which rewards labour in proportion to its social contribution, bypassing the need for socialism. Gossen frames this system in terms of a free market, but does not glorify capitalism, and as we see proceeding henceforth, he critiques capital.
  
  

Chapters VIII-XIII:

• These chapters are quite short of content and mainly concern rent. Rent to Gossen is described as one-sided gain, where every positive pleasure on private land is subtracted by the landlord, leaving the tenant or producer without any gain of pleasure, and the landlord receiving the total product in return. Here, the laws of exchange do not follow from the sale of commodities. Axiom 12.1 relates the conclusive results that as rent decreases, these elements increase: (i) life pleasure, (ii) income, (iii) production yields. Thus, rents are the enemy of all of the essential economic categories. This is why later on (Chapter XXIII), Gossen advocates for the public ownership of land, so rents serve the ends of pleasure.
  
  

Chapters XIV-XVI:

• Axiom 14.1 confers that the measure of one is the meaeure of all in their various potentials: (i) increasing the absolute magnitude of pleasures (e.g. commodity), (ii) increasing the capacity for work, (iii) increasing life expectancy and (iv) increasing law and order.
  
• In chapter XVI, we see Gossen take a strong stand against deceit in trade, which he treats later as a legal matter (Aquinas similarly deals with this problem).
  
• Following Axiom 16.1 Gossen reveals an authoritarian streak in his writings, where the educated reserve a right to "discipline" the uneducated in the ways of custom and tradition which best serve the ends of pleasure. This right of "supervision" includes physical discipline. Gossen also sees that it is best to exercise both the body and mind continuously throughout life, and so the path of society should be indefinite self-improvement.
  
  

Chapter XVII:

• Commodities are assorted into (i) necessities, (ii) consumables and (iii) luxuries according to income distribution. Luxuries in Axiom 17.2 are also described as having an expense limited to the short duration of pleasure, making the marginal utility high, but total utility small.
  
• Chapter XVII ends with this passage, which appears to found the principle of cooperation upon general equality:
  

<humanity as a whole will render a maximum of work when it has succeeded in providing every individual with a position yielding him the average income of people in his class and when, moreover, each individual participates to the same extent in the work of all mankind as he partakes in the consumption of means of enjoyment produced by labor, a result that obviously leaves nothing to be desired.

Chapter XVIII:

• Chapter XVIII concerns the formal critique of existing social institutions, including markets and money. He immediately disputes that money directly represents value, but rather sees that money measures the labour required to produce commodities. Here, Gossen does not dispute the validity of the exchange-value of goods, but rather sees that equivalence in exchange is not the same as equivalent value as such. He then speaks contrarily upon this point, by relating value and price as the difference between demand and supply. In any case, Gossen sees value as the balance of supply and demand, with money obscuring this in the price system - so value to Gossen does seem to be value in exchange, accounted for by equal quantities of labour between produced commodities, the same as Jevons' view.
  
• Gossen sees that since money gives a claim to the labour of mankind, individual pleasure increases with income (apparently justifying policies of redistribution)
  
• Gossen diagnoses the cause of unemployment as given from overproduction, or the undervaluation of total commodity stock. Gossen suggests that until the time that human populations exist in perfect equilibrium, society should provide immediate assistance to the unemployed to give them re-employment in new sectors.
  
• Gossen repeats that equitable renumeration for labour must be measured according to these 3 aspects: (i) skill, (ii) intensity and (iii) displeasure. He appears to presume that overemployment lowers wages because each branch decreases individual output, and so the adjustment of labour into balanced sectors will raise wages, but at the expense of increased displeasure. This has the same issue as rent, of equalising gain with loss, rather than allowing a surplus (this is achieved in the classical vision by the disparity between value in use and value in exchange; as commodities become cheaper, total consumption may increase - Marx on this issue sees use-value both as a quality unto itself, but also a quantity of concrete labour, to justify his later claim that only labour-power possesses a surplus utility).
  
• We read in Gossen, Von Thünen's law of final utility (1826), which is also in The Book of Matthew (20:1-14):
  

<The agriculturalist attempts to produce an output on his land allowing the last [increment of] labor applied to it to receive its proportionate reward.

• Gossen criticises the system of protections for capital and labour and assigns the government with a single purpose, which is to allocate labour to its most efficient end so as to reduce the labour time required for production. Gossen is unclear as to whether or not this implies a reduction in the working day as such, but as seen, Gossen's aim is to increase real income in the general population as much as possible.
  
• Gossen views direct exchange (such as barter) as ideal, since it is the trade of value for value, while with money, he perceives a lack of value in the medium, and so he seeks that exchange should limit mediation as much as possible.
  
• Gossen sees that in his time, the quality of the "proletariat" is steadily declining, leading to the vanity of welfare programs which help less and less, but Gossen is largely unsympathetic, citing claims of increased general consumption, and therefore, an increase in the total life pleasure of mankind. Gossen sees that market competition is the ruin of many protected classes, and so no one is particularly discriminated. Gossen sees that welfare is a tax on the collective, and so the value one receives from it is disproportionate and unfair - also claiming that the anticipation of welfare leads to bad spending by workers, and so is an irrational system. Gossen's ultimate advice then is for workers to save and spend their money in more rational ways.
  
• Gossen criticises child labour as stunting the development of human beings into a fixed type.
  
• Gossen criticises "capital wealth" (rents and profits) as subtracting from the potential pleasure of mankind, stating that pleasure could increase without profits:
  

<Thus the percapita output of each good would increase accordingly, and the total life pleasure of each individual would increase on two counts in spite of the decrease in the so-called capital wealth to zero […] reduction of the purchase price of already existing rents represents a loss for the owner; however, it represents a much greater gain for the community as a whole.

• After this, Gossen discusses the rate of interest, which can be generally referred to the Mercantilist and Classical controversies concerning the legal rate and the natural rate of interest deviating from each other.

Moving into the final part of the work (XIX-XXV), we find Gossen's most practical solutions against barriers to the perfection of natural law applied to economic reality.

Chapter XIX:

• Gossen claims that in light of the perfect creation of Nature, the removal of obsctacles from society toward Natural Law (e.g. the laws of pleasure) will provide Heaven on Earth. His first decree is that man is born without knowledge or skill, so must be educated both in body and mind to achieve self-actualisation, which chiefly concerns an intuition of all natural forces. A complete education spans all subjects. From the age of 15, he further suggests physical education at gymnasia. He will be inducted into the true Religion of the Creator (e.g. Egoism) and will learn to appreciate custom.
  
• Following from this, he will enter employment, where Gossen imagines a true meritocracy, where income is measured by genuine talents and contributions.
  
• Gossen also promotes egalitarianism and abolitionism
  
  

Chapter XX:

• This chapter concerns monetary reform, wherein Gossen again sees only an indirect value in money, and real value in the things which money exchanges for. Money itself to Gossen should retain as stable a value as possible for consistency in exchange rates, and so supposes that all paper money should be abolished and replaced with silver and gold - although, at the same time, he suggests a fiat policy of valuing coin at face value (with an implicit trust in the validity of its value). Gossen also sees that circulation via the velocity of money should increase as much as possible.
  
  

Chapter XXI:

• Gossen makes the claim that the welfare of nations advance to the extent that private property is protected, yet if his complaint about the Communists is their desire to abolish private property, he should take note of the extent to which capitalism is accomplishing this task for them. Thus, the critique of Communism must at once be a critique of capitalism (Gossen nowhere defends 'capitalism' as such, but consistency in regard to the essence of anticommunism must be intuited).
  
• Labour is referred to as "value-creating activity".
  
• Gossen criticises all manner of subsidies, countering it with a Darwinist view of free economic justifications:
  

<All that exists must create by itself the means for its continued existence; otherwise it does not deserve to prevail. By the same token, the church, the arts, and science deserve to exist only when the accomplishments of their personnel are paid for in free economic relations at the level that brings to them their customary life pleasure without any subsidy by a legal person. […] It is not only the subsidies given by the government directly or indirectly to the church, the arts, and science that are deleterious for the well-being of society as a whole. As we have already noticed, the same holds true for subsidies coming out of endowments for the poor. These, too, should be abolished. […] The solution here is to give the sums not in the form of a subsidy but, rather, as a loan.

• Gossen finally sees that it should be illegal to sell a commodity with false or incomplete information, under the terms of "deceit".
  
  

Chapter XXII:

• Gossen suggests establishing a cooperative of creditors for the sake of publicly financing production.
  
  

Chapter XXIII:

• Here, Gossen establishes his plan to nationalise all land and only to lease it out to certain producers who will be willing to pay a rent which will be returned to the entire community, acting as a tax on profits. The purchase of land by the government is supposed to be voluntary, from whence afterwards, rents are imposed.
  
  

Chapter XXIV-XXV:

• This chapter summarises the proposed reforms: (i) The universality of cash payment, (ii) cooperative credit to allow the flow of cash much easier, (iii) state-owned land, (iv) loans replacing dole payments. From these, Gossen presumes a perfect system of meritocracy:
  

<As a necessary consequence, all of humanity will be engaged in a type of noble competition for the prize of the most enjoyable positions in life. […] every position will fall to the individual who is relatively best qualified for it; hence each person will have only himself to blame if he is pushed to a lower position in this competition. […] each individual will be rewarded according to the services that he has provided for mankind. And thus we discover that law, which determines the maximum of life pleasure for all mankind, is carried to the point where this maximum now also agrees with the varying services performed by individuals for the welfare of all. […] there is nothing further wanting in the world to make it a perfect paradise. […] [The Creator] made egoism the sole and irresistible force by which humanity may progress in the arts and science for both its material and intellectual welfare.
This is the conclusion of the work and its final message.

>>2843116
>revelation 19;15.jpeg

>15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

not the best verse to use to say the pen is mightier than the sword

>>2845924
The image of Rev 19:15 is the spoken word being the greatest weapon; the sword is symbolic of its power. It is also in reference to the earlier statement by Jesus in the gospels (Matt 10:34-36), that by his word, he brings strife between inwardly-divided wholes (such that a house divided may not stand). The dis-integration of wholes in this sense I would describe as "totalitarian" in the way that where the oikos is politicised, it divides the demos (for such discourses upon this primary contradiction, we may read Sophocles' Antigone, 440 BCE). Indeed, we see that an "iron rod" is brought against the nations by the means of the tongue.

On cursory theology concerning words, we see that in the basic translation, John 1 renders Logos as Word becoming Flesh, and in such a way that nothing is made without it. This links to Genesis 1, in how God creates by the power of his speech. Further, we see simulation in how Man is made in the "image of God", and we also see the ultimate sin in Revelation as life being given to the "image of the Beast" (Rev 13:15). Idols are called false gods in the Bible, because they are without life, yet we see how the living idol of the beast is animated (e.g. ensouled) and so is an authentic reproduction of God's power. Man is said to be made of clay and given the breath of life, and so man is the first "automaton" (e.g. such as the living instruments of Hephaestus). Words and images are then able to animate themselves. Marx later picks this up in a gothic way, seeing how man's objectification into the machine imbues the object with subjectivity and subordinates the subject as an object. Of course, animalia is itself simply electrified flesh.

On the essence of words, I would generally refer to the earliest kabbalistic literature (Plato's Cratylus) in which the nature of words and terms are discussed, with the conclusion of an original, divine language (which is a discourse continued into modernity, between John Dee's "Enochian", or PIE/Aryan, and which for their originality are claimed to possess the greatest purity of meaning). Some theorists claim that language can reflect the development of consciousness, from an original pictorial format (e.g. hieroglyphs) to alphabetic scripts, and so the division of encoded meaning to decoded meaning. When Plato discusses etymology, we notice how encoded terms are, such that one root word can mean multiple things, however we interpret them.

In terms of knowledge, Plato sees that thinking and speaking are inverse phenomena, and so thinking can seemingly not exist without words in which to speak. An early kabbalistic text, Sefer Yetzirah (500 CE), sees creation being both mental and linguistic, with the "three mothers": (א), (מ), (ש) being the foundation of existence. In esoteric terms, I refer to the Enuma Elish (1100 BCE):
<When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name […] When of the gods none had been called into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained
https://sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm
We see that before creation (order) there were no names, and no beings. Thus, we discover the esoteric meaning of names, as forms of things (e.g. a thing ids a thing by means of its distinction from other things, and so all things must have different names, whilst the nameless is unknowable, and so without being as such). This is why the highest principle has no name (道):
<The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
https://terebess.hu/english/tao/mitchell.html
We see the mystery of God's "name" in the Bible (יהוה):
<And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%203%3A14&version=KJV
Here, God has no name, but only a declaration, yet later in Revelation, we see mention of the mysterious name:
<His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2019&version=KJV
Here, Christ has a name that no man knows, and this name is the Word of God. This secret power reminds me of the Egyptian Legend of Isis and Ra (1200 BCE):
<Then the Majesty of Ra cried out and said, "Let Isis come with me, and let my Name pass from my breast to her breast." And he hid himself from the gods that followed in his train. […] Thus was the Name of Ra taken from him and given to Isis, and she, the great Enchantress, cried aloud the Word of Power, and the poison obeyed, and Ra was healed by the might of his Name.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/74354/74354-h/74354-h.htm
Thus, power is granted by the secret name of Ra, and for which, its possessor has the powers of the universe. This was major in modern occultism concerning the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), which became a symbol of all four-fold things (also called the ROTA in Tarot). Of course, we see that in the realm of knowledge (ἐπιστήμη), the mind is ruled by words, and it is words which grants man powers over nature thereof. Now, I will tell you what convinced me of kabbalistic realism…

Imagine a book which contained the answers to all questions of the universe, but it is encoded within a language which no one can read - does this inaccessibility to knowledge made the encoded knowledge invalid, or does it simply require translation? Now, imagine that the book is a metaphor of the mind, and suddenly we see that infinity rests within the modes of symbols, which express being by their decoding. For example, an alphabet represents an infinity of encoded cyphers, where letters are arranged to create meaning; truth then rests in the sequence of decoded meaning which was inherent in the alphabet itself. So, if I sent back a science book in Latin, I "unlock" knowledge which was always immanent to Roman culture, because the mind possesses infinite knowledge in an encoded format; decoding is the process of translating the mind into meaning. So then, access to being is simply an arrangement of Prima Materia, and All is within All. So, that is my brief theology of words and names, and an explanation of why the pen is mightier than the sword (because all things are written in ink). 🙂👍

I just encountered someone that said park chung hee economic policies and overall cold war dirigsme was economic liberalism.
how idiotic is this take?

>>2846575
depends on what they mean and what you mean by liberalism

>>2847496
alright
the context of this discussion happened in the neoliberal subreddit. And the guy who I was talking too had a nato tag.
So I used the liberal definition in the way neoliberals and classical economic liberals viewed it and I assumed he did the same

The issue is if we use this definition, saying the cold war dirigsme states were liberal is still profoundly wrong. The founder of modern economic liberalism (adam smith) attacked the mercantalist states. (which had simmilar economic policies that the dirigsme states had). Subsequent economic liberals after smith still advocated for the "free" market, where the private sector is the dominate leader and engine of the economy. Even liberals like keynes, still believed in the dominant leader role of the private sector.

The dirigsme states were not like this at all. Sure some of them still had dominately private economies but overall these economies functioned differently than what the liberals advocated. Using park chung hee as a example, the entire banking system was nationalized and the overall financial system was also controlled and domianted by the state. As a result the state had lots of control of the nations capital

This situation resulting in a economy where the economy was not shaped by the private sector following market mechanisms. Instead it lead to a economy where the state directly controlled where the market went. For example, instead of the domestic market "naturally" leading to sectors of the economy to be seen as a good investment. Its instead the state designating certain specific sectors as important and then sending pretty much a large majority of the nations capital towards that. (through the control of the banks)

I dont recall any economic liberal that advocated for something like this. Even keynes who argued for socalization of investment was thinking more so of a central bank. And then the central bank using macro economic tools to increase the overall investment in the economy. Not the state targeting specific economic sectors and then directly sending a large majority of the nations capital to those economic sectors

>>2847513
>the neoliberal subreddit
literally a think tank product btw

>>2847537
oh that explains so much

>>2847513
>The issue is if we use this definition, saying the cold war dirigsme states were liberal is still profoundly wrong. The founder of modern economic liberalism (adam smith) attacked the mercantalist states. (which had simmilar economic policies that the dirigsme states had).

Yeah, that makes sense.

>>2847547
deng… I kneel

>>2847513
>Even keynes who argued for socalization of investment was thinking more so of a central bank. And then the central bank using macro economic tools to increase the overall investment in the economy. Not the state targeting specific economic sectors and then directly sending a large majority of the nations capital to those economic sectors
That is literally what Keynes suggested - government control over the financial sector and targeted public investment into other economic sectors. The neoliberals have attempted to revise Keynes into some quasi-laissez-faire libtard and unfortunately Marxists like to play along with it in order so that they can dismiss Keynes. Keynes even supported controls on international trade he was a protectionist through and through.

>>2847554
can you give me particular quotes or sources where he advocates for strong gov control of the overall financial sector. And then using that control to send the majority of the nations capital towards key sectors of the economy.
From what I know of keynes, I thought he only advocated for increasing overall investment through macro economic controls (central bank) or work programs.

>>2822318
>>2822516
shipping is basically free. a container ship that can carry 1,000 TEU which translates into a cargo tonnage of ~10-15,000 tons and can have an operating cost as low as $5,000 a day. that's assuming a small ship and the lower end of operating costs, which should balance out. (in all likelihood we're dealing with a bigger ship and higher costs, but carrying capacity increasing faster than costs and thus, a lower cost per ton.)

anyway: it takes 35 days to get from argentina to thailand by ship and a ton of pears is ~5,000 pears.
operating cost of the ship: 175000 (35*5,000)
operating cost / 10,000 tons of pears: 0.0035 cents per pear.

now obviously the shipping company has to make a profit, but you can double the cost factor and still wind up with less than 1c per pear going to shipping costs.
now, it's possible they're using airfreight instead of going by sea, but i'll spare you re-doing the calculation: air-freight is usually $5,000 per ton so you wind up at about 1c per pear, more expensive but still negligible.

if wages are higher in argentina (they are) and other costs (taxes, regulatory burdens, etc) are higher (which seems plausible given thailand is a rising economy and argentina is a notoriously dysfunctional one) it almost certainly makes economic sense to ship the pears to benefit from the lower costs and barriers in thailand rather than having to sell at a higher price using argentine labour to pack them. the decision to ship is the result of rational actors working around an irrational economy in a desirable growing zone.
mostly i just wanted to illustrate how amazingly cheap shipping things is.

I have discovered a wonderful, though overstated, piece of pedantry and controversy, "The Myth of Simple Commodity Production", by Christopher J. Arthur (2005):
https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/chris-arthur/article2.htm
In this article, Christopher investigates the seeming revision of Marx's writing by Engels to prove a "logical-historical" development of his theory of value, from an original "simple commodity exchange" to "generalised commodity exchange", which thence has been repeated by many - the origin of such an intervention is traced to the preface and supplement of Capital Vol. 3 (1894), continuous of correspondence with Schmidt (1895). The consequent spokemen of this revision are Lange, Meek, Sweezy, Mandel and Fine (until his correction in 2003). I have also found this orthodoxy written in the official USSR handbook of Political Economy (1957). I find this fascinating, because to me, Engels is also the inventor of "dialectical materialism", not Marx. Marx did not view nature as a theoretical entity, but only human society. Marx respected the common science of his day, while Engels seemed to struggle to theorise nature, such as his writings on modern science, which Marx scarcely had pretensions toward. I find affinity in Arthur's work, since it focuses on primary sources. His ultimate conclusion is also resonant of the facts:
<Marx was not himself clear about the issues
https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/chris-arthur/article2.htm
This is a massive understatement, with Marx's later life being an editorial disaster, disabling him to sufficiently publish the later volumes of the Critique, because he was always going back to fix the first. Marx's economic manuscripts span from 1857-65, and he died in 1883, so had 18 years to edit and publish them, but was unable to. Engels himself laboured for over a decade after his death to put out Volume 2 (1885) and Volume 3 (1894), so Marx could never offer his final word on anything.

Now, unless Christopher's dispute is that pre-capitalist commodity production didn't exist, he may be justified, but no ultimate comment is made, besides that the commodities in the first part of Capital Vol. 1 (Chapters 1-3) refer to capitalist commodities. I would contend against this, as we see that Marx indeed accepted the "presupposition" of pre-capitalist commodities (1864):
<The production and circulation of commodities, however, do not conversely presuppose the capitalist mode of production for their existence; on the contrary, as I have already demonstrated, they also “exist in pre-bourgeois social formations”. They are the historical presupposition of the capitalist mode of production. On the other hand, however, it is only on the basis of capitalist production that the commodity becomes the general form of the product, that every product must take on the commodity form, that sale and purchase seize control not only of the surplus of production but of its very substance, and that the various conditions of production themselves emerge in their totality as commodities which go into the production process from circulation. Hence if the commodity appears on the one hand as the presupposition for the formation of capital, the commodity also appears, on the other hand, as essentially the product and result of the capitalist production process, in so far as it is the universal elementary form of the product. At earlier stages of production, products assume the commodity form in part. Capital, in contrast, necessarily produces its product as a commodity. […] Here, it is apparent how even economic categories which belong to earlier epochs of production take on a specifically different, historical, character on the basis of the capitalist mode of production. […] Commodity production necessarily leads to capitalist production […] From the moment at which labour power itself in general becomes a commodity. […] Capitalist production annihilates the [original] basis of commodity production, isolated, independent production and exchange between the owners of commodities, or the exchange of equivalents. […] The commodity as it emerges from capitalist production is determined differently from the commodity as it was at the starting point, as the element, the presupposition, of capitalist production. We started with the individual commodity as an independent article in which a specific quantity of labour time was objectified, and which therefore had an exchange value of a given magnitude. […] The commodity now reveals itself as such — as the repository of the total value of the capital + the surplus value, as opposed to the commodity which originally appeared to us as independent […] the commodity as a product of capital […] must be considered differently from the way we viewed it previously, at the beginning of our examination of the individual, independent commodity.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm
The quotation referring to pre-bourgeois commodity production is cited in MECW34 from Zur Kritik (1A):
<Steuart knew very well that in pre-bourgeois eras also products assumed the form of commodities and commodities that of money; but he shows in great detail that the commodity as the elementary and primary unit of wealth and alienation as the predominant form of appropriation are characteristic only of the bourgeois period of production
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch01a.htm
Here then is a brilliant proof of Engels' basic claim, and proves that the commodities in Part 1 of Capital Vol. 1 (C-M-C) are different from later capitalist commodities (M-C-M). Marx even gives way to the idea of generalised commodity production being the basis of capitalist relations, which is not in the exclusive commodification of labour-power, but only its generality. The difference between simple and capitalist commodities is already discussed by Adam Smith, of course, in that "labour was the first price", until labour became the unit of account between the revenues of wages, rents and profits [c + v + s], which is its capitalist augmentation. It would have been helpful if Marx included this segment, or at least part of its historicity in his published work, but at least we can consult his private thoughts in these records. As a preliminary, I would suggest all aspiring Marxists to read "Results of the Direct Production Process" (1864):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/index.htm

Nevertheless, we still see the same basic idea in Marx's published work, especially early on in Capital (1867):
<Every product of labour is, in all states of society, a use value; but it is only at a definite historical epoch in a society’s development that such a product becomes a commodity […] the elementary value form is also the primitive form under which a product of labour appears historically as a commodity […] The simple commodity form is therefore the germ of the money form. […] In the ancient Asiatic and other ancient modes of production, we find that the conversion of products into commodities, and therefore the conversion of men into producers of commodities, holds a subordinate place, which, however, increases in importance as the primitive communities approach nearer and nearer to their dissolution. […] The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. It therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
<But such a state of reciprocal independence has no existence in a primitive society based on property in common, whether such a society takes the form of a patriarchal family, an ancient Indian community, or a Peruvian Inca State. The exchange of commodities, therefore, first begins on the boundaries of such communities, at their points of contact with other similar communities, or with members of the latter. So soon, however, as products once become commodities in the external relations of a community, they also, by reaction, become so in its internal intercourse.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
<Definite historical conditions are necessary that a product may become a commodity. […] The appearance of products as commodities pre-supposes such a development of the social division of labour, that the separation of use-value from exchange-value, a separation which first begins with barter, must already have been completed. But such a degree of development is common to many forms of society, which in other respects present the most varying historical features. On the other hand, if we consider money, its existence implies a definite stage in the exchange of commodities. […] Yet we know by experience that a circulation of commodities relatively primitive, suffices for the production of all these forms. Otherwise with capital. The historical conditions of its existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm

There is further relevance in unpublished work (1861-3):
<This is a return not only to the time before capitalist production, but even to the time before there was simple commodity production…
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch17.htm
<This means that capital is not a simple quantity.  It is not a simple commodity, but a commodity raised to a higher power; not a simple magnitude, but a proportion.  It is a proportion of the principal, a given value, to itself as surplus-value.  
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add3.htm
Thus, Marx makes it clear that simple commodity circulation (C-M-C) differs from capital (M-C-M), but even on this point, capital still has a pre-capitalist origin. We see Marx discuss these two modes in relation to Aristotle's distinction between the circuits (1859-67):
<Aristotle sets forth the two circuits of circulation C—M—C and M—C—M, which he calls "economics" and "Chrematistics", and their differences.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch02_3.htm
<Therefore, as [Aristotle] goes on to show, the original form of trade was barter, but with the extension of the latter, there arose the necessity for money. On the discovery of money, barter of necessity developed into kapelike, into trading in commodities, and this again, in opposition to its original tendency, grew into Chrematistic, into the art of making money.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm
This is historically elaborated upon in Capital Vol. 3:
<Interest-bearing capital, or, as we may call it in its antiquated form, usurer's capital, belongs together with its twin brother, merchant's capital, to the antediluvian forms of capital, which long precede the capitalist mode of production and are to be found in the most diverse economic formations of society. The existence of usurer's capital merely requires that at least a portion of products should be transformed into commodities, and that money should have developed in its various functions along with trade in commodities.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm
So then, capital preceded capital-ism, and thencewise, commodity production preceded capitalist production. The error in Marx's work then is its lack of revision upon the requests of Engels, to systematise his work in a coherent logical-historical fashion. A lack of style kills the substance, and so Marx fails to be a philosopher. Marx was not stupid; in fact, he was a world-historical genius, but he was ultimately his own worst enemy. Engels' heroic loyalty to Marx leads to the attempt to redeem his friend, by proceeding from the spirit of the law rather than the letter, and so he is finally justified, and this is the academic legacy, from Kautsky onwards. So, Christopher is right, but Engels is also right, and as Hegel tells us, this is the essential meaning of tragedy.

>>2847657
I am begging you to read a guided reader to Capital, if not capital itself

>>2847672
I quote Capital numerous times in my post; perhaps you missed it.
In any case, I am exclusively quoting Marx, so any issue you have with the content of the post is with Marx himself.

>>2847678
You have so hilariously misunderstood and misappropriated selected quotes from Capital to argue that parasitic unproductive capital meant Marx was wrong that it is clear you do not understand Volume 1 least of all

Pick up a guided reader or a companion and begin working your way through.

>>2847680
>misunderstood
What is misunderstood? In any case, I will give you a history lesson.

Marx wrote his Economic Manuscripts between 1857-65, which subsequently become the Grundrisse (1857-8), Zur Kritik (1859), Capital Vol. 1 (1867), Capital Vol. 2 (1885), Capital Vol. 3 (1894), Theories of Surplus Value (1910) and Miscellanea, including "Results of the Direct Production Process" (1864), an original draft of Chapter 6 of Capital Vol. 1. There is of course an earlier collection of 1844 (often called the Paris Manuscripts), which were only made public in 1932 (the same as The German Ideology), when the Soviet Union began excavating Marx's work. So then, the context of published and unpublished sources from the same period represent a continuity of thought in the cultivation of a critique, making all citation valid in the general understanding of Marx's view. I will simplify the sources, since you appear to be incapable of sustaining reading comprehension.

Zur Kritik (1859):
<Steuart knew very well that in pre-bourgeois eras also products assumed the form of commodities and commodities that of money
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch01a.htm
Theories of Surplus Value (1861-3):
<This is a return not only to the time before capitalist production, but even to the time before there was simple commodity production…
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch17.htm
Results of the Direct Production Process (1864):
<The production and circulation of commodities, however, do not conversely presuppose the capitalist mode of production for their existence; on the contrary, as I have already demonstrated, they also “exist in pre-bourgeois social formations”.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm
Capital Vol. 1 (1867):
<The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity […] makes its appearance at an early date in history
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
<primitive society […] an ancient Indian community, or a Peruvian Inca State. The exchange of commodities, therefore, first begins on the boundaries of such communities
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
<Definite historical conditions are necessary that a product may become a commodity […] which first begins with barter […] if we consider money, its existence implies a definite stage in the exchange of commodities.
Capital Vol. 3 (1894)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm
<usurer's capital, belongs together with its twin brother, merchant's capital, to the antediluvian forms of capital, which long precede the capitalist mode of production […] The existence of usurer's capital merely requires that at least a portion of products should be transformed into commodities, and that money should have developed in its various functions along with trade in commodities.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm

>>2847693
You have just vomitted more quotes in defence of a point you have barely understood

Harvey's companion to Capital is 300 pages, come back when you have read it

>>2847698
Anon, you are literally just disagreeing with Marx.
You are allowed to do that, but at least be honest about it.
<The production and circulation of commodities, however, do not conversely presuppose the capitalist mode of production
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm

>>2847701
You are arguing yet again upon a platonic conception of capital based on a series of misreadings and misunderstandings of the term and its conceptual development

You are unable to synthesise a materialist understanding native to his works because you will do not do the basic required reading. If you will not read Harvey's companion not any other guided reader, then restart here:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a2

Please stop shitting up these threads with you delusional misinterpretations of Marxist works

>>2847708
your delusional*

>>2847708
>misreadings
What is the proper reading of the following quotation?
<The production and circulation of commodities, however, do not conversely presuppose the capitalist mode of production
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm

>>2847717
Your point hinges upon your own ignorance as you yet again cherry pick quotations that rely on a misunderstanding of Marx's methodology in order to contrive an irrelevant and time wasting argument

Read First Premises On Materialist Method and then, to illustrate to yourself your own lack of understanding, On The Jewish Question

>>2847723
What is the proper reading of the following quotation?
<The production and circulation of commodities, however, do not conversely presuppose the capitalist mode of production
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm

>>2847698
>Harvey's companion to Capital
Harvey presumes Marx's affirmation of a pre-capitalist existence of commodities, in a relationship of barter which measures relative values unto the final value-form, in money (Chapter 1, Section 3):
<Marx's objective is to explain the origin of the money-form […] He accomplishes this task in a series of heavy-handed steps, beginning with a simple barter situation. I have a commodity, you have a commodity. […] your commodity is going to be a measure of the value of mine […] An increasing complexity of exchange relations produces an "expanded form' of value that morphs into a "general form' of value […] This ultimately crystallizes in a "universal equivalent": one commodity that plays the exclusive role of a "money commodity". […] The money commodity arises out of a trading system and does not precede it, so it is the proliferation and generalization of exchange relations that is the crucial, necessary condition for the crystallization of the money-form.
So Harvey reads that money is a result of the exchange of commodities, producing the universal equivalent. I read your suggested book, and it claimed the existence of pre-capitalist commodity exchange. To make it clear:
<barter […] I have a commodity, you have a commodity […] your commodity is going to be a measure of the value of mine

>>2847817
You abscond into an explanation of the money form as a universal equivalent in order to transubstantiate an explanation of capital that is never offered by grounding it in part of the monetary circulation.

This capital, as a deus machina, for you has existed, always existed, and any contention of historicity between the development of productive and merchant capital is confused as you reduce the concept to a platonic understanding.

Read through the companion and do not just quote mine for passages that seem to support your batshit views

>>2847830
Thus capital*

>>2847817
Laughibly you have finally managed to differentiate between simple commodity production and generalised commodity production, which is why you've had this little breakthrough in discovering that Marx posits merchants capital as preceding capitalist development proper

>>2847672
>>2847680
>>2847698
>Read Harvey
Reading Harvey, he affirms the existence of pre-capitalist commodity exchange with equivalent exchange-values as the basis of money in Marx's writing (Companion to Capital, Pages 30-31): >>2847817
This is entirely in line with what I have written.
>>2847723
>>2847709
>>2847708
>Read "First Premises On Materialist Method"
<These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way […] The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals […] They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence […] As individuals express their life, so they are […] The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm
>Read "On The Jewish Question"
<The German Jews desire emancipation […] Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German? […] The most rigid form of the opposition between the Jew and the Christian is the  religious  opposition. How is an opposition resolved? By making it impossible. How is religious opposition made impossible? By abolishing religion. […] Science, then, constitutes their unity. […] The limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact that the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really free from this restriction, that the state can be a free state […] without man being a free man […] It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. […] The state is the intermediary between man and man’s freedom. […] Is not private property abolished in idea if the non-property owner has become the legislator for the property owner? The property qualification for the suffrage is the last political form of giving recognition to private property. Nevertheless, the political annulment of private property not only fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. […] The perfect political state is, by its nature, man’s species-life, as opposed to his material life. All the preconditions of this egoistic life continue to exist in civil society  outside the sphere of the state, but as qualities of civil society. Where the political state has attained its true development, man – not only in thought, in consciousness, but in reality, in life – leads a twofold life, a heavenly and an earthly life […] Man, as the adherent of a particular religion, finds himself in conflict with his citizenship and with other men as members of the community. This conflict reduces itself to the  secular division between the political state and civil society. […] Man emancipates himself politically from religion by banishing it from the sphere of public law to that of private law. […] Religion has become the spirit of civil society […] the perfect Christian state is the  atheistic  state, the democratic state, the state which relegates religion to a place among the other elements of civil society. […] Not Christianity, but the human basis of Christianity is the basis of this state. Religion remains the ideal, non-secular consciousness of its members, because religion is the ideal form of the stage of human development achieved in this state. The members of the political state are religious owing to the dualism between individual life and species-life, between the life of civil society and political life. […] We have, thus, shown that political emancipation from religion leaves religion in existence, although not a privileged religion. The contradiction in which the adherent of a particular religion finds himself involved in relation to his citizenship is only one aspect of the universal secular contradiction between the political state and civil society. […] The emancipation of the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from religion. […] political emancipation itself is not  human  emancipation. […] the completion of the idealism of the state was at the same time the completion of the materialism of civil society. Throwing off the political yoke meant at the same time throwing off the bonds which restrained the egoistic spirit of civil society. Political emancipation was, at the same time, the emancipation of civil society from politics […] The real man is recognized only in the shape of the egoistic i individual, the true man is recognized only in the shape of the abstract citizen. […] Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life […] and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished. […] What particular social element has to be overcome in order to abolish Judaism? For the present-day Jew’s capacity for emancipation is the relation of Judaism to the emancipation of the modern world. […] Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God?  Money. Very well then! Emancipation from  huckstering  and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time. […] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism. […] the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews. […] The Jew, who exists as a distinct member of civil society, is only a particular manifestation of the Judaism of civil society. […] The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world. […] From the outset, the Christian was the theorizing Jew, the Jew is, therefore, the practical Christian, and the practical Christian has become a Jew again. […] Christianity is the sublime thought of Judaism, Judaism is the common practical application of Christianity […] civil society could not convince the Jew of the unreality of his religious nature, which is indeed only the ideal aspect of practical need. […] The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
I read them. Now what?

>>2847830
What I've done is quote Marx which makes you upset, so then I quote Harvey and that also makes you upset. You seem like a miserable person who doesn't know what they should believe. You certainly don't believe in the evidence of your senses, at least.
>>2847835
>you have finally managed to differentiate between simple commodity production and generalised commodity production
All I have claimed is that simple commodity production is a fact of Marx's theory, against Christopher Arthur. Anyway, you agree that commodity production preceded capitalism, and that because of this personal agreement, you find no controversy in these posts?
>>2847657
>>2847693
>>2847717
>>2847729
>>2847817

>>2847885
I've never seen someone misunderstand Capital this badly. It is hilarious that now you've formally accepted the necessity for differentiating between simple and generalised commodity production (simply because Marx wrote it) but rescue Smith through platonic abstractions between the two unified in an everlasting conception of Capital.

You cannot synthesise a truly scientific position because yours is eternally reduced to a transhistorical universalism of terminology used to delude yourself into accepting bourgeois notions. Actually read the entirety of Harvey's companion and we can talk.

>>2847901
>I've never seen someone misunderstand Capital this badly.
What is misunderstood? You haven't explained.
>you've formally accepted the necessity for differentiating between simple and generalised commodity production (simply because Marx wrote it) but rescue Smith through platonic abstractions between the two
Smith also differentiates between the two, as I stated: >>2847657
<The difference between simple and capitalist commodities is already discussed by Adam Smith, of course, in that "labour was the first price", until labour became the unit of account between the revenues of wages, rents and profits [c + v + s], which is its capitalist augmentation.
This is why I say you struggle with reading comprehension.
>transhistorical universalism
But you also accept the transhistoricity of commodity production…
There is no controversy, anon. You are just looking for trouble.
>Actually read the entirety of Harvey's companion and we can talk.
Talk about what? We are already agreeing on everything; you just don't know it because you appear to have some sort of personality disorder. I pray that you find peace in this life, my friend. 🙏🙂👍

>>2847905
>Smith also differentiates between the two, as I stated
He differentiates the two but in no way understands them, hence a formal acknowledgement
>But you also accept the transhistoricity of commodity production…
This is hilarious. Not only does he not understand the difference but neither do you.

Why you retards coalesce to this thread is beyond me. It is clear you idiots will never understand Marx without the help of a guided reader.

>>2847909
Oh my bad I thought you were someone else

You haven't understood the distinction between simple and generalised commodity production because it is a theoretical historical development

I am done with this ridiculous circuitous argument. If you will not bother to read the most basic of introductions then don't bother posting here

>>2847912
>You haven't understood the distinction between simple and generalised commodity production because it is a theoretical historical development
This treatment is already in Smith. Read below.
>>2847909
>He differentiates the two but in no way understands them
What is misunderstood? Both Marx and Engels attribute the discovery of surplus value to Smith's writings:
<In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another […] As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people […] The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves itself in this ease into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced […] He must in most cases share it with the owner of the stock which employs him. […] As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. […] The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be observed, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value not only of that part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into profit.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch06.htm
Thus, there is an historical development from the "rude" state toward the conditions of surplus value production. So again, there is no actual disagreement, which is why no explanation of it is ever given.

>>2847934
It is hilarious still that you misquote on the origins of surplus value as the differentiating factor and not the fact that generalised commodity production entails productive capital and hence the general formulae for commodity circulation.

Oh, but Smith anon. Have you misunderstood chapter 4 of fucking volume 1? What a shock! Perhaps we should read Harvey's companion to help us understand the materialist premise and methodology of Marx and abandon endlessly quote mining economists and reducing them to a crude Neoplatonic perspective

>>2847934
>>2847947
This argument is so convoluted now you will spin out in a thousand different directions either misquoting Marx and Engels again or deferring back to Smith

All when you could simply read Harvey's fucking companion

>>2847950
Anon, you have already recognised the fact that you agree with me, so please stop being stubborn and prideful for no reason. You claim my misunderstanding, but can't give a single example. You don't even know what you're arguing about anymore. This derangement is unhealthy. Get well soon. 🙏🙂👍
>>2847947
>misquote on the origins of surplus value
What is "misquoted"? Surplus value is value added onto capital stock (e.g. value + value = surplus value). Thus, the employment of labour upon stock is the origin of surplus value, as it is understood:
<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
This is why to Smith, once labour is employed by capitalists, it must combine itself with profit and/or rent as a means to compensate the "master" above the rate of wages. This is also Marx's view; that capital is LP + MP to create surplus (C'), realised as value (M-M').
>Have you misunderstood chapter 4 of fucking volume 1?
This is how it begins:
<The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital […] The modern history of capital dates from the creation in the 16th century of a world-embracing commerce and a world-embracing market. […] money: this final product of the circulation of commodities
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm
So then, the circulation of commodities precedes both capital, and money itself. C-M-C is then ancient. Further, as we read from a footnote in Chapter 4, Aristotle already describes capital (M-C-M). This shouldn't be controversial, since you have admitted to this.

>>2847964
And thus we resort to technical distinctions in the composition of capital in order to abstract from its specific historical character, taking us back in a loop to the very first issue which is your platonic conception of capital grounded in a simplistic interpretation of terminological causes.

Thus it is you misunderstand the differentiation inherent in simple and generalised commodity production with the general formulae holding that capital has existed, will exist, and has always existed because there is no meaningful separation between productive and merchant capital.

>>2847964
Your position can essentially be reduced to arguing that capitalism has always existed much like the bourgeois economists

Again, fuck off and read Harvey

>>2847977
>capitalism has always existed
If I'm citing Smith who says that capitalism has not always existed, then how am I making the opposite claim? You need to think about this.
>>2847973
>Thus it is you misunderstand the differentiation inherent in simple and generalised commodity production
There is no misunderstanding, there is only classification.
Both simple and capitalist commodities are "commodities".
Both merchant's capital and industrial capital are "capital".
This is the first point; you are jumping to the secondary point. We both agree on the first point, whether you admit it or not, but you imagine that I am only making a single point. I have given due consideration to the rise of industrial capital previously, by analysing the mercantilist period and its literature. I have even demonstrated the historical and cultural discontinuity concerning the mechanical arts from antiquity to modernity, in their economic conceptions. So, I don't nake a single point, but I still make a first point, which you agree with - yet still rebel. You are rebelling against yourself, anon.
>capital has existed, will exist, and has always existed
If capital is money making money, then how could it have always existed, if money has not always existed?

>>2847984
>Both merchant's capital and industrial capital are "capital".
They are both forms of capital but they are historically contingent on the level of the development of the productive forces within society - hence merchant capital is parasitic whereas productive capital entails the development of generalised commodity production.

You are attempting to turn this in its head and argue that since simple commodity production has existed in ancient slave holding societies capital in general has existed since time immemorial full stop. This contravenes the basic methodology of historical materialism which is why you retreat to Smith every time you are proven wrong. Thus the supposed distinctions in the "mechanical arts" resembles the basic arguments Marx wrote against 200 years prior in which economic conceptions were dependent upon mere technical developments and not the class structures unique to these periods along with the relations of ownership.

Again, reread the First Premises and this argument is there. You have so patently misunderstood Marx because you are incapable of confronting him on his own terms and instead resort to sophistry in order to complete the tedious obfuscation of actual scientific inquiry with your own delusional dogma.

Read through Harvey's companion and by the end you will have reconsidered your position

>>2848000
Compel the tedious*

>>2847984
Laughibly it is only weeks ago when you were told that simple and generalised commodity production were a thing that now you have had to brook their existence, but still delude yourself with an idealist conception of economics and thus history itself

This is no end of mirth because at the time you were struggling with the relative historically specific development of the law of value and your typical confusion with it and some deluded conception of an eternally existing economic principle

Weeks ago I recommended you pick up an introduction to capital for a guided reader to help you synthesise Marx's original structure of argumentation, and you have not. You will continue to go round in circles in philosophical quasi economical discourse if you continue to do so

Consider reading the Wikipedia on historical materialism if all else fails

>>2848011
synthesise an understanding of*

>>2848011
>>2848012
As a preliminary, can you please stop writing like an anime villain? Thx.
>you were told that simple and generalised commodity production were a thing
Please link this post.
>>2848000
>>2848002
>They are both forms of capital but they are historically contingent on the level of the development of the productive forces within society - hence merchant capital is parasitic whereas productive capital entails the development of generalised commodity production.
Yes, I completely agree. Marx's great chapter in Capital Vol. 3 (Chapter 36) deals with this. This is also where my interest in mercantile literature began, with inquiry into the rate of interest (which tracts the rate of profit):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm
>You are attempting to turn this in its head and argue that since simple commodity production has existed in ancient slave holding societies capital in general has existed since time immemorial full stop.
I don't believe I have ever generalised the phenomenon; but if it pleases you, we can say that before modernity, capital and value valorisation existed in particular.
>This contravenes the basic methodology of historical materialism
It just sounds like you have a crisis of faith.
>Thus the supposed distinctions in the "mechanical arts" resembles the basic arguments Marx wrote against
Against? Perhaps you misunderstand, but I am making a Marxist argument where it concerns mechanical arts:
<In the pre-capitalist stages of society commerce ruled industry. In modern society the reverse is true.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch20.htm
Antoine Montchretien as the inventor* of political economy (1615) is the first to elevate the mechanical arts of the third estate to the might of the liberal arts of the first estate. This entirely subverts Aristotle's subordination of production as a secondary sphere of life. After Montchretien, we see how Smith inverts the social order, presenting labour as the source of value, and statesmen as parasites upon this earthly power.
>You have so patently misunderstood Marx
Anon, you need to explain what I have misunderstood…

>>2848011
>historically specific development of the law of value
Well, we can only judge the values of commodities from their stated prices (with the wage being the unit of production costs). I have analysed this here:
>>2833486
>>2834735
Thus, we see a fluctuation of the rate of wages based in different historical circumstances, namely material development, which as Smith writes, is linear to capital stock employed (and therefore rates of productivity). We see in 1750 BCE, Ea Nassir attempt to make a profit on the wholesale of massive amounts of copper ingots, and so we can assume a declining rate of profit, which occurs at the same time that wages are set according to a relatively high standard, due to excess demand (this is in accordance with laws of capital accumulation). In an account of the Greco-Roman world, we see wages being generally stable across centuries, although there is an increase in the value of labour, as the denarius rises from a 10:1 to a 16:1 exchange rate with copper asses. We see stability in the Republican period, but soon after the Imperial period, there is massive inflation (e.g. the redistribution of wealth to unproductive sectors) which depreciates the value of labour, based in social produce. So then, the value of labour is proportional to industry. The major surplus revenues of this time were rents and taxes (since most production was agricultural), but the mechanical arts still held a place. Aristotle comments on markets, seeing that household goods sold at their values (based in the value-form; t. Ethics, Bk. V, ch. v). Profit he reserved as usury (e.g. money making money) and so this was a hated form of income in antiquity. An exceptional case I would say is Xenophon, whose idea to productively invest slaves into the mining of silver displays a capitalistic impulse of making money from money (with slaves acting as capital). Xenophon even discusses the combination of paid and slave labour in the venture, and so this mining venture is capitalistic.

Moving into medieval times, we have Thomas Aquinas and Ibn Khaldun. Aquinas discusses the "Just Price" of goods measured according to the physical properties of the commodity, with added interest being a "double payment" and thus unjust of the equivalent exchange. Aquinas challenges himself on this point also, by seeing that rent is also a double payment (e.g. usufruct) since in occupation, nothing is consumed, yet still paid for. Thus, surplus appears as an additional charge upon a fixed good, not the sale of a surplus product as such. Ibn Khaldun as an Arab gives apology to merchants in their quest for profit, by seeing how when competition rules that prices must sink lower and lower, this is the ruin of the merchant, but the gain of the consumer. Ibn then suggests that profit (ribh) is made by buying cheap and selling dear, based in fluctuations in the market. Thus, hoarding is an important economic category to Khaldun (similar to how Aristotle shares the fable of Thales' long-term investing leading to monopoly). Here then, the value of a commodity is governed by relative equality. Khaldun still speaks upon taxation, which if paid in money, is a transfer of surplus value, and thus an augmentation of the value of commodities to cover rents (which as Aquinas claims, is an unjust payment). We see additional payments of subjective valuation in ancient times, like risk payments or time-based interest, but as Smith declares, the rhetoric of profit as "wages of superintendance" only obscures the real relationship of value which is transacted. Taxes were not often paid in cash in pre-modern times, but today, they are exclusively paid in cash, since states are not simply administrators, but producers and speculators in the world marketplace.

So then, the postulation of a surplus value in simple commodity production often followed the closed circuit of equivalent exchanges described by Marx (C-M-C), but industry and agriculture also surely created surplus value by domestic and foreign trade, whether through slaves or wage workers (the same way the independent peasant must have exploited himself to make profit). So again, capitalism to Marx is not an ontological horizon, but an historical threshold of general social relations.  Thus, capital "develops" rather than simply "emerges" ex nihilo. The historicists often treat capital superstitiously, and this itself is the deepest fetishism, such as we see with people like Nick Land, who ontologises capital, similar to Ian Wright, who mystifies capital. Demystify it.

>>2848070
>I don't believe I have ever generalised the phenomenon; but if it pleases you, we can say that before modernity, capital and value valorisation existed in particular.

Amazing, you have turned tail and run from your original position whilst conceding the necessity of acknowledging historical contingency. It is ridiculous that you deny ever generalising the phenomenon as that is the basic contradiction inherent in half your posts.

This, I might add, would be cleared up if you read a contemporary Marxist scholar like Harvey. If you will not read Harvey I will plead with you to read "the automatic fetish" to move away from the absurdity of propounding inherently valid Marxist propositions that you use to pass underhanded bourgeois notions of economism inherent in statements such as
>Well, we can only judge the values of commodities from their stated prices (with the wage being the unit of production costs)

>>2848117
>you have turned tail and run from your original position
Where is my "original position" contrary to this?
>the necessity of acknowledging historical contingency
As I say, I have already investigated historical particulars in regard to economic development, while also seeing what is general to each.
>It is ridiculous that you deny ever generalising the phenomenon
I don't think you quite grasp the nature of abstraction despite agreeing with my method; capital can be both (i) general and (ii) particular. Admitting this is not contradictory, since it is the very means by which we assess knowledge of the phenomena.
>Well, we can only judge the values of commodities from their stated prices (with the wage being the unit of production costs)
But this is a correct statement… Do you now reject the LTV?

>>2848122
Ah yes, I am the one who has not understood abstraction. Me, the person who was obfuscating historical particularities with general comprehensions in order to argue that capital existed in ancient slave holding societies.

>>2848122
>>2848124
Capital, a social relation stemming from developments in social property. But as someone once said:
>So again, capitalism to Marx is not an ontological horizon, but an historical threshold of general social relations

>>2848122
>But this is a correct statement… Do you now reject the LTV?
Cackling, you pass simplistic notions of bourgeois economic theory behind Marxist propositions considered only in isolation. Truly, you have a unique ability to abstract in thought what only appear as vague laws to us mere Marxists

>>2848127
Again, you agree with me, but want to pretend to disagree with me.
Why not just find peace in the common ground we are establishing?
>>2848124
>in order to argue that capital existed in ancient slave holding societies.
But it did, according to Marx. This is a settled discussion.
Capital in particular must by necessity precede its general format.
>>2848126
Capital-ism to Marx begins in the 16th century, with the world market, but capital as such (M-C-M) precedes the "capitalist mode of production" proper:
<Interest-bearing capital, or, as we may call it in its antiquated form, usurer's capital, belongs together with its twin brother, merchant's capital, to the antediluvian forms of capital, which long precede the capitalist mode of production and are to be found in the most diverse economic formations of society.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm

>>2848134
And at last we've come full circle, Smith will not do in the face of Marx so we can no longer pretend productive capital and the development of capitalism proper precedes the argument outlined in Volume 1.

Thus the only obfuscation, ignorance of the fact that capital is a social relation, continues with your contention that the general formula for simple exchange is equivalent to that under generalised commodity production. Interesting that we no are no longer making reference to the universal equivalent as a means for oblating productive and mercantile capital.

>But that's what I was saying from the beginning!
So cries Smith anon, who mere weeks ago could not understand the difference between simple and generalised commodity production

>>2847698
>You have just vomitted more quotes in defence of a point you have barely understood
and you have done even less. all you do is say he is wrong, without saying why, or what would be more correct

>>2848150
Ah yes, the more quotes you can vomit the more sound your comprehension of theory is. Excuse me as I quote paragraphs from Marginalists in defence of Marx

>>2848156
>Excuse me as I quote paragraphs from Marginalists in defence of Marx
If only you could ecclectic-maxx like a true theorist. 💪😁
>>2848143
I have requested a link to this supposed post, if you would oblige me.
>>2848142
>we can no longer pretend productive capital and the development of capitalism proper precedes the argument outlined in Volume 1.
>Interesting that we no are no longer making reference to the universal equivalent as a means for oblating productive and mercantile capital.
Could you clarify what you mean by these statements, please?
>the general formula for simple exchange is equivalent to that under generalised commodity production
Well, yes… Commerce is still the rule of equivalent exchange (where perfect competition persists); the augmented value of commodities simply takes on a distributed component of cost in alignment with the prices of production, and so incorporates the rate of profit:
<The value of a commodity is equal to the value of the constant capital contained in it, plus the value of the variable capital reproduced in it, plus the increment — the surplus-value produced — of this variable capital. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch08.htm
You will notice that this is identical ro what Smith wrote on the topic.

>>2848176
>Commerce
And we have retreated back to a universalism in which commodity exchange is held as a transhistorical through fictitious arguments of cost analysis by distorting the notion of capital composition by abstracting completely from class relations and the role of the historical development of labour. Thus we can safely reference Smith as preceding Marx.

I'm done with this tedious argument. Please read The Automatic Fetish, it is a recent work that deals with Volume 3 and will outline in the first section a much better argument than can be stated here

>>2848191
>commodity exchange is held as transhistorical
Yes, we already agreed to this, by consultation of Marx:
<However, not commerce alone, but also merchant's capital, is older than the capitalist mode of production, is, in fact, historically the oldest free state of existence of capital. […] The product becomes a commodity by way of commerce. […] In the pre-capitalist stages of society commerce ruled industry.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch20.htm
Again, this is not controversial, but mutually agreed upon.
>Thus we can safely reference Smith as preceding Marx.
But he did…
>I'm done with this tedious argument
We're not arguing, we're agreeing.
>Please read The Automatic Fetish, it is a recent work that deals with Volume 3 and will outline in the first section a much better argument than can be stated here
I will check it out, along with Harvey's Companion.
Thanks for the recommendations. 🫡😛

Beverley Best's "The Automatic Fetish" (2024) is a bit of a mess in structure, and quite simplistic, but engaging in its core premise, which concerns an aesthetic critique of capitalist society. The forms of representation of value (e.g. as revenues of production) become the "mystified" expression of objective social relations. Of course, this is simply the critique of political economy, continuous of the Classical Economists, who approach "the true relation of things" (Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 19) by seeing how the "Wealth of Nations" is really a class structure, which divides social produce between different sectors. Engels offers an original critique in his "Outline" (1844):
<The “national wealth” of the English is very great and yet they are the poorest people under the sun.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
Here, "wealth" is both general and particular, not simply in possession, but in concept (e.g. Smith's "Paradox of Value") as we may read in the writings of Ricardo (1817):
<Value, then, essentially differs from riches, for value depends not on abundance, but on the difficulty or facility of production. The labour of a million of men in manufactures, will always produce the same value, but will not always produce the same riches.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/ricardo/tax/ch20.htm
Thus, "value" esteems an inverse definition; not as utility, but its opposite, as a measure of the disutility of labour. The more "valuable" a thing is, the less useful in general. Here then in the "scientific" political economy of the aspiring bourgeoisie, we find a groundwork of critique, which Marx obviously advances from with enthusiasm.

In dealing with "vulgar" political economy (e.g. capitalist apologists who deal in phenomena alone), Marx directly excludes the Classicists, theoretically and historically:
<The narrow and pedantic expression of vulgar conceptions which are bound to arise among those who are the representatives of this mode of production is very different from the urge of political economists like the Physiocrats, Adam Smith and Ricardo to grasp the inner connection of the phenomena.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add3.htm
Marx provides a brief history of the movement in his 1873 Preface to Capital Vol. 1, that the final period of "scientific bourgeois economy" (1820-30) was met with a crisis due to the class ascendancy of the bourgeoisie. For 2 decades after (1830-50) various contests were held, and Marx names two dominant figures; Bastiat, who represents vulgar political economy, and J.S. Mill, who attempts to preserve the scientific spirit of study. The meaning of "vulgar" political economy then cannot be lazily compared to "bourgeois" economics in itself. Some contemporary marxists claim that Marginalism in economics is a new vulgar political economy, but is this true? What is only implicit in marginal theories is the inverse magnitudes of MP and TP past the threshold of diminishing returns, which is the source of profit, as proven by Jevons' empirical account on rates of wages:
<the general tendency to reduce the hours of labour at the present day, owing to the improved real wages now enjoyed by those employed in mills and factories.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-theory-of-political-economy#lf0237_head_060
The only issue is that Jevons has it backwards; lesser working times is the cause of the higher wages, not vice versa. This is proven by jevons' exact model (Fig. VIII), that the working day (a-d) involves appreciating and diminishing returns, and so where it diminishes for the employee, it appreciates for the employer. Jevons then provides a "scientific" model of political economy, but is not conscious of his own conclusions. Jevons is not an apologist, but he is not yet critical of capitalism either.

So then, Beverley approaches her critique by seeing the distinction between essence and appearance (or what is otherwise referenced as base/superstructure). Moreso, her analysis is to show that "the automatic fetish" is the primary mystification of capital, as self-expanding value. Of course, this is dealt with by Marx early on in Capital:
<For the movement, in the course of which it adds surplus-value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays goldeuyghs.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm
This "occult" or mystical property is also spoken of by Aristotle (referenced in the same chapter) through his description of Chrematistics (one of the "antediluvian" forms of capital: interest-bearing, or usruer's capital):
<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 applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.
https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html
Here, "the birth of money from money" (M-M') is treated as an "unnatural" process, and thus superstitiously. Marx speaks more directly upon this "automatic fetish":
<Interest-bearing capital is the consummate automatic fetish, the self-expanding value, the money-making money, and in this form it no longer bears any trace of its origin.  The social relation is consummated as a relation of things (money, commodities) to themselves […] the creation of value arising from capital as such […] This is also the form in which it is conceived by the vulgar economists.  In this form all intermediate links are obliterated, and the fetishistic feature of capital, as also the concept of the capital-fetish, is complete.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add3.htm
I would say that this Addenda of Theories of Surplus Value (1861-3) also seems superior to Capital Vol. 3 as an accompanying text for a critique of the "automatic fetish" (since Marx already gives anouncement to it). Here, we also see the transhistorical nature of this fetish, as it first appears with interest-bearing capital:
<Interest-bearing capital, or, as we may call it in its antiquated form, usurer's capital, belongs together with its twin brother, merchant's capital, to the antediluvian forms of capital, which long precede the capitalist mode of production and are to be found in the most diverse economic formations of society.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm
So then, in addressing the "automatic fetish" of capital, I will provide some ancient sources on the the topic.

We can read in the Mesopotamian text, "Dialogue of Pessimism" (1000 BCE) the servant speaks upon his master's interest given from loans [grain = silver]:
<The man who makes loans, his grain is (still) his grain while his interest is profit […] Loaning is [swee]t as falling in love, getting back as pain[ful] as giving birth. They will consume your grain, be always abusing you, and finally they will swindle you out of the interest on your grain.”
https://www.ebl.lmu.de/corpus/L/2/4/SB/-
Here, loaning is first normalised as a social relation, and secondly, the denial of interest is seen as 'swindling' and 'abuse', as though a great injustice is permitted by this denial of the capitalist automaton. As I have previously referenced, Aquinas (1274 CE) viewed interest as unjust because it adds nothing to products, and so Aquinas escapes the capital-fetish, while still retaining the commodity fetish somewhat, in viewing rent as similar to interest; as usufruct, but abiding by its custom. Engels himself is victim of the same uncritical error:
<[Housing rent] is simple commodity sale; it is not an operation between proletarian and bourgeois, between worker and capitalist […] On the contrary, we are dealing here with a quite ordinary commodity transaction between two citizens, and this transaction proceeds according to the economic laws which govern the sale of commodities in general and in particular the sale of the commodity, land property. The building and maintenance costs of the house, or of the part of the house in question, enters first of all into the calculation; the land value, determined by the more or less favourable situation of the house, comes next; the state of the relation between supply and demand existing at the moment is finally decisive.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/ch01.htm
Thus, Engels supposes that where the tenant doesn't pay the landlord, the landlord has been 'swindled' and 'abused'. This mystification by Engels proves the fetish (e.g. Engels imagines that land creates its own value, and so it must be returned as a revenue of rent, lest the "laws" of value are suspended and chaos pervades all). Of course, Smith (1776) is already critical of landlords:
<As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch06.htm
Further, the origin of rent is demystified by Smith as a product of labour, which then enters into the final price of goods. Smith is not beguiled by the automatic fetish. On the "automatic fetish" of the later capitalist cost-price (k), we also see Aristotle speak of Hephaesetus' automatons, that if only the master could treat artificial life as his own, he would have no need for slaves, and so wealth would develop from itself, by self-sufficiency:
<For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus […] the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves. 
https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html
Fetishism and fantasy coincide on this point, with Virgil speaking of the automatic wealth from a Golden Age:
<the uncultivated earth will pour out her first little gifts, straggling ivy and cyclamen everywhere and the bean flower with the smiling acanthus.The goats will come home themselves, their udders swollen with milk, and the cattle will have no fear of fierce lions
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilEclogues.php
Thus, the very idea of automatic wealth is ancient, like the automatic fetish of interest-bearing capital itself (which seems to have relation to Plato's idea of perpetual motion, e.g. "Lusiteloun").

Returning to Beverley Best, the commodity fetish seems to be the operative disguise of exploitation under the appearance of equivalent exchange. An example is the wage contract, which only pays for necessary labour, yet includes surplus labour in its calculation. Here, Marx is subtle, by seeing that the exchange-values of wages are equivalent, but the use-value of labour-power is unequal:
<The capitalist then takes his stand on the law of the exchange of commodities. He, like all other buyers, seeks to get the greatest possible benefit out of the use-value of his commodity […] the peculiar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consumption by the purchaser, and the labourer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working-day to one of definite normal duration. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm
So then, the law of value persists, since man is himself now a (rented) commodity. Interestingly, Marx says that the only difference between free and unfree labour is the status of exchange; between renting and purchasing as such. The "appearance" of freedom by the contract then is mediated by the modified space and time of labour, but for which still retains it's essential character, as the extraction of surplus labour. Fetishism is displayed here:
<The wage form thus extinguishes every trace of the division of the working-day into necessary labour and surplus-labour, into paid and unpaid labour. All labour appears as paid labour. In the corvée, the labour of the worker for himself, and his compulsory labour for his lord, differ in space and time in the clearest possible way. In slave labour, even that part of the working-day in which the slave is only replacing the value of his own means of existence, in which, therefore, in fact, he works for himself alone, appears as labour for his master. All the slave’s labour appears as unpaid labour. In wage labour, on the contrary, even surplus-labour, or unpaid labour, appears as paid. There the property-relation conceals the labour of the slave for himself; here the money-relation conceals the unrequited labour of the wage labourer.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch19.htm
Here, the wage form (e.g. value fetish) gives appearance to equivalent exchange, but also displays an artificial separation between himself and the slave. The value fetish imagines that surplus is generated by a master, with the slave as a parasite upon production at worst, or simply as fixed capital, and so incapable of living labour. The same discourse exists under capitalism, of course, that it is "entrepeneurship" or "abstinence", or "wages of superintendence" which really produces surplus value, and so the worker is only hired out of charity. Sticking with the fetish character of labour however, we see the anthropocentric fetish of Marx, in Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 7:
<We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm
Here, the "imagination" imbues human labour with some sort of higher substance, and the animal is relegated as purely instinctive, without creativity or consciousness. This is the anthropocentric fetish, which imagines that man himself is really distinct from his own animalia. So, just as racism can obscure exploitation by fetishism, we see speciesism do the same. Animals (from whence we derive the very term "capital", by "cattle") are seen as an irrelevant raw material to convert into "value" (this is Marx at his most uncritical). The same distinction exists between man and machine, of course, which Beverley sees as an intensification of the fetish, but Marx may see otherwise, through the ensoulment of the machine:
<Rather, it is the machine which possesses skill and strength in place of the worker, is itself the virtuoso, with a soul of its own in the mechanical laws acting through it; and it consumes coal, oil etc. (matières instrumentales), just as the worker consumes food, to keep up its perpetual motion. The worker’s activity, reduced to a mere abstraction of activity, is determined and regulated on all sides by the movement of the machinery, and not the opposite. The science which compels the inanimate limbs of the machinery, by their construction, to act purposefully, as an automaton, does not exist in the worker’s consciousness, but rather acts upon him through the machine as an alien power, as the power of the machine itself. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch13.htm
Here, agency and subjectivity is given to the machine, like Marx provides self-determination to value in general:
<the relations connecting the labour of one individual with that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between persons and social relations between things […] Value, therefore, does not stalk about with a label describing what it is. It is value, rather, that converts every product into a social hieroglyphic. Later on, we try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of our own social products
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
<Commodities find their own value already completely represented, without any initiative on their part, in another commodity existing in company with them. These objects, gold and silver, just as they come out of the bowels of the earth, are forthwith the direct incarnation of all human labour. Hence the magic of money. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
Now, is Marx not in the throes of an automatic fetish here? He is seeing that "Value" determines itself, without anyone knowing it, the same way capital "makes money" from itself. So then, I would conclude that "value" in its very proposition is fetishistic, and the critique of "value" by Smith and Ricardo proves the point, that by the value signifier, social forms justify themselves according to it. We can read this from Beverley's examples (e.g. Fuchs):
<Some commentators use the term ‘prosumer’ to characterize the consumer-become-producer – the unpaid digital labourer who ‘works’ through consuming […] Some commentators, including the critical communications theorist Christian Fuchs, argue that this ‘unpaid digital labour’ produces surplus-value for the capitalist
Beverley corrects the record that only by the value-form is labour contracted as "value", but this is demonstrating the deepening of illusion. Both are right, and both are wrong. Fuchs to me represents what much of the left have become debased as, of not criticising the category of "value", but attempting to appropriate it for political purposes. Thus, the feminists complain about "unpaid housework", or black people complain about "unpaid slavery". Here, compensation acts as "wages" for the transaction (in linguistic terms, all communication is thereby symbolised). This is naturalising "value" as a physical relationship and not a socio-historical object. The "materialist" approach is often even worse, since it treats "economics" as a physical problem, rather than a social one. The confusion of most Marxists concerns this precisely; of validating the social construct "value". To me then, fetishism begins by the proposition of "value" itself. Or as Marx writes in his temporary lucidity:
<The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. It therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days. Hence its Fetish character is comparatively easy to be seen through. But when we come to more concrete forms, even this appearance of simplicity vanishes […] So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange value either in a pearl or a diamond. The economic discoverers of this chemical element, who by-the-bye lay special claim to critical acumen, find however that the use value of objects belongs to them independently of their material properties, while their value, on the other hand, forms a part of them as objects. What confirms them in this view, is the peculiar circumstance that the use value of objects is realised without exchange, by means of a direct relation between the objects and man, while, on the other hand, their value is realised only by exchange, that is, by means of a social process.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Fetishism then grows in proportion to development, and so the more "civilised", the more delusional people are. For the most part, Beverley's book is just a summary of Capital Vol. 3 which I find disinteresting, so unless anyone wants me to go through any particular section, this is how I will conclude my review of the book. 🙂👍

in the imperial core, capitalism has become even more of a scam than ever before, and more averse to actual commodity production, because of the falling profit rates and relatively high wages…. and the scams (like crypto so-called "currency" and Artificial so-called "Intelligence") have become more destructive to the environment than ever, in an age when we are in the precipice of climate collapse, and we are decades behind doing what needs to be done to fix the climate, let alone some kind of proletarian revolution. So why live?

>>2849989
>Here, the "imagination" imbues human labour with some sort of higher substance, and the animal is relegated as purely instinctive
Stopped reading here. You misunderstand Marx's distinction and reduce the comprehension of the sentence to some mythical capacity of man to think (is this yet again idealism Smith anon?)

From The German Ideology:
>Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.

You read this yesterday! And again:

>The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process

Your argument breaks down as one again you misunderstand the nature of Marx's methodology and begin accusing him of a fetishism of value. Perhaps it's time to reread First Premises more deeply

>>2850357
>>2849989
This is to add: your use of fetishism in this case would likewise make no sense. Fetishism begins as an argument in Capital as the product of historically specific relations that result the reproduction of capitalist society. This is to say that fetishistic notions develop as a consequence of existence under capitalism, you cannot therefore turn the critique on its head and accuse Marx's analysis of being a product of its own error. Fetishism is a product of the social relation - abstracting from class society and turning it again into an ideal universal mystifies a genuinely historical comprehension.

>>2850437
>fetishistic notions develop as a consequence of existence under capitalism
This is disputed by Marx's point that the fetishism of commodities begins at an "early date in history", along with the fact that interest-bearing capital (as an antediluvian form of capital) is the realisation of the capital-fetish, all the way back in Aristotle's time (where value is supposed to increase itself automatically). Marx's historical point is that as commodity production generalises, fetishism increases, hence my concluding comment that in capitalist society we are the most delusion and superstitious, while also being the most civilised.
>>2850357
>reduce the comprehension of the sentence to some mythical capacity of man to think
But that is his point in this sentence:
<what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm
Cockshott criticises Marx for the same passage (vidrel).
>accusing him of a fetishism of value
Well, if the value fetish is simply a misrecognition of the indirect distribution of social production, then assigning a "phantom-like objectivity" to an immaterial agency which works 'behind the backs' of men is reproducing the logic of fetishism, by pretending that "value" exists. Of course, Marx understands that for Robinson Crusoe, "value" has no meaning, but Marx also 'appears' to insist upon the abstraction as self-determining for society, even when under common conditions of monopoly, this supposed "law of value" is temporarily suspended, displaying its utter contingency:
<apart from the effect of monopolies and some other modifications I must now pass by, all descriptions of commodities are, on average, sold at their respective values or natural prices.
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch02.htm
<The exchangeable value therefore of a commodity which is at a monopoly price, is nowhere regulated by the cost of production.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/ricardo/tax/ch17.htm
Also, I'm currently reading David Harvey's "Companion" so I will provide a review of that work soon enough. 🫡

>>2850449
Hilarious, you extend the conceptualisation of fetishism where it suits you in order to avoid a proper historical account of the concept.

Hence you reduce value to nothing more than a conceptual fetish itself. That you believe Marx suspends the use of value under monopoly conditions is all the more ridiculous given the utter irrelevance of that quote.

Likewise the idea of fetishism 'increasing' is absolute nonsense. And that you have merely requoted Marx without consideration of the second quote given in the original post from First Premises signifies that you have not understood the basic premise that again knowledge is produced as a consequence of the social relations of production. Thus you find absolutely no issue absconding from any treatment of history proper and seek to argue through obfuscation of terminology by blending ancient greek philosophy and contemporary political economic theory.

That you believe fetishism begins prior to Marx's stated proposition is absurd. Again, reread On The Jewish Question for a formulaic argument on religion as the inversion of social consciousness and you will discover that what you mistake as fetishism is instead the direct result of the mode of production conditioning social being (species being).

>>2850495
>you reduce value to nothing more than a conceptual fetish itself.
Anon, that is Marx's meaning of commodity fetishism… The fetishism of commodities is the spectre of "value" itself, hence as Marx writes, the vulgar economist imposes the concept of value onto natural laws. As Marx continues, "no chemist has ever discovered exchange-value in a pearl or diamond". This is why commodity production obscures social production behind this "hieroglyph", which is the commodity fetish. This is why to Marx, "value no longer appears" in a communist society, where the social product is directly distributed, rather than indirectly (e.g. Gothakritik). So, "value" is the fetishism of commodities which mystifies social production in all societies which exchange. This is why communism abolishes commodity exchange.
>Marx suspends the use of value under monopoly conditions
It is written as clear as day, because Marx is borrowing from Smith and Ricardo. Monopoly suspends the law of value because the market loses perfect competition.
>the idea of fetishism 'increasing' is absolute nonsense
Anon, the commodity fetish develops into the money fetish into the capital fetish. This is in Marx's writing…
>you believe fetishism begins prior to Marx's stated proposition
Marx's proposition is that commodity fetishism begins "at an early date in history" which is more transparent, until commodity production and fetishism increases:
<It therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days. Hence its Fetish character is comparatively easy to be seen through. But when we come to more concrete forms, even this appearance of simplicity vanishes. Whence arose the illusions of the monetary system? To it gold and silver, when serving as money, did not represent a social relation between producers, but were natural objects with strange social properties. And modern economy, which looks down with such disdain on the monetary system, does not its superstition come out as clear as noon-day, whenever it treats of capital?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
You need to refresh your memory on this chapter again.

>>2850870
This is such willful obscurantism of that chapter that I'm going to bother to respond, likewise for the fact that as again you've cherry picked the ending passage despite the chapter containing numerous repetitions of the argument of its historically specific character to the nature of bourgeois society. Likewise your mystification and confusion of the critique of value with social fetishism is equally absurd.

Actually reread that chapter, specifically the first half and do not just go quote hunting.

>>2850874
Not going to bother to respond**

>>2850876
You are responding in your apparent 'lack' of response.
>>2850495
>religion as the inversion of social consciousness
Yes, and "value" is the *fetishism* of commodities, which mysfifies social relations by indirect representation. This is why Beverley Best connects fetishism to the Base/Superstructure dynamic. Value is a superstructural abstraction of the base economic conditions.
>>2850874
>obscurantism
No, I am the person who simplifies.
>historically specific character of bourgeois society.
Yes, which Marx says begins at "an early date in history" in embryo (e.g. based in the production of commodities). As you will read, fetishism first begins in an appearance of "simplicity", until money develops, and from money, the automatic fetish of interest-bearing capital (an antediluvian form of capital which precedes capitalism). Thus, fetishism *increases* as commodity production generalises.

>>2850874
>>2850876
>>2850893
To simplify further, 'value formation' to Marx is historically particular to commodity production, which indirectly represents the labour of society by the fetish of "value"; a mystifying appearance of totality:
<Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
Thus, "value" is the fetishism of commodities, which first begins simply, but develops through value forms by the increase of commodity exchange, and into money:
<The simple commodity form is therefore the germ of the money form.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Money by itself however takes on a new value form in capital (M-C-M'), which 'appears' to increase itself, first either by interest or profit (antediluvian capital forms). This new fetishism Marx calls the "automatic fetish". Marx writes that interest-bearing capital progressed the historical development of slave and feudal economies into capitalist economies by the ruin of independent producers (alongside "primitive accumulation"). Thus, the concentration of money-capital (M-M') gave way to means of productive investment. Productive capital (P) then arises to increasing relevance in the capitalist 'mode of production' (beginning around 1500 CE), as capitalists seek to expand value by investment in both means of production (MP) and Labour-Power (LP), which are the constituents of (P). Marx further writes that capitalism in particular displays the generality of wage labour (e.g. the commodification of LP), and this plays a part in the automatic fetish of productive capital. Rather than money-capital merely being extractive, it now allows for an expansion of itself by living labour (rather than simply increasing M, C is also increased). But because this is disguised under both the wage-form and capital-form (e.g. labour as variable capital), the cost-price (k) of the capitalist appears to make money from itself, since capital as an integrated 'concept' is self-expanding. With (P), productive capital expands due to surplus labour being converted into surplus value. Surplus value doesn't just share its revenue with profit however, but also land, as land-capital, which extracts rents by an increase in surplus value. Here again, Marx sees the fetishism of the 'physiocrats' of perceiving wealth growing out of the soil, instead of society. So then, as capital generalises commodity production, the source of value becomes more and more mystified by the "fetishism" of commodities. "Prices of production" comprise the fetish of the capitalist mode of production, since the revenues give appearance of an equal share. Much of political economy is about justifying this fact, by assigning productive margins to cost components. So then, as "value" is modified by capital and land, it 'appears' that it is these components which add value to the process, rather than exploited social labour itself. Some people then say that capital has 'evolved' since Marx's time into new 'forms' of self-valorisation. "Financial capital" plays a dominant role in the theory of capitalist imperialism, for example. But as I say, the very 'theory of value' leads to silliness, as I will show in my review of David Harvey's "Companion".

I hope this is sufficient in clarifying the historical point. 🫡

>>2850943
Again you retreat from a comprehensive understanding of the form of commodity fetishism as a product of social relations into a technical explication of interest.

>which indirectly represents the labour of society by the fetish of "value"; a mystifying appearance of totality
This conclusion is backwards for the understand of the prior statement; the historical specificity of generalised commodity production leads to the development of a fetishism in which the appearance of social relations occurs as the mediation between things. Hence "value does not stalk around with a label". Beverley's point is not of a fetishism of value but that the appearance of value is mystified by the emergence in capitalist exchange (and with it class society) through this mediation of the universal equivalent, which is the only particular form value can assume.

Hence you end up with this ludicrous inversion that "value" is the fetishism of commodities when the converse is true. Value as a social relation is subsumed beneath its historical appearance, namely the commodity. Again here you must go back and reread First Premises - we do not deal with abstract ideals of society mediated through an ideal conceptual understanding divorced from reality but:

>The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.

>>2850953
understanding*

>>2850953
>the appearance of value is mystified
Yes, it's a simulation (e.g. a copy of a copy).
Value is itself the original fetishism of commodities.
What "value" obscures is the social labour itself.
>ludicrous inversion that "value" is the fetishism of commodities
Marx claims that "value" is an immaterial abstraction. He claims that in a communist society, "value" would not 'appear' as a material quality of labour, because labour will be *directly* represented in distribution. Value does not exist as a natural thing; do you at least accept this? If so, then value can only appear as a fetishism of natural conditions (e.g. the exchange of divided social labours).
>These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.
But value is not an empirical entity, is it?

>>2850960
>Yes, it's a simulation (e.g. a copy of a copy).
>Value is itself the original fetishism of commodities.
>What "value" obscures is the social labour itself.

And again, this understanding is entirely backwards and converse to what Marx wrote. The idea that value is a simulation is equally ridiculous given that as again you must be told of the existence of socially necessary labour time and the law of averages. Hence you end up with ridiculous statements like "value is not an empirical entity".

The only thing that remains to be said is that you have misunderstood the use of the term fetishism as simply meaning obfuscation of empiricism (confusing yet again Marx's contention of empirical verification with mere appearance of fact in nature). Hence when Marx explains fetishism as belonging and resulting from a peculiar mode of production (differentiating this from the appearance of the class relation under feudalism) he argued for its historical specificity. Again you are divorcing commodity production from class relations and attempting to schematise history simply through the appearance of the commodity based on its existence as a use value (this despite the fact that Marx contends that the purpose of history is to find a use for things. Harvey repeats but actually underlines this contention in his companion)

>>2850960
>>2850975
It is here you will repeat the contention that a) value cannot be measured and b) the law of averages is meaningless and that value is merely 'simulated'. This despite Marx's explanation within the very first chapter that value is again a social relation and a direct factor in the determination of exchange originating not in exchange itself but the conditions of production.

>>2850960
>Value does not exist as a natural thing; do you at least accept this? If so, then value can only appear as a fetishism of natural conditions
It serves here to point out that this argument is spectacularly ridiculous. You have latently accepted some of the passages from First Premises but cannot reduce the explanation to a more complex understanding than that that which appears in nature and hence is directly observable is empirically valid and that of social production entails a mystification (what you designate as a 'fetish').

>>2850975
>>2850977
>>2850982
>the existence of socially necessary labour time
And labour is not "value"; it 'becomes' value in commodity exchange. This is why value does not 'appear' in communist societies as a material quality of the social product. You implicitly agree by now reframing the "form" of value as its content. The content is not the form, and you know that, and Marx wrote the same, here:
<little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them […] Content and form are changed […] a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
Here, "labour" is still accounted for, but no longer possesses the fetish character of commodity production (e.g. "value" as a form).
>value is not an empirical entity
But you are not discussing "value", you are discussing labour.
>value cannot be measured
"Value" doesn't actually exist, so of course not. Further, I take Marx's position that "value" can only be derived from price, speculatively:
<Consequently it was the analysis of the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their characters as values. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
>value is again a social relation and a direct factor in the determination of exchange originating not in exchange itself
Yes, commodity exchange, which began at an "early date in history".
>social production entails a mystification
Commodity production in particular, as I have plainly stated… It is in commodity production that the "fetishism of commodities" begins. But please enlighten me, what exactly is the fetishism of commodities? What is the mystified form of appearance of them?

>>2850986
And again you derive historical conditions of production with the mere appearance of the form of value from exchange, failing to explain why societies develop at all. Instead of an understanding of history and human society based on class relations we have instead an argument similar to those of the bourgeois economists.

I can't be bothered to continue contending this argument as you will just requote passages of capital abstracted from their context as you always do.

>>2850990
>you derive historical conditions of production with the mere appearance of the form of value from exchange
Right, these conditions are called "commodity production", which Marx gives attribution of in ancient times, though "not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days". Social production in itself of course has no need for a "form of value" (e.g. the fetishism of commodities) since according to Marx, this only arises where social production is indirectly mediated by exchange.
>an understanding of history and human society based on class relations
Yes, that is the understanding which I have, since the ancient political science of people like Plato and Aristotle bases itself in class, the same way the political economy of Smith is based in class relations.
>argument
There is no "argument", I am simply teaching you about Marx.
It is a demonstration, not a dialectic.
>you will just requote passages of capital
Yes, reading is important for learning about things. 🙂👍

>>2851009
>political science
Made me laugh

What If We Spent The Iran War Budget On Literally Anything Else?

In approaching my review of Harvey's "A Companion to Capital" it seems arduous to simply comment upon the summaries of Marx's work which comprise most of the text (the same as Beverley Best's "Automatic Fetish"), since this would less be a review of Harvey and moreso of Marx. Nonetheless, it would also be inappropriate to disregard Marx's content, and so I will offer my input. In reviewing the work then, I will try to mostly focus on Harvey's original commentary and his literary project.

We begin with Harvey's Introduction, in which he sees that in Capital, Marx is exclusively concerned with the capitalist mode of production, which is true, but this is also Marx's shortcoming, that in disregarding Engels' fantasy of a "logical-historical" critique, Marx stumbles into an analysis which is difficult to comprehend as the 'beginning' of any sort of critical tradition. Much more is unsaid, than said in Marx's work, and Harvey agrees, that Marx's "a priori" reasoning in Chapter 1 is jarring, especially for students, most of all the "working class". Engels' estimation of Das Kapital as the "Bible of the working class" is patently absurd. Das Kapital is the Bible of Communists, and this is a world of difference. Marx was not unaware of his "literary shortcomings" however, and in the 1872 preface spoke appreciatively of the simplification of his work to faciliate accessibility. Harvey complains in different places of Marx's "tedious" style, but still as yet declares Capital to be "gratifying". Of course, you can only really treat Capital one way, which is hermeneutically. What is more interesting than what Marx can teach us about capitalism is what Marx can teach us about what he thought about capitalism.

Harvey gives an account of when he began teaching students on the book (1971-), that there was always confusion, especially concerning Chapter 1, which Harvey admits often appears "aribtrary" in its a priori constructions, but as Marx already makes clear, "there is no royal road to science", especially in the theory of the value form (1867 Preface). In fact, after complaints from Engels about the convolution of Marx's writing, subsequent revisions were made in later editions, so Capital was never a final product, but always in process. Harvey also tells us that Marx never expressed a modus operandi of a dialectical "method"; indeed, Marx was not a philosopher - this is misunderstood by many people. Marx in the 1875 preface says that he seeks to put Hegel back on his feet, by showing how ideas emerge from matter rather than vice versa. Not much else is really elaborated, since more is unsaid in Marx's work than plainly stated. It appears that Marx uses much of Hegel's logic in his analysis, but no one can be certain.

Harvey begins his discussion of Chapter 1 with the seeming contradiction of value as immaterial, within the framework of Marx's materialism, and he never seems to properly reconcile this point, but from my perspective, Harvey is generally confused on what "value" even is. Harvey presents two diagrams (pp. 23, 26) which seem incorrect. In the diagrams, he makes these three basic associations between the "logics" of the commodity:

• Use-value (Concrete Labour)
  
• Exchange-Value (Abstract Labour)
  
• Value (SNLT)
  

This is incorrect, because SNLT is a quantity (e.g. the 'magnitude of value'), when value is a 'quality', which all commodities share (e.g. 'abstract labour'). Exchange-value is described by Marx as quantitative/relative (e.g. SNLT), for which reason, money becomes the 'form of value' (e.g. exchange-value) expressed in prices. Price is the form in which value appears to Marx, and so this must be a commodity's exchange-value, not its 'value'. Put very simply, he mistakes value for exchange-value, and unfortunately, he repeats this throughout the book.

Harvey's misunderstanding of value leads to illiterate judgements, such as these concluding remarks (Pg. 46):
<What Marx is interested in is a revolutionary transformation of society, and that means an overthrow of the capitalist value-form, the construction of an alternative value­ structure, an alternative value-system that does not have the specific character of that achieved under capitalism. […] I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people complain that the problem with Marx is that he believes the only valid notion of value derives from labor inputs. It is not that at all […] The problem, therefore, for socialist, communist, revolutionary, anarchist or whatever, is to find an alternative value-form that will work in terms of the social reproduction of society in a different image.
This relates to what I referenced in regard to Christian Fuchs; a "critical theory" of value, which seeks to simply apply a price to the previously priceless (e.g. 'wages for housework'). As Marx writes (t. Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 3, Theories of Surplus Value, Ch. 4) the price-form allows 'valueless' things to attain a form of value (commodity-form). Marx refers to these as "imaginary" commodities, including the sale of land, for the fact that they are not the result of productive labour processes, and so do not transfer value. Marx then proves that value is not simply a 'signifier' or symbol; it is an expression of labour by an indirect distribution. Harvey's attestment that "value" is not limited to social labour then proves his ignorance, especially since Marx writes in the Gothakritik (1875) that the products of labour in a post-capitalist society will no longer 'appear' as forms of value. This obvious contradiction between Marx's words and Harvey's lies casts much doubt on Harvey's self-appointed authority. Following from this historicism of Harvey, we are able to understand previously ambiguous statements (pg. 43):
<In a slave-holding society there can be no value theory of the sort that we are going to find under capitalism.
Thus, he implies that value existed in these economies, but that it was a value of a different kind (e.g. not SNLT). He affirms this in Chapter 3 (page 101). Marx contrarily sees that ancient trade is simply unrecognised in what, "in truth", is at the bottom of its equal exchange relation.

Harvey's contention then, that "socially necessary labour (time)" only emerges with the world market is met with further erroneous claims, which are less forgivable. His primary claim is that Marx's theory of value differs from the Ricardian, for the sake that 'social necessity' is seen as the determinative condition. He asks what makes something 'socially necessary', but only really gets to answering this later on (pg. 109), where he says that SNLT "implies someone wants or needs the use-value". Thus, Harvey is just repeating the Ricardian theory of value, but pretending that it isn't. This is made clearer as we uncover Harvey's central thesis, that Marx's enemy was the Classical Economists, when of course, Marx is targeting the "vulgar economists", a different group of apologists. Harvey continues with this passage (pg. 42):
<Classical political economy did gradually converge on some idea of value that lay behind the fluctuations of the market (often referred to as "natural prices") and it recognized that human labor had something to do with it.
"Something to do with it"? Smith precisely defines the "natural price" as the cost of production according to labour as its real measure, the same as Ricardo. The only way to be so ambiguous is to have never read these thinkers, which I suspect Harvey never has. Even so, Engels and Marx both claim that Smith discovered the source of surplus value, for the capitalist and landlord. This is then the misinformation Harvey proceeds with.

Harvey discusses the supposed "reduction problem" of Marx's theory of labour-power; that "it is not clear how skilled labor can be and is reduced to simple labor independently of the value of the commodity produced." Of course, what is primary is that abstract labour "does not count" outside of value (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 1). What would be helpful is applying Marx's oft-neglected formula for SNLT, being a division of duration against intensity. He writes thus that with greater intensity by means of tools (e.g. the power-loom), exchange-value decreases per commodity, and if tools de-skill labour, then the greater output can scale production by skill. So to say, "skilled labour" receives greater renumeration precisely because of its lack of productivity. This relates to Gossen's and Jevons' marginalism, that to them, the payment of labour is proportional to disutility of labour, and so the more time invested in specialising, the more money which is given in return for it - the only issue in this theory is that Jevons uses the example of a lawyer, who of course must work hard in studying, but lawyers are also unproductive labourers, and so this labour can't be accounted for directly. We see then that to Marx, it is artisinal (e.g. relatively unproductive) labour which has the greater value to industrial (e.g. relatively productive) labour, and so "skill" can be scaled by direct productivity. The more productive you are, the less skilled, and vice versa. This is not a perfect law, but it still has correlation in regard to the public sector, which pays rates of wages relatively higher than the private (e.g. productive) sector. Of course, "productive" does not simply denote "useful"; as Keynes tells us, 'productivity' can be terribly wasteful. Marx's basic conclusion is that no real distinction exists between skilled and unskilled labour within capitalist production, since all skill is transferred to tools; skilled labour alienates itself into instruments (t. Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 7, Footnote 19, Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 15, Footnote 121).

Harvey gives a proper definition of fetishism (pg. 40):
<The end result is that our social relation to the laboring activities of others is disguised in the relationships between things
This of course gives great allusion to superstructure, in how base social relations are mediated by secondary phenomena, but as we have already read, Harvey thinks that value formation by fetishism is in fact the very act of revolution, akin to postulating the need for a religion (ignoring Marx's claim of fetishistic "superstition"). This is somewhat reminiscent of Bordiga's proclamation that 'universalist' rituals like mass human sacrifice are actually progressive. Todd McGowan, following Kojev, also sees that progress is mutual recognition, especially of alienation. In all these academic milieus, the solution is simply about the alteration of human consciousness. Harvey associates post-capitalist value formation as a "different way of relating". He seems afraid of the term "communism", a common academic phobia (pg. 45):
<[Marx's] hope is that we might advance beyond the fetishism of commodities and try to establish, through associative forms, a different way of relating.
Of course, Marx stipulates a "rational plan" as a solution to the anarchy of production (the same way Robert Owen calls his project "the rational system of society"), but Harvey is ambiguous, as we have previously read; a 'popular front' of leftist sectarians is his virtual alliance.

Another excerpt is a final disturbing anecdote (pg. 47):
<the students at Johns Hopkins put on a fashion show, featuring clothing from Liz Claiborne and the Gap, with a side commentary on both the items of clothing and the conditions of labor associated with their production. This was an effective way to talk about the fetishism and raise awareness with respect to global conditions, while suggesting the importance of doing something about it.
This is what Slavoj Žižek properly describes as "pure ideology"; like diet coke or fat-free chocolate, it is the object without its own substance - sweetness without sugar. When a fashion show based on exploitation must excuse its own exploitation, it justifies itself this way. The virtue signalling of 'consumer activism' is all the same; there can be no ethical consumption under capitalism.

In Chapter 2, Harvey discusses money, and sees that in price, the value of a commodity exists only in potential. The potentiality of production is commented on with most sophistication by Marx in the Grundrisse, in how a thing which is made is "not a real [product]" until it has been 'recognised' as such through use or consumption. Put another way, Marx claims that Demand determines Supply (this is also claimed by Beverley Best, that if a price is too high, value cannot be realised, and so the effective demand of a market is a key factor - Harvey goes back and forth on this point, yet presupposes it). I would say that Xenophon has the original view proposed here, that where a product has no use to either buyer or seller, it becomes waste, and so its manufacture cannot be productive but rather, destructive. The difference of a useful yet unaffordable unit of commodities Smith says is based in "absolute demand" (e.g. relative to absolute supply). Interstitial social phenomena such as theft can be explained on this basis (e.g. 'ineffective' demand). Thus, where a surplus of absolute supply exists, giving [absolute demanders] "free" money will prevent future crime, the parent of which, Aristotle tells us, is "poverty".

Harvey discusses the state in its role to money. What many people don't know is that Aristotle was a chartalist and not a "commodity money" theorist (as ignorantly supposed by Joseph Schumpeter). Aristotle wrote that money's value can be suspended by the state any time, for example, and we see in the ancient world, regimes of fiat currency also. Related to this, Harvey writes upon prices as "money-names" for the value of commodities (pg. 58), but this can be simply understood as the same difference between nominal and real prices. With the depreciation of currency for example (e.g. fiat inflation), prices may rise, including the wage, but not uniformly, presenting a new exchange rate between commodities. The rise in prices accounts for what is "nominal" (e.g. according to the "names" of things) while what is "real" is according to the standard of labour (e.g. real wages). As Keynes writes therefore, the struggle for "higher wages" is not itself revolutionary, because nominal rates can increase, while real wages decline, and for this sake, many may blame higher wages on the rise in real prices. A rise in nominal prices is inevitable, but so long as the wage increases at the same rate or at a greater rate than general inflation, nothing is lost, or there is gain. Bernie Sanders' great contention in his 2016 election campaign was that wages had not been "adjusted for inflation" for decades, and so we see the true meaning of the discrepancy - inflation is a de facto tax on labour. So then, nominal prices are absolute, while real price is relative, by relative exchange rates of wages to goods.

Harvey comments upon the sale of "indulgences" by the Catholic Church as one of the earliest examples of capitalist commodification. I think this is too neat an historiography for the Protestant Reformation (1517-) since it makes capitalism Evental, rather than gradual. Marx himself never specifies a date for the beginning of capitalism, but only highlights different features, mostly speaking of the 16th century as a turning point. Engels goes even earlier, speaking of the 15th century. Indeed, Marx traces Primitive Accumulation back to the Tudors (e.g. Henry VII), and so the War of the Roses may serve as a template, although nobody ever discusses this. The earliest date Marx highlights in the struggle of labour over the working day is the Statute of Labourers (1349), which is still considered "feudal" in character, but also momentous of its dissolution. Marx is less descriptive on this point, that at the beginning of the 15th century in England, feudalism had began to fade, leading to the independence of a type of peasant property. Primitive accumulation does not overcome feudalism, but this temporary period of "universal mediocrity" according to Marx. Perhaps the biggest difference in Marx's view from standard histories of capitalism is that Marx sees capitalism beginning in the country, by rural agriculture, not the towns. Here, the capitalist is not yet "bourgeois". The bourgeois [city-dweller] capitalist rises in the 17th century, by the investment into urban industry, and also a focus on struggling against interest-bearing capital (this is held within the canon of mercantilist literature). We see that with the American War of Independence, the main industry was agricultural, while the urban parts sought protectionism to empower themselves, until in the American Civil War, the urban North won out, leading to the development of America (e.g. "Reconstruction"). Thus, America followed course from English capitalism. Of course, capitalism is still in development. Hobson and Lenin claim that capitalist "Imperialism" began around 1870; a new world, ruled by "finance capital". Even so, Hobson and Lenin admit to the 'antediluvian' forms of "imperialism" in the ancient world, like capital.

Harvey provides an excellent Marxian aphorism (pg. 72):
<social power becomes the private power of private persons
This is referring to money, which as universal equivalent, expresses our social totality within its coinage. Man is made in the image of God, like money is made in the image of labour. Marx uses the example of Father and Son in reference to the metamorphosis of commodities to and from money; a "transsubstantiation" of forms. In these various shapes, Harvey comments upon Marx's historical logic, which as he criticises, applies teleology. Now, Marx does indeed see communism as being born from capitalist conditions, not merely contingently, but necessarily, yet he also sees that not all development is equally endowed with the same course of expropriation, such as we read in his letter to Vera Zasulich (1881), in which he writes that "primitive accumulation" is only a "Western" phenomenon, so far as its circumstances of linear determination, yet he also sees that the Russian commune model must also be converted to capitalist relations of private property, rather than be motivated to communism from without this presupposition. So, Marx is at least emphatic upon the "birth pangs" of the new society being given from the primacy of dispossession, which seems to me to be a terribly suspicious request. I prefer Robert Owen's view; that goodness is identical with itself.

Harvey's Chapter 3 concerns the development from money to capital. Harvey gives us the basic progress of capital's confrontation with landed interests, and speaks of the primary forms of interest-bearing capital as well as merchant's capital, but sidelines these for modern industrial capital. Harvey relates historical development to Marx's notion that "Human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape", by retroactivity. I would add his statement upon economic cell-forms (t. 1867 Preface), that the basic economic unit can only be analysed after it reaches a certain stage of development. A final point of interest in this chapter is the apparent contingency of the value of labour-power; containing an "historical and moral element". The question of protections then enter into the 'datum' of LP as a cost of production. By the same rate that cheaper necessary commodities lead to a cheapening of LP itself, so too would the retraction of minimum wage laws, or the depreciation of wages by inflation "de-value" LP. The theoretical concern is in the cause of value for LP. If wages set the "value" of LP by customary costs of production, then it is price setting the standard of value and not vice versa. The alternative is to see that all wage protections "over-value" labour as a commodity, thereby exploiting employers in exchange. Indeed, rates of wages are relative to profits, or in the marginalist case, relative to the 'natural' share of capital. You will notice that Marx never wrote anything about a minimum wage, but only spoke of the class struggle in terms of workplace safety and the length of the working day - the same as Jevons, who in speaking to a union, gravely opposed wage controls, yet fully supported the regulation of working days alongside safety measures. Keynes also sees the attempt to raise wages as rather fruitless, yet advocated for a shorter working week. This then portrays a universal tendency in political ecomomy to see the absolute condition as primary to the relative (e.g. the same as absolute and relative surplus value). Today, [The West] has minimum wages, but the working week has not greatly lessened for around a century.

Following from what has been written, and moving into Chapter IV, Harvey writes that for an equivalent trade to be generative of surplus, something must be given in advance of this constitution (which is related to Marx's comments upon the worker as creditor and employer as debtor). Marx thus shows how the wage grants equality in form, but inequality in content, which is conditional upon the time of payment - I have written upon the history of this topic before; that the 'pre-modern' form of wages appeared as paid by the end of the 'working day', while in capitalist society (as Marx notes), the period of payment extends from a week to a month, and it is this time-frame which allows for unpaid labour in advance (the temporal difference between a slave and a wage-slave thus is precisely the wage, which does not buy "labour" so as to own it, but rents the labourer himself). An 'Austrian' Economic thinker named Hans Hermann Hoppe unwittingly reproduces this argument - against Marx, stating that due to time-preference, the interest incurred upon the loan of the wage is returned to the capitalist as a reward for waiting, as profit. There are three issues with this which validates the theory of labour exploitation on Austrian terms; (i) wages are dispensed through profits, so profits precede wages, (ii) the worker, being paid with profits, thus earns revenue after the fact of turnover, and (iii), it is not the employer who 'waits' for payment, but the worker himself, and so the profit of capital is the interest given from labour. So then, as I have proven multiple times - it is unwise to feebly abhor alternative theories of value; interrogate the premises, and you will discover the internal reason:
<"you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good"
https://biblehub.com/genesis/50-20.htm
Austrian economists are correct - but they don't know how correct they are, like how Catholicism is not "mere Christianity", but the "fullness" of Christian worship. We all worship God, but some worship [God] better or worse.

At the beginning of Chapter IV (pg. 109), Harvey offers another diagram which seems a bit confused. We see "value in process" (M-M') and "profit" (C-C') as opposed relations, with (M-M') being described as an equal exchange, but "profit" as unequal. Marx nowhere claims that there is an unequal exchange of labour-power for wages, but on the contrary, the form of value is always equal, yet its labour content is unequal. This dialectical 'contradiction' is forgivably difficult for many to grasp. Engels gives the same polemic in his "Outline" (1844), that as opposed to the Lockean view of proposing an injustice, the law of exchanges imposes justice upon the sale of LP, and so the 'contradiction' is internal to liberal consideration, not external of it (Harvey does invoke a contradiction between the standard Lockean view and the capitalist custom, however. Locke himself described wage work as 'temporary' slavery, and Smith after him referred to employers as "masters" of labour. The idea of universal wage labour is itself a contradiction in the liberal worldview, which is why Jefferson idolised the Yeoman Farmer - the group which Marx said provided a revolutionary spirit in the English Civil War. Ultimately, it was the industrial revolution which 'proletarianised' so many and which came to define "capitalism" as such). Marx's great moral consideration on this issue is in his Gothakritik (1875) where he writes that (in the 'lower phase'), communism will bring bourgeois theory into practice by an equitable law of distribution - this is reminiscent of Winstanley's comments (1649-53) that the bourgeois hypocrites of his time had not quite fulfilled the "law of freedom" for the sake that the commons were not returned to the public for the means of collective cultivation and property. Locke's "labour" theory of propery (t. 1688) is closer to the vision of the Diggers than the Levellers. Incidentally, Marx speaks of a "Magna Carta" of labour in Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 10, and for which, he is quite critical against the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789). We see that in Marx's view of the French constitution (t. On the Jewish Question, 1844), it is really a law against society as such - not for society.

Harvey in describing the labour process generally, writes on how "labour" (e.g. purposive activity) is "metabolism" between an organism and its environment (which in different places he compares to the "form-giving fire" of human labour relating to "dead labour"; Harvey fails to inquire into what exactly determines the status of either "living" or "dead" labour, however). Harvey correctly asserts that all natural beings engage in the labour process, and so seemingly disregards Marx's fetishistic anthropocentrism where it regards animal labour (e.g. the term "capital" has its etymology in "cattle", and so when the ox is yoked for the sake of farm labour, the farmer can participate in an automatic fetish by taking credit for the work of livestock. If the livestock is bought with money and its surplus is sold for money, this is a capitalist relationship, the same as the capitalist slaver, who we see as early as Xenophon, around 360 BCE. In his text "On Revenues", Xenophon devises a plan to invest money for the purchase of slaves to work in silver mines, so that this silver can be made into more money. This is an industrial capital process which sees money make more of itself by investment into the fixed capital of slaves. Xenophon also sees that wage workers ought to be hired alongside the slaves, and so this enterprise surely produced 'surplus value'. The anthropocentric fetish then relates to the fetish of the "property-relation" by slavery, that Xenophon in "Economist" also provides - the common form of this is 'wages of superintendence').

Harvey makes this uncritical comment (pg. 128):
<Machines, for example, cannot create value. This is an important point, since it is often held, fetishistically, that machines are a source of value. But in Marx's accounting schema, they absolutely are not.
The 'fetishism' of machines is not in actually identifying the machine as productive, but in identifying the owner of machines as productive… Thus, we may colloquially infer that 'Steve Jobs [made] iPhones', or that 'Elon Musk [makes] electric cars', or that ' Mark Zuckerberg [made] Facebook'. No, it was the workers hired under these men who 'created' these enterprises. In the same way, the owner of farmland is in most cases, not really a "farmer", but rather, those employed under him are the farmers. A tractor farms land, and when the owner rides in the vehicle, he imagines that he is the one collecting corn. But we all make this mistake; for example, If I tell you that I cut the grass using a lawnmower, I am taking credit for the labour of another. Marx's formula for cost-price then (c+v) displays the joint effort of organic and inorganic processes in creating goods and services… Harvey quotes Marx [pp. 189-190] in describing how the "natural technology" of creatures evolves, similar to the later Spenglerian view of technics, and what can be seen in Plato's Promethean myth of technē (e.g. power).

Upon component costs, Harvey writes this (pg. 130):
<The total value of the commodity is made up of the value of constant and variable capitals plus the surplus-value (c + v + s).
Which of course is not false, but it overlooks Marx's original formula of value in Chapter 1, measured from the duration of labour divided by its intensity [product]. Harvey also properly highlights the important difference between the rate of exploitation (s/v) and rate of profit [s/(c+v)], in how they become inverse quantities by the addition of constant capital in its organic composition (e.g. exploitation increases as the rate of profit lowers). A final point on this chapter is the treatment of Senior, in how he absolutely affirms Marx's view, but disagrees on the numbers. Here, we see the capitalist admit to all of their crimes in the final detail, but revert to pathetic begging, claiming oppression (Marx portrays this rather vividly in his description of the passing of Factory Acts). What Senior claims is that if workers cannot work 12 hours, the capitalist will starve (since of course, the 'abstinence' of the capitalist shows his saintly virtue).

Chapter V begins with this comment (pg. 135):
<failure to distinguish between the value of labor-power and the labor theory of value can generate fundamental misunderstandings.
This is an irresponsible comment, since he hardly ever expands on it, and it is in itself, undermining. The LTV basically claims that the value of commodities is the cost of their production, and Harvey affirms the same for LP, following Marx in calculating the real wage as the sum of the costs of wage-goods, and so there is no essential difference. We can read in other materials that Harvey denies that Marx held a "labour" theory of value:
https://davidharvey.org/2018/03/marxs-refusal-of-the-labour-theory-of-value-by-david-harvey/
Harvey's primary reference is Marx's "Notes on Wagner" (1881), which for being so late in his life, is thus relevant:
<I do not say “the common social substance of exchange-value” is “labour" […] Mr. Wagner also forgets that for me neither “value” nor “exchange-value” are subjects, but the commodity. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/01/wagner.htm
This is of course what Marx writes in Chapter 19 (1867):
<Labour is the substance, and the immanent measure of value, but has itself no value
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch19.htm
Following from [Footnote 5] of the same chapter, Marx's meaning is that "labour" in itself cannot be considered a "commodity", and so has no inherent form of value, yet labour is still the "substance" by which values are made (lest "imaginary" prices pervade). Harvey is intelligent enough to understand this, so his flippant comment that Marx 'refused' a "labour" theory of value is sinister. His own conclusion follows that of Diane Elson's "Value Theory of Labour" (1979), which is seemingly a typical exposure of value formation, or labour "representation". Of course, as I have shown, Harvey is too attached to the fetish of "value" generally to be a good Marxist, since Marx himself is seeking to abolish th value form (1875):
<Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. […] Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

The final comments I wish to make on this chapter are about Harvey's conception of time. To Harvey, "time" itself is a social construction (pg. 140), which is merely relative to conditions of arbitrary authority (pg. 147). Of course, Mao thought the same, that time-zones were a capitalist myth, and so he established "Beijing Time" as a social standard for all of China, leading to inefficiency. Where Harvey makes concrete claims on this topic, he also makes unfounded claims, such that "we all too easily forget that the hour was largely an invention of the thirteenth century" (pg. 147), which is not given any type of evidence, and can be countered by reference to the Bible; how the unit of time known as an "hour" was freely expressed, with both the Christian and Islamic eschatology being based in "The Hour" of Judgement, for example. Ancient Egyptian legend also provides an understanding of the hour as a length of time in the day. Now, upon the question of time in general, I have shown that the ancient cosmogony viewed time as a construct of relative motion. Chaos, as pre-existing, formless and therefore timeless matter is put into "order" (e.g. Logos) and it is the relativity between formed bodies which produces times as concentric cycles of bodily motion (e.g. to the ancients, time is a property of space). Plato in Timaeus tells us that time as the "moving image of eternity" exists by degrees of perfection - for example, imperfect cycles are of the moon, which measures the month and of the sun, which measures the year; only the realm of fixed stars in its "perfect" year (~24,000 years) comes close to "eternity" in its grand design. To Harvey, it is the 12-handed clock which creates 24 hours in the day, and not the 24 hours which creates the clock. The sun dial thus challenges Harvey's speculation; the sun dial must have a thing to measure before it measures.

Harvey begins Chapter 6 with a description of how LP can cheapen itself in production, by the increase of production for necessary goods, which lower the wage. Along with Petty, Marx also writes of Boisguilbert as being an original classical economist. Boisguilbert gives the same case as Marx, that an increase in wage-goods causes wages to fall, and so he then suggests to open up free trade between France in its exports, to increase both profits and wages from agriculture. This period of Political Economy (1700-) defines the liberal epoch, as opposed the former mercantilist period (1600-1700).

Harvey then elaborates upon competition (pp. 167-8) but in the typical frustration which Marx evokes; the idea that competition is not a cause, but an effect of value. This itself has already been problematised by Marx in [Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 3], where he explicitly writes that the 'value' of a commodity is readjusted according to its market demand. This is not contradictory of what Marx has already wrote in the introduction to the Grundrisse though, that supply is caused by demand, like how it is consumption which realises production, by syllogism. So, Marx is only contradictory so long as he proposes "value" a priori of competition. As I have previously said, for "value" to be coherent, it must be a posteriori, and so an effect rather than a cause; a price, rather than [not]. Harvey expresses Marx's basic confliction (pg. 183):
<In these passages, note the dependence on both supply and demand mechanisms and the coercive laws of competition as necessary to the achievement of some sort of equilibrium in which value relations prevail.
Indeed, supply and demand must be presupposed (Harvey also leaves this in his conclusion - pp. 326-329).

Harvey extracts this sentiment from Marx (pg. 184):
<Capitalists love the planned organization of production within their factory but abhor the idea of any kind of social planning of production in society.
It was Saint-Simon who thought that industrial society was the only prevailing force against the spectres of what he generally cast as "feudal" hang-overs, including the basic structure of government, and especially its offices. He thought that the state should resemble a factory in its organisation, and allow the managers of private production to become managers of society in general. Marx appears to be taking inspiration of this technocratic vision, the same way Engels attributes the practical abolition of the state as its substitution by an "administration of things", Saint-Simon's given concept.

In Chapter 7, David Harvey provides me a great charity. A long time ago, I repeated what I imagined to be a critical comment from Marx regarding the ideology of Darwinism, as naturalising capitalism by projecting it onto nature, but when queried about this claim, I could not discover it, or even its attribution. It was as though I had imagined it. But now in this moment of reading, I have finally been vindicated in my assumption, since Harvey provides the source of Marx's critique (pg. 191):
<Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, 'inventions' and the Malthusian struggle for existence." [Marx to Engels, June 18, 1862]
A good tithing which clears my conscience, indeed! The only other critic against Darwinism of this sort I have encountered is F.P. Yockey, who infers the same thing, that Darwinism is an essentially capitalist construction. Harvey also adds that in the Origin of Species, Darwin offers praise to Malthus. Another thinker in this milieu was Herbert Spencer. As it has been said, the idea of ruthless competitions to survive is only a particular condition, and is not applicable to all life. I have shown previously how paleolithic man, due to his leisure, was taller, stronger and probably smarter than early neolithic man, who had degraded due to agricultural revolution. The infliction of labour onto man made him degenerate. Here, it is a lack of 'competition' which advances nature. Of course, theories of evolutionary co-operation exist.

Harvey writes that Marx was one of the first to use the term "industrial revolution" (the same way Keynes writes that Marx invented the term "Classical" economics). In this same section, Harvey provides a quote (pg. 202):
<The machine, which is the starting-point of the industrial revolution, replaces the worker, who handles a single tool, by a mechanism operating with a number of similar tools and set in motion by a single motive power, whatever the form of that power. Here we have the machine, but in its first role as a simple element in production by machinery.
Harvey provides an explanation in these terms (pg. 206):
<The capacity to produce machines with the aid of machines is, in short, the technical foundation of a fully fledged, dynamic capitalist mode of production.
Marx claims that this begins with Watt's steam engine, which differs from the ancient water-wheel, by universal mobility in geography, due to coal burning (pg. 202).

In Chapter 8, there is a quote from Marx (pg. 215):
<Hence, in place of the hierarchy of specialized workers that characterizes manufacture, there appears, in the automatic factory, a tendency to equalize and reduce to an identical level every kind of work that has to be done by the minders of the machines […] In so far as the division of labour re­-appears in the factory, it takes the form primarily of a distribution of workers among the specialized machines.
This perhaps gives us insight into Marx's meaning in his Gothakritik as to higher phase communism abolishing the division of labour - since all specialisation will be alienated into machines, and men will simply 'mind' the machines in operation toward their given object. Marx clearly anticipates an alienation of cognition into these objects as well, since the division between mental and physical labour will also be reduced, and so just as man is de-skilled physically, he must so be mentally. This is governing our current concerns, that we are 'replacing' ourselves by technology, but Marx is prescient on this point, and seemingly supportive of man's redundancy. We see in anthropology, the transition from the stone age, to the bronze age, to the iron age. Marx would say that from the 18th century onwards, we existed in a coal age, and perhaps from the 20th century onwards we are in a copper age, owing to the utilisation of electricity for the fuel of our technical universe (t. Marshall McLuhan). The point is, technology rarely seems to revert progress. Along with this comes terror also, like the atomic bomb, and factory farming; the mirror image of the holocaust (witness the steely resolve of Fascists and Communists who both tell us that "work sets you free", in a prison).

Harvey then discusses the service economy (pg. 223):
<We tend to think that the radical shift from manufacturing to services occurred in the past half century, but what these figures illustrate is that this is not a new sector at all.
Indeed, even as Baudrillard cites Veblen's "Theory of a Leisure Class" (1899), we notice how 'aristocratic' forms of consumption increasingly predominate. The "Political Economy of the Sign" is never directly historicised, but its 'antediluvian' forms are discussed, in the same way that Marx comments in the Grundrisse that wealth was once expressed in sacrifice, but that applied labour allows for creativity. Smith makes similar comments, that 'feudal' wealth was always spent on services, while capitalist production increases goods. In my analyses of religious sacrifice, I have uncovered the implicit logic of value (e.g. reciprocal exchange) in Homer and Plato, in how the offering transacts a service from divinity. We see this also in the Bible, such as in the Book of Malachi, that God is very concerned about the quality of sacrifice, in that they are increasingly depreciating in value, and so God feels cheated (Christ being the ultimate "payment" for the debts of mankind, whereby our sin is forgiven). We can see God as a type of debt collector, then, and Christ as the ultimate offering (like how Abraham was going to offer his own son, before the angel gave a ram instead). The sacrifice of children in capitalism is spoken of by Marx; that because the family is abolished, the parents treat children as tenants and workers for their enterprise. Today of course, human sacrifice in the form of abortion is not simply demanded, but seen as a right! So then, when the abortion abolitionist sees the ritual in play, his criticism should extend to capitalism. George Carlin speaks expertly about the basic internal contradiction; that the conservative cares about the unborn child, but doesn't care about the born child.

In Chapter 9, Harvey discusses wages (pg. 241):
<The only way in which classical political economy could resolve the problem of what it was that fixed what it incorrectly called the value of labor was to appeal to the doctrine of supply and demand.
Of course, Marx himself uses this determinant for the rate of wages in different places (which according to Harvey, is a social act which modifies the value of LP):
<Now, the same general laws which regulate the price of commodities in general, naturally regulate wages, or the price of labour-power. Wages will now rise, now fall, according to the relation of supply and demand, according as competition shapes itself between the buyers of labour-power, the capitalists, and the sellers of labour-power, the workers. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch04.htm
This same movement has determination in the laws of capital accumulation (e.g. Smith), and so where wages are given demand above costs of production, this is an over-valuation of LP, also regulated by the pendulum of decreased demand imposed from surplus populations (Ch. 25). We see Marx discuss this with immigration:
<Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm
Thus, an oversupply of labour leads to under-valuation. Marx later says that wages have their proportion by the rate of employment, relative to surplus populations:
<Relative surplus population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm
This is also present in the Bible, where marginal returns are depreciated with each person employed (Matt 20), which bears resemblance to Von Thünen's theory. So then, as capital accumulates, labour is in demand, and wages rise; labour is then over-supplied, and wages fall. Marx identified this as the central logic of accumulation. A partial solution he gave was in his perspective of emigration, between the ancient and modern causes:
<In the ancient States, in Greece and Rome […] The want of productive power made citizenship dependent on a certain proportion in numbers not to be disturbed. Forced emigration was the only remedy […] But with modern compulsory emigration the case stands quite opposite. Here it is not the want of productive. power which creates a surplus population; it is the increase of productive power which demands a diminution of population, and drives away the surplus by famine or emigration. It is not population that presses on productive power; it is productive power that presses on population.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/03/04.htm
One way to interpret this is Marx's comments on Ireland, that the Irish were forced out by the pasteurisation of the land, and enclosure of the commons. It was landed counter-production which forced emigration (1867):
<Every time Ireland was about to develop industrially, she was crushed and reconverted into a purely agricultural land.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867/12/16.htm
Marx suggests independence and protective tariffs:
<What the Irish need is […] Self-government and independence from England […] Protective tariffs against England
https://revolutionsnewsstand.com/2025/02/11/letters-on-ireland-by-karl-marx-and-frederick-engels-from-selected-correspondence-1846-1895-international-publishers-new-york-1936/
This would be meaningless without a rise in living standards, and so what we perceive is that the law of accumulation is also one of geographical concentration, the same way Lenin discusses mass immigration:
<Capitalism has given rise to a special form of migration of nations. The rapidly developing industrial countries, introducing machinery on a large scale and ousting the backward countries from the world market, raise wages at home above the average rate and thus attract workers from the backward countries.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/oct/29.htm
Thus, capital accumulation concentrates populations by the attractor of wages, and over time, wages decline. Thus, an uneven international development leverages wages by a competition between workers (what Ricardo refers to as monopoly), while even development would mean a rise in wages across the world. Marx thus sees how capital accumulation has its imperialist character. This can also comprise what is written in Chapter 10 of Harvey's book, and Chapter 11 concerns primitive accumulation, which has been discussed in great detail here before. I will therefore pass into the conclusion.

To conclude, Harvey is often generally adequate to communicate the text, but sometimes not. The glaring example is his attachment to the "theory of value" as the very object of revolution. Capitalism's problem is its particular value structure to Harvey, and so the point of 'post-capitalist' society is to have better values (since Harvey as an academic Marxist, is also afraid of the c-word; Communism). Harvey's idea that Marx's critique was specifically against the Classical economists is also plainly false. Marx makes special mention of the "vulgar" economists differing from the "scientific" work of Ricardo in the 1873 Preface. In terms of a work that 'introduces' a student to Marx, I think this will cause problems. Marx's own texts are preferable:

• 1844 Manuscripts (1844)
  
• Comments on James Mill (1844)
  
• Notes on Ricardo (1845)
  
• Wage Labour and Capital (1847)
  
• Grundrisse, Introduction (1858)
  
• Zur Kritik, Chapter 1, Note A (1859)
  
• Theories of Surplus Value, Chapters 1-4 (1861-3)
  
• Results of the Direct Production Process (1864)
  
• Value, Price and Profit (1865)
  

If I was tutoring someone on Marx's Critique of Political Economy, I would certainly begin with these texts, since they are simple, continuous, primary and short. 🙂👍

>>2854790
>It appears that Marx uses much of Hegel's logic in his analysis, but no one can be certain.
>no one can be certain
This is such a ridiculous fucking statement that it is a wonder you have read a single chapter of Capital at all

>>2854859
Can you highlight the Hegelian logic in Capital for me, please?

I'm sick to death of the "theological" study of Marx. I'm at the stage of being negatively polarised into sympathy for bourgeois economics, which for all it's faults is actually deployed to real world use.

Marx himself was perfectly good at illustrating with real world then-contemporary examples, but 99 percent of the time if you ask a modern "Marxist" to do the same they'll give you a jusf-so story that would make the simple illustrative fables of Econ 101 blush, and they'll expect to be taken seriously and insist you just read the holy book again if you've any further questions. Infuriating and stupid. I'm so tired, why did I get cursed with wanting to understand the economy and not railway signalling like every other autist.

>>2854866
Read chapter 1 you credulous dunce, the presentation not only of the chapters but the very writing is based on the systematic elaboration and unfolding of contradictions. Of course you will not acknowledge this because it does not suit your argument and system of quote mining at every chance you get

I only wish to commend your post this time, as you have done away altogether with class relations (how proud you must be) with this quote:

>Harvey's lies casts much doubt on Harvey's self-appointed authority. Following from this historicism of Harvey, we are able to understand previously ambiguous statements (pg. 43):
<In a slave-holding society there can be no value theory of the sort that we are going to find under capitalism.
Thus, he implies that value existed in these economies, but that it was a value of a different kind (e.g. not SNLT). He affirms this in Chapter 3 (page 101). Marx contrarily sees that ancient trade is simply unrecognised in what, "in truth", is at the bottom of its equal exchange relation.

Bravo. Not only have you ousted Beverly and now Harvey with your rigorous insight on the matter of fetishism (which last week you were only barely acquainted with - how prodigious!) but you have done away with the matter of value altogether. One wonders why you spend your time with us miserable peons who must struggle time and time again to comprehend your arguments when you could say, email Harvey directly to instruct him more clearly. You have nothing to lose!

>>2854874
>Read Chapter 1
This is not an adequate response, I'm afraid - you have given no actual examples. For reference, I made this comment in context of well-known academic debates surrounding the importance of Hegel in Marx's Capital (e.g. Fred Moseley's "Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic") in which no consensus is ever met. I myself have constructed a complete and Hegelian logic of Marx's Capital, from Part 1-3 of the book, where capital becomes the unifying concept of labour between its objective and subjective essence, and in the Hegelian sense, "substance is subject" by its self-determination. Reading Moishe Postone brought me to this position, to connect labour as "substance" of value to its spiritualisation. Zizek also appears to agree with this basic model, but is more brief on it. So, a Hegelian interpretation can be made, but can it ever be certain? You tell me. Can I ever certify my Hegelian interpretation of Marx? If not, then my comment stands - but let's read it again:
<It appears that Marx uses much of Hegel's logic in his analysis, but no one can be certain.
Thus, you will find no fault in this statement.
>Not only have you ousted Beverly
Where do I "oust" Beverley? I praise Beverley, in fact.
>now Harvey
But Harvey is incorrect in some places.
If he wasn't, you would be able to defend him in my accusations.

>>2854883
Hilarious, we cannot permit Marx beginning with the commodity as the social atom for reason of methodology but we may speak in absolute horseshit by raising to the level of abstract totalities universal ideals for a conceptualisation of capital.

Please email Harvey your ideas, truly they are groundbreaking

>>2854891
>we cannot permit Marx beginning with the commodity
Who cannot? You appear to be offering non-sequitur commentary.
>but we may speak in absolute horseshit
Are you referring to Marx's own apparent Hegelian logic?

>>2854900
You mean that rational kernel within the mystical shell? That logic?

>>2854904
>You mean that rational kernel within the mystical shell? That logic?
Exactly. So, do you think my interpretation is correct?
Hegel in Science of Logic (1816) devises between the "objective" and "subjective" logic. The three logics together comprise:

• Being (Quality-Quantity-Measure)
  
• Essence (Essence-Appearance-Reflection)
  
• Concept (Subjective-Objective-Idea)
  

We proceed from labour as "substance" (which in Phenomenology of Spirit is "subject", or self-determined, and this is the meaning of progress). Substance here however begins 'objectively', merely as "being". The being of "labour" must then be abstracted, which Marx writes, occurs in exchange between concrete labours, or use-values, and so the abstract form of value develops from its conception:
<the value form arises out of the value-concept.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
In exchange, qualities attain quantities through a common being, and this is how they are related. Relativity is a quantitative notion, and so to Hegel, an internal negativity. Thus being in-itself (use-value) becomes being for-another (exchange-value), which we see most clearly in [Ch. 1, Sct. 3], that commodities attain their identities in another, rather than themselves. Here then, we establish the basic relationahip between quality (use-value) and quantity (exchange-value), which both find their "measure" in each other, yet this form develops into the "absolute commodity" of money (Ch. 2):
<The commodity is immediate unity of use-value and exchange-value
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
So then, money as "absolute commodity" is absolute unity[?]
This then comprises the logic of being:

• Being (Use-Exchange-Money)
  
  

Following, we see "value" (e.g. abstract labour) possess a two-fold character however; an essence and appearance. Marx writes:
<exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it […] A commodity is a use value or object of utility, and a value. It manifests itself as this two-fold thing, that it is, as soon as its value assumes an independent form – viz., the form of exchange 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
Here, then essence has no being without appearance, it seems, and so this seems composite with a logic of syllogism. We then only have Reflection to discern. Reflection to Hegel is a relationship between essence and appearance, in reality and illusion. We may return to a subtle comment by Marx in describing exchange-value:
<the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Here, validity is conditioned in the realisation of value, and so where there is invalidity, there must be illusion. Marx deals with this in Ch. 2 and Ch. 3, regarding the price-form, which offers "imaginary" results and "symbols" that mystify. Here, illusory being exists in the price-form, as the utmost development of value's apparent form. Here, "real" prices differ from "imaginary" prices, and so this completes the logic of essence in the commodity-form:

• Essence (Value-Form-Price)
  
  

This completes the objective logic of Marx, and incidentally, covers the first part of Capital Vol. 1 (Chapters 1-3), in determining the commodity as an 'objective' entity (e.g. a "value" as such). Moving into Part 2 (Chapters 4-6), capital is introduced, which modifies the commodity in its object (C-M-C), and makes it subjective (M-C-M):
<In simple circulation, C—M—C, the value of commodities attained at the most a form independent of their use-values, i.e., the form of money; but that same value now in the circulation M—C—M, or the circulation of capital, suddenly presents itself as an independent substance, endowed with a motion of its own, passing through a life-process of its own, in which money and commodities are mere forms which it assumes and casts off in turn. Nay, more: instead of simply representing the relations of commodities, it enters now, so to say, into private relations with itself. […] Value therefore now becomes value in process, money in process, and, as such, capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm
This self-relation is the meaning of subjectivity (e.g. Descartes), and the self-expanding, motive value becomes "substance as subject". Here, the object of value is transformed as subject, and as a result, its value becomes surplus-value. This is the movement of money (e.g. the absolute commodity) into capital. This is also why Marx sees money as the first form of capital, moving into exchange:
<The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital […] the first form of appearance of capital is money […] The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C—M—C
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm
Thus, as soon as money attains being, it is already passing into a more developed form, by progress of its internal relations. We see this finally expressed in Part 3 of Capital Vol. 1 (Chapters 7-11), between the objective aspect of capital (constant capital) and its subjective aspect (variable capital). Thus, the "idea" of capital is attained by the immediate unity of dead and living labour, the same way that the commodity is the unity of use and exchange-value:
<The same elements of capital which, from the point of view of the labour-process, present themselves respectively as the objective and subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, present themselves, from the point of view of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and variable capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm
This definition of "capital" as such (c+v) is consistent throughout the rest of the trilogy, and this seems to be logically completed by Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 8, already. This is then "The Logic of Marx":

• Being (Use-Exchange-Money)
  
• Essence (Value-Form-Price)
  
• Concept (Variable-Constant-Surplus)
  

The "Idea" of capital is thus completed with its final concept.

>>2854956
I don't know whether to laugh or cry, you've misunderstood the reference and its quotation (rational kernel) so deeply that you engage in mystification through the rigid repetition and application of a formal schema of Hegel's dialectic through the transposition of Marx's works. You must actually read Capital on its own terms and understand why Marx begins with the commodity as the premise of his critique and expands outwards through an expansion of a set of contradictions contained within material processes that begin with sensuous activity.

Hence you have completely misread chapter 1 by (oh look, yet again) pulling a single quotation on the composition of value (form and concept) and deriving an understanding that is arse backwards with an idealist reading. Again hence that Marx's first consideration of this social atom is as a 'useful thing' i.e. as a material property.

You are inevitably going to respond with another wall of text so this post shall be my last. You have not understood Marx's inversion of the Hegelian dialectic of which you are unsurprisingly not alone, as you may throw a stone on X and hit Marxists who will come out with such lines as "zomg Marx said that production and consumption are in fact a mediated unity" with no hint of irony as they type it into their phone or laptop (in which technology appears to be magic and children's films may be an appropriate subject for the application of their vast and comprehensive readings of hegel).

If you care for a more elaborate response, read the Theses On Feuerbach. It is where Marx sets out properly his method culminating in the final and most famous thesis which has been grossly misunderstood. It is not an invective for social change but the recognition of a dialectical relationship between change and interpretation, this not being some abstract terminological conceptualisation of Hegel's logic but the recognition that the production of knowledge or concepts (as a social act) is reciprocally determined by material processes. Hence, First Premises Of Materialist Method:

>The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.
<empirical

>>2854873
Ideally, political economy is supposed to express social relations in terms of distributed revenues, or "prices of production" in the Classical vocabulary. From the total wealth of society (and the world) there are three main determinations of income, which to Marx, corresponds to the "Trinity Formula" of the three main classes in capitalist society. The three major costs of production:

• Wages (Labour)
  
• Profit (Capital)
  
• Rent (Land)
  

Here, each revenue is exactly proportional to the other, and so where we have more or less of one, this relates more or less of the other. So then, higher wages means either (i) lower profits, or (ii) lower rents. In capitalism, the source of revenue can only arise from this. Thus, the economy is plainly expressed as a class struggle for total social wealth, based purely on costs of production. So then, the economy in basic data provides its critique.

Stripping back of all of the sophistry, this is what the macroeconomics of Marx is about; who does the work and who gets paid how much. Marx never writes much about a communist society, but he gives basic ideas here and there, and so we can apply social statistics to his proposed vision in the style of political economy:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
Marx sees that all means of production will be owned by the government, and so a taxation cost is required to fund this, along with costs of administration, and also a welfare program. This will be deducted at a certain rate, but he says, it will diminish over time. After deducting this from the wage then, each person originally receives what they give to society. So, the harder you work, the more you get, and so on. Over time, he writes, this will be more equal, accounting for each person's different capabilities. Here then, there are two revenues: taxation and wages. The abolition of rent and profit then allows for an increase in wealth, and a reduction of class war.

I think what you've learned is that it's best to learn things yourself, and counting on others is frustrating, since the pretension to knowledge is more attractive to them than knowing. This is especially concerning where it regards Marx-ism in particular, since Marx wanted to make his work accessible to the working class, despite his own obtuseness. We may read from this excerpt (1872):
<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
So then, it is best to keep things simple. I sympathise.

>>2854988
>mystification
It is Hegel's logic; the logic you claimed was in Marx's Capital.
>this post shall be my last
So you will not be providing citation for Hegel's logic in Capital? Your original reply was an insistence that Marx's Capital is evidently Hegelian, yet you seem to be denying it in the same instance. "Contradiction", as they say. Anyway, since this is your "last" post, I shan't expect your presence in the thread any more, so I will offer my gratitude to you for our productive conversations, along with your literary recommendations. I hope you have a wonderful life, my friend. God bless. 🙂👍

>>2854873
What precisely is it that you feel you've not understood?

>>2855003
My last post responding to you you idiot

Anyone can recommend some bibliography on the history of modern banking and finance, crashes, depressions etc.?

I am going to ask a stupid question. Is there as much labour spent in making 1 dollar bill as in making a commodity that costs 1 dollar? Is there as much labour spent in making four 25 cent coins as in making 1 dollar bill?

>>2855230
Let me rephrase. Does 1 dollar bill contain the same amount of labour time that 1 dollar commodity has?

>>2855025
But you just responded to me again with this post… 😛

In case there is misunderstanding concerning my own interpretation, the "inversion" which Marx performs is in the status of "substance". As we read from Marx:
<My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm
Here, Marx's contention is not in the form of the logic, but rather, the assumption of its ideality. Substance to Hegel is mind, which in Spirit, is made subject. To Marx on the contrary, the "substance of value" is labour. Here then, we have a materialist reversal, so as to put Hegel back onto his feet. So, to begin with, Hegel's substance is ideal, while Marx's is material. When the value form proceeds from the "value-concept" therefore, this is an idealist turn in the expression of social labour, by the abstraction which occurs in exchange. This occurs in the commodity, which as fetishised labour, determines itself according to "superstitous" effects, in appearance. The capitalist idea of surplus value then inhabits the "automatic fetish" of self-valorisation; the abstraction gains spirituality as realised substance (e.g. value is conceived as a self-relation, not a material relation). The critique then regards the capital concept as such; the "value-concept" is the capitalist project, since labour-power is subsumed under the name of variable capital, the subjective essence of the concept, in relation to constant capital, its objectivity. Marx however sees that these are not value-relations in reality, but relationships between the subjective and objective aspects of the labour-process generally, as we have discovered:
<The same elements of capital which, from the point of view of the labour-process, present themselves respectively as the objective and subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, present themselves, from the point of view of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and variable capital.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm
So then, labour-power as "social substance", appears in the form of value, which from an idealist perspective, unfolds from the logical determinations of the concept, but this development is really governed by material relations (e.g. modes of production), and the critique of political economy is then a critique of the value-concept. This is why Marx sees that a communist society has no form of value, in opposition to Harvey's estimation. The critique of value begins earlier however, in Aristotle, who sees that the internal contradiction between value in use and value in exchange brings contrary judgements of the worth of a thing (Robert Owen takes his own stance when he claims iron to be the true "precious metal" of mankind, not gold). Adam Smith resolves this by seeing how exchange-value is determined from the disutility of labour, carried on into Ricardo, Gossen and Jevons, where the critique is revised, between marginal and total utility in value. Marx's critique appears to subvert the Hegelian Spirit, by seeing value-conception as a great mis-recognition, as opposed to the Hegelian Weltgeist. The logic of value then proceeds from Hegel, but the substance of value must be discovered to be labour - the same way to Marx, the substance of mind is matter.

>>2855230
>>2855234
>Is there as much labour spent in making 1 dollar bill as in making a commodity that costs 1 dollar?
No. In fact, it costs more to make a penny than a dollar (and more than a penny to make a penny), which is why some US politicians have suggested to get rid of physical pennies. The same thing has been suggested in the UK, since it is just wasteful on public funds.

>>2855321
So the exchange isnt equal then?

>>2855333
The exchange is not equivalent of labour values, no, but the exchange is still stabilised by relative supply (e.g. exchange rates). So, if we take two goods which trade: 2 of (x) for 20 of (y). Factorisation reduces this to a 10:1 exchange rate, which is then a purely quantitative relationship. What can only qualify each as compared qualities is then their status as objects of demand. For exchange to occur, each good must be demanded of another. Thus, where two goods are demanded, supply measures their exchange rate, and this is their relative "value" to one another. You'll notice that Marx uses the same logic in his "value form" [Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 3], where "value" is expressed as a ratio between assets.

>>2855037
I will give a brief timeline of banking. So, according to both Graeber and Hudson, banking began in Ancient Mesopotamia, where Temples would account for public and private debts, and after which at the end of a cycle, these debts would be forgiven, like the Hebrew "Jubilee Year" of 6 years in bondage, and freedom granted afterwards (Exodus 21). We can read from Hudson's "Temples of Enterprise" (pg. 19-20):
<The origins of money and interest are grounded in these credit arrange-ments and the fiscal practices innovated by Sumerian temples and palaces ca. 3000 BC […] Palace scribes and accountants developed monetary units as an ad-ministrative tool, assigning standardized values to key commodities for forward planning and resource allocation, for collection of land rent and other transactions with the rest of the economy, and for trade consign-ments to be settled in silver at the end of each seafaring or caravan cycle […] A grid of administered prices was created, set in round numbers for ease of computation and account-keeping.
As I have shown here: >>2834735
Administered public prices were set in exchange rates with other goods as early as 1900 BCE. As it is also commented upon in different places (including Marx; e.g. Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 19), the corvée of these societies gave account between what is provided as a personal and surplus cost by "obligation". Banking in particular then (following Hudson's influence from MMT) is an account of assets and liabilities, based in these rites. Hudson gives the same origin for Greek money (pg. 49):
<From its origins in the the 7th century BC in Asia Minor, coinage was state money. As Aristotle emphasized, that made coins a creation of law (nomos).
So then, money and banking emerge as state projects, not a natural development out of barter exchange, and certainly not an inter-personal activity. On the advance in banking, there cannot simply be accounting, but also the application of debt-interest from borrowing. As I have already shown, interest put upon loans (along with applying "risk" to the credit) was a social custom as early as 1,000 BCE: >>2849987
Hudson claims that it emerged at least a milennium earlier (pg. 91). He does at the same time make a necessary intervention upon wergild (compensation), which was explicit in the most ancient law codes, and is also cross-cultural, as a type of interest put upon social debts. Money-debt to Hudson then has particularity. In discussing the topic (pg. 93), Hudson dismisses the idea that "economic" laws upon the rate of interest regulated anything back then (the same conclusion as Marx's; e.g. Capital Vol. 3, Ch. 36). To Marx, the rate of interest is only governed by the rate of profit under capitalist conditions. Similarly, Smith (e.g. Wealth of Nations, Bk. 1, Ch. 9) only attributes the regulation of the rate of interest from [1546 CE] onwards, making it a capitalist phenomenon. The mercantilists also only discussed the capitalist period, although they invoked the Biblical themes of usury. Indeed, usury preceded capitalism, and as Hudson cites from Leemans (1950), standard rates of interest existed: Mesopotamia (20%), Greece (10%) and Rome (8%). Hudson unfortunately tells us that no solid explanation for rates exist (pg. 93):
<But to date [2000], nobody has suggested a firm explanation for the 20 percent rate's origins.
All that is known is that these rates were customary, and so did not vary with variable conditions. Debts were still a social problem in many ancient societies however, as we read in Aristotle; that debt-slavery persisted, but the forgiveness of debts also had ceremony (Seisachtheia):
<The whole country was in the hands of a few persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their rent they were liable to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. All loans secured upon the debtor's person, a custom which prevailed until the time of Solon, who was the first to appear as the champion of the people […] As soon as he was at the head of affairs, Solon liberated the people once and for all, by prohibiting all loans on the security of the debtor's person: and in addition he made laws by which he cancelled all debts, public and private. This measure is commonly called the Seisachtheia [= removal of burdens], since thereby the people had their loads removed from them.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26095/26095-h/26095-h.htm
This is only possible with money, since the means of payment becomes exclusive to a particular asset, rather than in general. Hudson and Graeber thus discuss the utility of money as the basis of taxation, since this then drives its demand. To not be able to pay rents and loans then implies money-payment, and so debt is an inherent function of money, also as a means of class power:
<Thus social power becomes the private power of private persons. The ancients therefore denounced money as subversive of the economic and moral order of things. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm
So, what we have learned so far is that as soon as there is money in a society, there is debt and interest as the customs of creditors. Before capitalist conditions, the rate of interest has no precise cause, and is stable. Banking begins as a state creation, but as money is spread into the population, it is gathered by merchants, who become creditors and gain income from interest. This is then the origin of private banking, from the public. Marx writes that in general, it was only the rich or aspiring independent producers who would request a loan from merchants, and this would be their ruin (of course, many kings were also ruined by these loans, and so the old stories about Jewish merchant scapegoats). In the history of this development though, we have the Knights Templar, who are often considered the world's first global bankers, beginning in the 12th century (e.g. 1150 CE) and being seized by the Catholic Church on 13th October 1307. This article gives a brief example:
<A pilgrim could leave his cash at Temple Church in London, and withdraw it in Jerusalem. Instead of carrying money, he would carry a letter of credit. The Knights Templar were the Western Union of the crusades.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38499883
Moving into the capitalist era, we find the origin of the word "bank" in 1516, where Jews were barred from trade in Venice, and so set up benches; these benches for trade were called "banco" (or "banks"). Modern banking is generally attributed to the Italians in the renaissance period (e.g. early 15th century). Here then, banking as a central institution is created by Catholics. Central banks only emerge after the protestant reformation, first in Sweden (Sveriges Riksbank, 1668), then England (1694). Here, banking is protestant. As we advance, we see Marx make this comment in regard to Jewish finance:
<[The Jew, who in Vienna, for example, is only tolerated, determines the fate of the whole Empire by his financial power. The Jew, who may have no rights in the smallest German state, decides the fate of Europe.] […] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
Here, we see Marx's admittance of a "Jewish" age of finance, which as per the discourse of the time, was based around the ascendancy of the Rothschild family, which especially began during the Napoleonic War, by the reliance of the British State for direct funds (1815). The 19th century then signifies the "Jewish" epoch, as the Christian submits to the terms by his own idolatry.

Drawing out a basic timeline, we can see the creation of money from debt incarnating the potential for interest in the hands of creditors. Originally, all credit was issued by the state (with temples being institutionalised), but overtime, it became privately traded, at rates set by custom, until capitalism, where rates are set by the rate of profit. The Crusades brought the bank of the Knights Templar around [1150 CE] which ended [1307 CE]. After this, we get Italian banking, such as the Medici bank [1397 CE], which established double-entry book keeping. Later on, we get central banks [1664-], and private bank creditors such as the Rothschilds, who fund countries, leading to massive enrichment. I would say that the real primacy of banking comes today, where our personal bank accounts are a prerequisite to legally earn a living. Apparently, the shift from cash payment to cheque payment gradually began from the late 19th century, to the 1960s, where it massively increased afterwards. Today, most wage payments are direct deposits in bank credit, and so we cannot socially survive without banks!

In the LSE article "Wages and Labour Relations in the Middle Ages" (2023), there is a claim that the shift from composite payments (cash and in-kind) to purely cash payments begins with the bargaining power of labour following the Black Death of 1350. Two kinds of worker is first identified (pg. 2): (i) day labourers, and (ii) famuli. Famuli were long-term workers and were consequently paid less than the short-term workers (pg. 27):
<Day wages increased dramatically and quickly in the wake of the Black Death; between 1349 and 1379 a day labourer would only have had to find 98 days of work to earn the equivalent of an average famuli labourer’s grain livery. […] from 1380 to 1439, a day labourer required only an average of 82 days’ work to match the value of an average famulus’ livery.
Figure 5 (pg. 34) displays the immediate disparity of the sectors from 1350. From the 1370s on, the price of grain began to fall, and so subsistence was met easier (by means of cash payment), causing a social demand for a greater cash component (pg. 3), yet the famuli wage only rose from the 1380s onward (pg. 29). We read that the reason that wages in-kind only began to shift in conposition until later was that the historically high price of grain insulated famuli workers and employers in mutual protection from market volatility for the workers, and labour mobility for the employers. What changed was the increased stability of the price of grain and its decreasing market rate, which made in-kind payments less valuable for famuli (pg. 30), and cash given value.

Other shifting labour relations involved the individuality of workers being accounted for in manorial records from 1380-90, an evidently new custom born from the primacy of labour. Here, we see the foundation of the labour contract under capitalist conditions (pg. 31-4). We see another interesting trend (pg. 34), that wages equalise for both famuli and day labourers around 1430, and so a standard wage (given in cash) is established. So then, the beginning of capitalist conditions by the dissolution of feudalism in England can be traced back to 1350, moving up to 1450, where after the War of the Roses (1455-87), Henry VII began enclosing commons at least from the period of 1487 (as reported by Francis Bacon, 1622).

For those who are interested in 'the ancient economy', M.I. Finley's work is typically the first recommended, simply for its namesake. Reading the contents, we largely discover a portrait of ancient values, customs, but not social statistics of any depth. To be fair, however, Finley does warn us of the sparseness of their project, and thankfully, the book is short (pg. 9):
<The title of this volume is precise. Although change and variation are constant preoccupations, and there are many chronological indications, it is not a book one would call an "economic history".
Chapter 1 is mostly a disputation about the concept of economics to begin with, for which Finley gives doubt as to what can constitute his current field of study, exactly. His major concern is a lack of statistics, yet as he adds in Chapter 2 (pg. 36), the ancients were not ignorant of quantity, or even cataloguing wealth - it is simply that a lot of the time, quantity is treated absolutely, rather than relatively. The "ecomic unit" (pg. 34) manifests, not within traded objects, but between them. Thus, to have "twelve herds of cattle" (Odyssey 14.98-104) means nothing, besides what these herds may be related to, as a measure of wealth, most especially in labour costs. In the period of his study, Finley informs us that he will be dealing in a time between 1000 BCE and 500 CE (pg. 29).

Chapter 2 offers varying considerations of the status of wealth and poverty, with advocates for each. The denial of wealth is compared with the later vows of poverty we see with the Saints, which is obviously modeled after Christ, and previously, we have Socrates. The distinction between worldly and heavenly goods always had this distinction, so long as wealth was conceived, which also moved toward secular considerations between value in use and exchange, which thus had philosophical inquiry. We see these things considered poetically in Homer, the glory of honour for Achilles was precisely the purchase price of a long life. Man thus transcends himself by the ghost of reputation, but what shall a man die for? We see that Achilles grumbles to Odysseus as a Shade, telling him that he would rather be a servant on earth than the king of Hades. Here, the price is paid and there is buyer's remorse. Socrates dies for Truth, even in the possibility of escape, such as Christ dies for all of man. Here, the "treasures of heaven" await the true believers, but we see this earliest in Hesiod, who writes of the Isle of the Blessed, where the repentant go after a good life. The quest of philosophy then is searching for true value, which neither rusts or rots, since it is not of this world.

Apart from this enlightened pretension, there was also a certain and customary ambition for worldly wealth, as commented on by Aristotle, that a man without property is not a free man at all. Finley quotes Cicero on the same point, interestingly highlighting wage labour as an illiberal condition, since it is one based in dependence. Beyond this, Cicero also targets merchants and craftsmen. On the other hand, he regards specialists, like doctors, favourably, but farmers are most virtuous. Aristotle gives a similar estimation, based in degrees of how "natural" or "unnatural" the livelihood is. In any case, the mechanical arts and crafsmanship are disregarded as "unnatural", the same way mercantile trade is. The same sentiment for the Greeks and Romans prevails. Finley does offer insight by additional commentary of these antque attitudes (pp. 43-44), that we are bringing an individualist framing to these words, when hierarchy was always presupposed. Compared to them, we are a classless society, and this is often misrecognised. From pages 46-47, Finley gives an interest account of the loss of prior class relationships in Rome, at least from 366 BCE. He sees that what develops is a comglomeration of "nobility" which is not entirely a class, but a status, which thus confers special privilege by its contraction. This nobility has lost its division of labour, or what is otherwise referred to as "occupation" (pp. 44-45), and only distinguishes itself on the basis of property. Here, the design of order descends into naked plutocracy (e.g. the rule of the ploutos; the wealthy, not simply 'money'). The basic structure of society then becomes rich and poor, as wealth is universalised in private property. The idea of "class" is lost according to the Platonic division, and so the "citizen" is born, basically as an opportunist. This is the tale Marx gives in his own time, that money is the determination to individuality, and so the bonds of society are increasingly contracted as isolated units. Too, the "treasures of heaven" necessitate an economy of scale, and Jesus provides this basis; do good and good will be returned unto you. Here, salvation is simply the grasping of a cynical delight. So, who has ever really suffered for God, if like how the "wages of sin" is death, the wages of virtue is everlasting life? This is not mere quality, but quantity, as Jesus speaks of it. The "first" and "last", the "least" and "most" in celestial mansions. So then, wealth appears to be the horizon of the world, the same as what David Graeber writes on the subject. To finalise the point, we see the common theme of Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery for 20 pices of silver, and Judas selling out Jesus for 30 pieces. Here, mammon is a master one cannot love while loving God, and by these means, money already in the ancient world is man's "real god"; the Mark of the Beast, as attested to:
<[“These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” Revelations, 17:13; “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelations, 13:17.] 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar. But what is given so as to then be returned? We read from [pp. 53-54] the massive loans recorded at interest in Roman society, not for productive investment, but for luxury. Indeed, it was the Caesarian period of Empire which crumbled it into bankruptcy. Nero is Anti-Christ.

Finley continues in his deconstruction of class concepts in the ancient world, particularly targeting Marxists for their deceptive simplicity (pp. 49-50). Finley's view of "status" as opposed to class rhymes with a lot of contemporary sociology, in how class becomes culture, codes and all the rest. I'm not sure if Finley is strictly correct, but its helpful to problematise. An intetesting example is the historical conflict between aristocracy and bourgeoisie, as depicted in The Great Gatsby. We see Gatsby anounce equality with Tom Buchanan by virtue of his material wealth, but Tom corrects him, and tells him that real class is not in money, but in blood. The various entanglements of blood, money, property, culture and so on blend, but are never self-identical. It is only the bourgeoisie which has its real fraternité and egalité, such that there were black slave owners in the US. A theoretical issue I hold against Finley therefore is not his assertion that "class" is not enough, but only his lack of formal criticism. He should have defined terms, but he nonetheless admits to his own design (pg. 51):
<It is for such distinctions that I suggest the word ''status", an admirably vague word with a considerable psychological element.
So then, status and class have no clear demarcation.

Chapter 3 concerns slavery, and as Finley writes (pg. 63):
<This ineradicable double aspect of the slave, that he was both a person and property, thus created ambiguities
This is verifiable through the Levitical law, that slavery was never an unconditional right of ownership, but held that owners must be responsible toward their property. This immanent recognition of the slave's humanity then backgrounds the very notion of "progress" to most (e.g. law as the vehicle of expanding enfranchisement). Similarly, Finley tells us that the freeing of slaves was a common act, and with this came its own legal clauses. Finley makes distinction between different conceptions of slavery, between Spartan "helots" and Roman "peculium", neither of which were the chattle slaves of Athens, and so their legal designation was also informal, such as we may read (pg. 65), that we interpret Roman law through the lense of its later European revision, and so analogies are made; helots are serfs, but peculium are peasants (craftsmen and the like). Wage labour is an advance from original relations, which I feel Finley overestimates in its accounting. For example, Finley writes that a concept of labour-time must be made, but it already was, by the length of the day. We do read in the Bible that the day had a division into hours, but nowhere do I read that anyone was paid per hour. The status of the Greek "thetes" is given for the wage worker, who was a free man, but propertyless. This describes the proletarian condition, where the proletarii in official Roman designation had no property besides family - it was Sismondi who first compared the modern working class to proletarii, but maybe thetes is also analogous? This is the lowest status conceived of in the ancient world (pg. 66); a free man who is also a wage worker (as Finley relates between pages 73-75, most free men earned a living, but were self-employed. It is specifically the wage which denotes 'slavery' by dependence, not its labour as such, distinguished by the contracts "locatio conductio operis" and "locatio conductio operarum"). Finley finally discusses the place of citizen-bondsman (pp. 66-67) in Both Greece and Rome. The abolition of the Athenian debt was called "Seisachtheia", while the abolished Roman debt was called "nexum" (pg. 46). Of course, we have only re-instituted debt slavery today. Finley's basic point throughout this chapter is that the idea of "class" in the ancient world was poorly defined, and so low status people existed together, but not with all the same rights and reputation. Moreso, the lower status did not seek revolution by class war (pg. 69), but rather the redemption of freedom in status. Slavery was fine to slaves, but only if they weren't the ones enslaved. This shows obvious parallels to today; a universal plight is sidelined by "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". Everyone is an opportunist. Revolution turns to reaction. But at least we are not alone in this political cynicism.

Chapter 4 concerns the status of land ownership, with the Greek city-states restricting ownership to citizens, while in Rome, the relationship was looser (pg. 95). Land was seen to be exempt from taxation, while where it is taxed, there was tyranny. Interestingly, Rousseau writes the reverse, that property/land tax is the most liberal, while poll taxes (what is equal to income tax) are most illiberal (t. Essay on Political Economy, 1755). We read in Pseudo-Aristotle (320 BCE) that sales taxes were very common, and Rousseau also approves of this. Finley does tell us however (pg. 97) that as the Roman Empire expanded, the tax liability of the rich passed to the lower classes. We see this applied in Britain from the 19th century onwards, that the "income tax" as a temporary measure during the Napoleonic conflict was first imposed on the rich, but after it was re-introduced and revised, the majority revenues came from the least of all earners, and the richest avoided direct taxation. This is all an open secret of course, that our oligarchs do not pay taxes at the same rate that others have to. Thus, as states expand, tyranny grows, by revoking the status of tax-exemption, and this is the citizens' slavery.

In terms of class relations, rather than citizen relations to land, we can read [pg. 103] that due to the debts of the wealthy, peasants were exploited more intensely, and their status as men was degraded even further. This mirrors what Marx writes about ground rents impressing on capital, leading to greater exploitation. Today, this is comparable to taxes on profits, which then incentivises greater exploitation from employers. Finley concludes with this idea, that "economic rationality" was not really present in ancient society; concepts like "investment" are modern, so property was not capitalised (pg. 120):
<Be that as it may, it is a fact that, though ancient states all owned land, from which they derived income normally by letting it, in the case of the Roman emperors also by direct exploitation through agents, they almost never bought land.
Land was a presupposed asset of ancient existence; a robust housing market did not exist; rather, a family had an oikos with acres of land, and generations lived in this settlement. The idea of land markets generally implies, (i) private monopoly, and (ii) public dispossession. The conditions of modern propertylessness are projected onto the past, when this was an exception, not the rule, for the free citizen. If the ancients saw our 'civilisation', they would rightly call it an oligarchic slave society.

Chapter 5 is about town and country, and begins with the definition of a "city" (e.g. polis). Differences between a true and false city were already made by Pausanius (pg. 124), highlighting constituents, such as government buildings, water fountains, theatres, etc. Aristotle tells us that a city is simply the formation of different villages into a single central body. We read in his Constitution of Athens that the presence of 10 distinct tribes was in the public consciousness, with political power separated between them, and for which sake, representation in the council was determined by lottery. Thus, a presumption of multi-tribal (read: multi-ethnic) differences are given in the establishment of the political body, which at most times, shares power evenly between them (e.g. Aristotle sees that families develop into villages, and into cities, and so the particularity of tribal-ism is established with a lack of civilisation. Aristotle described himself as an urban entity; not merely metropolitan, cosmopolitan). The rise of cities is attributed to transportation [pg. 129], which is the same estimation Thomas Sowell makes in his "Basic Economics". Smith also writes that growth is directly proportional to mobility, which is why civilisation began near water networks, while for landed people, the degree of civilisation is inferior, Smith using Russians as an example, and we may add the Sub-Saharan African. Finley offers alternative reasoning, however (pg. 130):
<It is therefore more correct to say that Rome took to the sea because she had become a great city than the other way round.
What then is the first cause of civilisational greatness?

Chapter 6 regards state income and expenses. It opens up with a long detail of funds, and Finley tells us that status was conferred upon those who offered a grander "leitourgia" ('service to the state'), and shame upon those who failed to provide the same (pp. 150-151). The liturgy was given in two basic ways, tithing for religion, and "agon", the performance of public tasks (which for the propertyless classes in Rome, came in the manner of corvée labour - page 153). This idea of an honour system is also discussed in Xenophon's "Economist" (360 BCE), that the more money you earn, the more you are compelled to spend, in attempting to preserve social status, rather than any concrete utility. This is "liturgy", or what is otherwise called "obligation", as tribute. From [pg. 163] Xenophon's "On Revenues" is discussed, and all of the ways in which public revenues can be increased. I have dealt with these primary sources extensively, so I will conclude my review with this.

The book would have been better titled "Features of Greco-Roman Economies" rather than "The Ancient Economy". All in all, the book offers a fine general perspective, but is still structured in a way that I don't prefer. I learned some new things and was met with things I already knew. For beginners, this could help, but not on "the ancient economy" as a topic, itself.

>>2855705
>>2856344
>>2855534
Thank you man. Regarding ancient economy, I was aware of Hudson's and graebers work as well as Finley, I got them from a thread that was made some time ago on the subject. The article I didn't know nor it's author, thank you very much. I would greatly appreciate any work on modern finantial history, from the sixteenth or seventeenth century onwards. Beggars can't be choosers but, are you aware of any good book on the subject? The more up to date, the better, since the newer, the more other works I can mine from its bibliography

>>2856718
You're welcome.
I give more primary sources on ancient economic theory in the last thread (archived thread #6), but I have also compiled archives of ancient economic theory (400 BCE - 1400 CE), as well as modern theory (1500 - 1690) here:
>>>/edu/25915
On books concerning banking in particular, I can't say I have actually read any, even if other economic histories comment upon them; e.g. David Graeber's "Debt" (pg. 291):
<It is often held that the first pioneers of modern banking were the Military Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, commonly known as the Knights Templar.
In looking at recommendations for books online, the most comprehensive and chronological appears to be Charles Kindleberger's "A Financial History of Western Europe" (1984). We can read [pp.9-14] a detailed list of various banking events, as well as crashes and crises (going back to at least 1400 CE, to 1950 CE). I've attached the book to this post, and will probably be reading through it myself (although, I first want to get to some Japanese Marxists, such as Samezō Kuruma and Kojin Karatani). So, this is my suggestion. 👍

>>2853731
Those fucking doctors!

This book is the first part of a compilation, including "Kahei-ron" (1979) as its second, but discontinuous part. This section in particular is a collection of articles written between 1950-56, the content of which, inspired by the leading Japanese Marxist, Kōzō Uno. The first three articles were written between 1950-51 and the fourth was written in 1956. The collected work makes distinction between these two periods. The fourth article is presented first, and the other three, second. As Kuruma tells us however, the first part is affirmative, while the second is negative, and in reading the second after the first, there is a lot of repetition, and so I will base my review in Part One, which covers everything.

We see that the analysis concerns money. Discerning progress in the concept (from Ch. 1-3), Kuruma writes:
<In particular, the relation between the theory of the value-form and the theory of the exchange process is an issue that I struggled with over a very long period of time […] In each of those theories, the analysis seems to revolve around how money is generated; but the manner in which Marx carries out his analysis is completely different.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
In 1947, the question was raised concerning differences in these processes, between value-form and the desire of the possessor of commodities. Kuruma took the view that the two could be separated, while Kōzō Uno didn't. Kuruma gives relevance to Marx's value-form theory:
<The riddle of money concerns how, in that case, gold’s use-value – which is the element in opposition to its value – has general validity in its given state as value. Not only had no one prior to Marx solved those riddles, there was not even an awareness that they are in fact riddles.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
Marx, as we see, writes in chapter 2 that the utility of the precious metals as money comes from their ability to be imperishable, divisible and mobile. Of course, Marx was not the first to make this point either, but Marx's actual claim has always been bothersome. At the beginning, and conclusion of Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 3, Marx claims to be the first to derive the form of money from the simple commodity (e.g. money from barter), but of course, this is also false - and it is bourgeois common sense to propose this story. Marx's self-congratulation must then concern the dialectic method of it, and so the great "mystery" is only in the style of presentation. Even so, modern theorists of money dispute this classical idea and so all "enlightened" political economists get this wrong, while a man Aristotle like is granted validity in his work, by seeing the origin of money in the state.

Kuruma simply spends the rest of this first section of part one expositing Marx's value-form theory. In the second section, he presents the exchange process, where he begins by quoting from the First Edition:
<The commodity as commodity however is the unity of use-value and exchange-value immediately; and at the same time it is a commodity only in relation to other commodities. The actual relation between commodities is their exchange process.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
Thus, Kuruma perceives theoretical distinction between the inter-relation of commodities, and of exchangers:
<In the theory of the value-form, therefore, Marx solely considers the commodity from the perspective of value, setting aside its use-value. That is not the case in the theory of the exchange process. […] Marx thus describes the exchange process as, first of all, a process for the realization of the commodity as use-value. It should be noted, however, that the “realization of a commodity as use-value” is different from the “realization of use-value.” […] the use-value of the commodity is not merely use-value as such but a use-value with a certain social determinacy. It is not a use-value for the person who possesses it, but rather for another person. […] However, the exchange process of commodities is not limited to the process of realizing a commodity as use-value: it must at the same time be a process for realizing it as value. […] The realization of value refers to the transformation of the value of a commodity – which had only existed in what might be called a “latent” state – into real value. In other words, the transformation of value into the shape of objectively valid value: money.
This is a convoluted argument, but what he's saying is that use-value in itself and use-value as the form of value are distinct modes, since use-value is realised in personal consumption, but 'social use-values' (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 1) are realised in exchange. Thus, in one case, use-value is a natural relation, but with social use-values, it becomes a value-relation (e.g. use-value becomes a property of value). I have actually criticised Marx on this point before, and Baudrillard in "Mirror of Production" (1972) offers a similar criticism. The critical point is that "use-value" is still a value in its terminology (e.g. "value in use"), and so where use-values are given a natural status (e.g. Gothakritik), it reifies the concepts of political economy - or what Baudrillard calls the "system of production". I have previously suggested Marx use the term "utility", which he has in continuity, before (e.g. Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 3), to avoid confusion (e.g. both Xenophon and Aristotle describe value in use and exchange as modes of primary and secondary utility - Marx also footnotes this early on in Zur Kritik, 1859). Clearly, a bewilderment at Marx's vocabulary invites debate, as we see in Kuruma's own hermeneutics:

Kuruma continues:
<The exchange process must thus be a process for the realization of the commodity as use-value, and at the same time a process for its realization as value. Yet the two realizations mutually presuppose and mutually exclude each other […] If the commodity is not a use-value for the other person, it is not a value. However, the commodity is only first demonstrated to be a use-value for the other person when it is handed over as a use-value in the exchange process. This means that the commodity cannot provide itself with validity as value from the outset when it is exchanged. Not only is the realization of a commodity as use-value and as value a vicious circle of mutually presupposition, it is also a contradictory relation of mutual exclusion
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
This itself is paraphrased from Marx; that between two people in exchange, one seeks the other aspect of the commodity from the other, and thus exist, like the form of the commodity itself, within a unity of opposites:
<This contradiction must somehow be mediated in order for commodity production to be generalized. What mediates it, needless to say, is money. […] When this happens, the commodity owner is able in the subsequent purchasing process to make this money count as value, exchanging it for the other commodity (or commodities) that he wants. This is objectively possible because his own commodity has become money. That was not the case prior to the appearance of money […] money becomes necessary to mediate that contradiction.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
Thus, money as "medium of exchange" attains its being, as the outgrowth from simple to general exchange. The development is made further, however, where the real distinction between the two processes is explained:
<The task particular to the theory of the exchange process, along with tracing back the contradictions, is to analyze the necessity of the general equivalent for mediating the exchange process – i.e., the discussion of the necessity of the genesis of money – which is a task that falls outside of the realm of the theory of the value-form […] Prior to the appearance of money the contradiction we have looked at must be confronted. But the commodity owners act in accordance with what theory has demarcated. In this way, they generate money, which is indispensable to the meditation of the contradiction. Marx describes the owners as having “already acted before thinking.” […] [money] is something spontaneously generated, not the product of examination or some “discovery” as bourgeois economists often claim.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
And so we see the meaning; that value acts "behind the backs" of its exchangers, despite the contradictions of pre-monetary exchange. We read Marx [Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 4] state that comsciousness of value only comes after the price-form has developed, and so value 'determines' itself by these forms of social intercourse. In section 4 of part 1, Kuruma moves onto fetishism:
<Having already pondered what is expressed in the equation in Section 1 and 2, and how it is expressed in Section 3, Marx turns his attention in Section 4 to the question of why […] Marx is raising a theoretical question not posed before.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
This is also Marx's apparent criticism of the Classical school [Ch. 1, Footnotes 32-33]; that although value and its magnitude have sufficient investigation, fetishism is left out of the conception. Kuruma himself is setting out to formalise what Marx wrote, by different stages:
<Having already pondered what is expressed in the equation in Section 1 and 2, and how it is expressed in Section 3, Marx turns his attention in Section 4 to the question of why: [Political Economy has indeed, however incompletely, analyzed value and its magnitude, and has uncovered the content concealed within these forms. But it has never once asked why this content takes that form, that is to say, why labor is expressed in value, and why the measurement of labor by its duration is expressed in the magnitude of the value of the product]
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kuruma/value-form/pt_01.htm
As yet, Kuruma does not quite expand on this problem, and neither does Marx, really, from his original criticism. It's for this reason that the Marxist lives in vagueries in regard toward the Classicists, as we see with Harvey. Kuruma makes the same false presumptions; that Year One began with Marx's personal revelation. Theology.

Kuruma is basically setting out to dispute an accusation of a supposed contradiction between the value-form analysis and the exchange process; one is a priori, the other, a posteriori - abstract and concrete, but between them, Kuruma explains, [Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Sct. 1-2] the "what" of value is given, [in Sct. 3], the "how" is given, [in Sct. 4], the "why" is given, but in [Ch. 2] the "what through" is given, setting up Chapter 3. So, the style of presentation by Marx is interpreted as logical procedure.

As we read in the 1885 preface to Capital Vol. 2, Engels rebukes Johann Karl Rodbertus for the claim that he was the discoverer of surplus value, such as in his work "Overproduction and Crises" (1851). Engels corrects Rodbertus that the theory of surplus value began with Adam Smith (1776), which Marx himself also accepted.

Regarding the work itself, the first half of it is a response to two disserations discussing the "causes" of crises of overproduction, which are framed in the dissertations as crises of under-consumption. Rodbertus refutes this by seeing both overproduction and under-consumption as the same event, caused by the same condition, which is the exploitation of labour. As labour over-produces, it receives a lesser proportion of its product, and so focus is shifted from the relations of production, to its mode:
<[the] value of products is in inverse ratio to productiveness
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/rodbertus/overprod.htm
We read Engels' similar estimation of the matter (1877):
<while under-consumption has been a constant feature in history for thousands of years, the general shrinkage of the market which breaks out in crises as the result of a surplus of production is a phenomenon only of the last fifty years; and so Herr Dühring's whole superficial vulgar economics is necessary in order to explain the new collision not by the new phenomenon of over-production but by the thousand-year-old phenomenon of under-consumption.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch25.htm
Thus, under-consumption is not dismissed out of hand as a feature of class society, but it is the capitalist character of under-consumption which concerns us. Marx makes the same judgement in the Manifesto (1848):
<In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
So then, the cause of under-consumption must be seen to have its basis in an internal contradiction, between "national wealth" and individual wealth. Engels in his Outline (1844), following from Smith, diagnoses this:
<The “national wealth” of the English is very great and yet they are the poorest people under the sun.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
Rodbertus equally examines this problem, and this is the entrance into his critique of political economy, listed by 34 points. I will here attempt to summarise them:

• (1-4): Revenues arise from the division of labour. All revenues derive from labour. Profit and rent derive from surplus labour. All historical class societies establish systems of surplus labour extraction. Wage slavery is downstream from slavery, since the same basic relationship remains.
  
• (5-7): All revenues are proportional, and so where wages rise or fall, profit and rent will rise or fall in equation to it. "Necessary wages" are set as a standard measure. Rates of wages depend upon labour productivity; the more productive, the lower the wage, in proportion.
  
• (8-10): Capital as stored-up labour was not recognised in ancient society since revenues were not distinguished. Revenue is recognised where it is divided between owners of respective assets, and each earns what's his. This division intensifies by surplus labour variability.
  
• (11-14): The rate of profit determines capital investment. Rent of land is also taken from surplus labour applied. The rate of profit is inversely proportional to the rate of return on raw materials, and this affects interest. Profit and rent are inversely proportional revenues. Raw materials and land compete against capital.
  
• (15-18): However, rent and profit compete against wages. These rates all depend on labour productivity. The share of the total product can be raised for rent and profit while necessary wages are also static, if a greater productivity of labour affords this difference.
  
• (19-21): Aggregate productivity depends upon the level of employment in the population. While aggregate product increases, wages may remain constant in distribution. This raise in aggregate revenue raises rents, but does not directly influence the rate of profit [e.g. more people means more productivity means more rent]. This ground rent equalises across the economy, like how the rate of interest equalises for the entrpeneur and manufacturer.
  
• (22): Wages and surplus revenues act inversely upon one another; profits and rents act inversely upon each other, yet rent can also rise without affecting profits or wages, if there is an increase in rates of employment.
  
• (23-5): Exchange entails 'social use-values' as its basis. Exchange-value is based in supply and demand, and a balanced supply and demand results in equal costs. In generalised commodity exchange, exchange-value is now "market value", which apart from the conditions of individual supply/demand, is now regulated by social competition. From this comes money, which however is not a commodity, but where gold and silver act as the "office of money", they are 'certificates' of market value [Rodbertus is contradictory on this point]. The perfect money therefore would simply denote the labour content of another good, rather than be based in the value of its own object (e.g. gold).
  
• (26-7): Nonetheless, commodities are still regulated by the cost of their product (e.g. "gravitated") in conditions of market competition, which drive prices as low as possible (e.g. "equilibrium"). On this point, Rodbertus compares Smith and Ricardo, that Smith views the 'striving' of this movement, while Ricardiand see that the value of commodities is a realised fact, but Rodbertus tells us that this is simply prescriptive, not descriptive. The limits of social production is in purchasing power.
  
• (28-9): Positive law holds that some men possess land and capital, while others only possess "labour-power" [Rodbertus uses the term "Arbeitskraft" which translates as LP, so Marx did not "invent" this term. In fact, the term is used in the English translation of Gossen, 1853. So, this was simply a pre-existing German term, it appears]. The distribution of social revenues (or the share in the social product) is not regulated by rational laws, but by "exchange left to itself", or the "laws of society". Labour is commodified and so subject to supply and demand.
  
• (30-34): "The division of the national product according to the "natural" laws of exchange has as its consequence that with increasing productiveness of labour the wages of the labourers become an always smaller share of the product. […] If every participant in exchange always retained the entire product of his labour […] then no glut could arise from an increase of productiveness […] Every participant would be able to buy a larger quantity of every product in respect to which productiveness had increased […] and the undiminished purchasing power of everyone could cope with the increased amount of product consequent upon increased productiveness - until the wants of everyone were absolutely satisfied; until no one would buy more even though he could. In this case, then, the purchasing power of society would always remain commensurate with its productiveness […] A like success would attend the increase of productiveness" [this is an intelligent comment, since it presents an application of Say's Law, against Say himself - reminding us of Marx's comments, about actually putting bourgeois theory into practice].
  

Thus, Rodbertus bemoans the irrationality of the laws of exchange, which bring illusions of justice, and a world of inversions; bourgeois theory contradicts practice, and so on. We see Rodbertus' enemies here being the same "vulgar economists" of Marx's own Critique, the Say-Bastiat school. Thus, this piece seems to inspire Marx.
<What, then, should society do? She must step out of this fatal circle, in which she is driven about by prejudices alone, and replace the "natural" laws, in so far as they are harmful, by rational ones!
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/rodbertus/overprod.htm
Rodbertus has the same slogans as Robert Owen, and also sounds like the Lassalleans, concerning the "full proceeds of labour".

We have three basic periods before World War 2 (1939): "War Communism" (1918-21), "New Economic Policy" (1921-28) and Five Year Plans (1928-39). We see with War Communism, the pressures of the Civil War meet economic measures, by nationalisation, centralisation and rapid industrialisation. After this, Lenin introduces market reforms, which can be called "State Capitalism". However, not everything was produced by the state. During 1928, Stalin seems to recreate War Communist measures in pursuit of increased production. This is the most notorious period of repression in the USSR, such as the Holodomor (1932-3), the criminalisation of homosexuality (1934) and the Great Purge (1936-8).

Using the textbook "Soviet Union Information Bureau" (1929), I will be mostly describing the NEP (1921-28), since these are the statistics provided. We may begin with population figures; in January 1928, the popuation was 149,000,000 - an increase of 11,000,000 since 1914, or around 8% per year (population density being around 18 people per square mile, while in the UK in 1930, it was 300 per; malthusian degeneracy). Marriage facts also show an increase in unions and a reduction in divorce, despite the liberal laws in the USSR (made restrictive in 1936 by Stalin). "Postcard divorces" (e.g. "no-fault" settlements) were established in 1918, and by comparison, it took the US and UK til at least the 1960s to lay the groundwork for this decriminalisation. Of course, the USSR also allowed female suffrage before the "liberal" West as well, and especially the scandalous decriminalisation of homosexuality, which only occured with equality under the law in the US and UK by the 21st century. The USSR was then the most liberal country in the world as regards civil rights, and at the same time, it promoted fertility - the same way there was a baby boom in East Germany (the baby boom of the US was also sponsored by the New Deal post-war social democracy). Here, public wealth sponsors health, while private wealth in capitalist societies seem to lead to infertility, through celibacy, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and the like. The USSR ironically proves that liberal laws and self-preserving customs can co-exist, subverting the dialectical materialism of today's capitalist apologists, namely 'Western Marxists' who think that Eurocentric perversity defines "progress".

Beginning with the structure of the economy, there were three types of enterprise: (i) state, (ii) cooperative, and (iii) private. Private businesses could be established by anybody, except that employment was limited to twenty people, where an expansion of this required special leasing or concession agreements with local powers (concerning private contracts, patents also existed with proper legal protections). Cooperatives were a massive part of Soviet society, with membership entailing 35,000,000 in 1928 (28% of whom were peasants and 60% city workers). These groups organised in every sector of production and distribution, but largely only within domestic trade. State enterprises largely dealt with heavy industry and foreign imports/exports.

The total number employed in 1928 was 74 million (50% of total population), with 80% of people working in agriculture (and as reported, these people lived off of 90% of their own product, making agricultural surplus 10%). 10% of people worked in industry, handicrafts, construction and transport, with 2% in large industry. 11,000,000 operated in unions, and 9,000,000 had social insurance (e.g. rural/fire/life insurance, paid out at a 5% rate by employers, and probably reduced from worker income). Workers also had benefits, such as subsidised housing, fuel, water, electric light, transportation, special working clothing, dental and medical service, which is accounted for in the gross wage. The net wage (e.g. cash paid after the benefits are covered) itself had a national average of around 60 rubles, or $30 a month (around 1/5 of the average American salary). Converted to today's worth, the net annual salary of an average Soviet citizen was $7,000. Workers also had different rates of working hours. The common working day was 8 hours, with 7 hours being introduced in the textile industry, and 6 hours for miners who work underground. Along with the employed were 1.3 million who were unemployed, while around 700,000 were claiming pensions. So then, 50% of the population worked while only 1% was registered as unemployed. A recorded number of at least 10,000,000 children were in school, yet many people were not integrated into the national system, such that the numbers of peasants who were unemployed were around 7,000,000 in 1926, from their recent statistical accounting. This also proves that job opportunities were massively available in the USSR. As I should also mention, apprenticeship schemes were set up by quotas for young people between 14-18 years old.

Of the various means of supplying goods, foreign trade of course played an important role, with total numbers for trade reaching around 900 million rubles in 1928, but this still being a trade deficit. Foreign trade grew from 1922 at least 400% showing the entanglement the USSR had with the world market, despite some formal restrictions. The major exports were industrial products, such as oil, coal, metals, etc. Labour efficiency shows that the oil sector grew in output while reducing employment, just as coal mining expanded with extra employees. It is then large industry which predominates this area (another point on efficiency; we can see industry increase in its output at least 100% each year since 1922; a twelve-fold advance beyond population replacement - it is often said that Stalin was the engine of industry, but evidently, this was already in process at constant development, without needless compulsion).

Domestic economy must also be considered. State enterprises mostly produced and sold wholesale, while cooperative and private businesses were largely retail, such that at least 95,000 cooperative shops are tallied: 60% of retail was based in cooperatives, while 25% was private, and 15% was state-owned. We see a genuine competition in the Soviet consumer marketplace, then, between these models. Recorded gross domestic sales in 1928 was ~50 billion rubles, which means that national wealth depended on retail and wholesale in the domestic economy at least 50 times as much as foreign trade - this is reflected in the rates of employment per sector, such that only around 5% were in heavy industry.

To summarise my analysis: the average worker in the Soviet Union (1928) received a net annual salary of $7,000 ($2/hr), but housing, healthcare and education were all subsidised public services. 80% worked on farms, and 10% worked in general handicraft or industry. You either worked for the state, a cooperative, or private business, probably after an initial period of working an apprenticeship when you were a teenager. Poverty and precarity still existed, but was being overcome. For the meantime, you were poorer than a Westerner, but not really that much, considering the social taxations within the capitalist system. There were political repressions, but this exists everywhere, and besides, there were also liberations which the West did not have. Keep in mind that this only describes the NEP period (1921-28), and that with Stalin's forced collectivisation of agriculture, his exploitation of industry, and political terror, a tide is waiting to turn within this mixed-economy experiment, toward a second phase of War Communism, and itself being momentous of the horrors of a new World War. Some bemoan Kruschev for his liberalisation, but at the same time, he was still more conservative than Lenin!

Nassau Senior is most well-known for asserting that the profits of capitalists come from "abstinence", or "wages of superintendence". This had precedence in the time of Smith, who commented upon this popular judgement, and so Senior was not an innovator, but an apologist. Indeed, Marx lumps Senior into the group of "vulgar" political economists, between the period of 1830-50, who rejected Ricardo. Nonetheless, anyone is worth reading, and so I will be reviewing Senior's Lectures.

Senior makes this initial "self-evident" claim:
<the rate of wages depends on the extent of the fund for the maintenance of labourers, compared with the number of labourers to be maintained […] the rate of wages can be raised, or, what is nearly the same, the condition of the labouring classes improved, only by either increasing the fund for their maintenance, or diminishing the number to be maintained.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
Of course, this has logistical common sense, yet also presupposes a fixed "labour fund" which then offers Malthusian conclusions. Indeed, Senior in other places writes of the fatality of industrial labour, which requires increasing exploitation to even sustain itself. Senior is quoted by Marx (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 9, Sct. 3) in begging to not reduce the working day from 12 hours to 10 hours in 1936, lest civilisation itself collapse. Senior's "last hour" is recorded as the rhetoric of this argument:
<the whole net profit is derived from the last hour
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch09.htm#S3
Here, Senior accepts the theory of surplus labour, but sees that for 11 hours, the worker is only making back his wages, while the last hour makes profit - thus, to reduce production to 10 hours gets rid of both, wages, and profits, as sustainable incomes. So, we must see Senior's presumption of a labour fund in this context.

Senior continues in his explicit malthusianism:
<The only effectual and permanent means of preventing the undue increase of the number to be maintained, is to raise the moral and intellectual character of the labouring population; to improve, or, I fear we must say, to create habits of prudence, of self-respect, and of self-restraint; to equalize, as by nature they are equal, the wages of the single and the married, and no longer to make a family the passport to allowance. But these are necessarily gradual measures — they are preventive, not remedial. The only immediate remedy for an actual excess in one class of the population, is the ancient and approved one, coloniam deducere.
Here, the reduction of living conditions by "self-restraint" gives notion to abstinence, that if only workers properly invested and saved their money they would be wealthy (Senior also writes that prudence gives freedom by the choice not to marry, and so the cause of poverty is said to be marriage, in part. On this topic, Paul Cockshott has previously affirmed the fact that because homosexuals rarely get married or have children, they have disposable income, so this would be in line with Senior's meaning). Further, we read of Senior's callousness as regards the idea of a family wage (as presupposed by Ricardo), and so the desire to reduce the poor by making them poorer is suggested, which is only in partnership with what is written by Arthur Young on the topic (1771): "Everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor or they will never be industrious…they must be (like all mankind) in poverty, or they will not work." The idea of a family wage being reduced has its historical reality, by the deconstruction of the family into a cash nexus of individual workers and tenants. The father and mother work for their individual wage, and the child works for the sake of the parents - this is also where the idea of "keep" emerged, where parents become like landlords. Senior also speaks against the Poor Laws (e.g. welfare) as being an "artificial" stimulus to worker populations. In all cases, Senior sees that there are simply too many mouths to feed and not enough productivity from them.

Senior then makes a strange argument:
<In the natural state of the relation between the capitalist and the labourer, when the amount of wages to be paid, and of work to be done, are the subjects of a free and open bargain […] But the instant wages cease to be a bargain — the instant the labourer is paid, not according to his value, but his wants, he ceases to be a freeman. He acquires the indolence, the improvidence, the rapacity, and the malignity, but not the subordination of a slave.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
His argument here is that if a worker is paid more than he is worth, then in fact, he becomes a slave, like how if he is subsidised by welfare, he is a slave. Freedom for Senior must necessitate a "natural" relationship to the whims of the capitalist, and on this we may read:
<He is told that he has a right to wages, but that he is bound to work? Who is to decide how hard he ought to work, or how hard he does work? Who is to decide what amount of wages he has a right to? As yet, the decision has been made by the overseers and the magistrates.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
He has actually answered his own question. If not the magistrates, then it must be the capitalist who decides all of these - and so Senior invokes class war.

Senior's answer to the surplus population is emigration:
<Nature has decreed that the road to good shall be through evil — that no improvement shall take place in which the general advantage shall not be accompanied by partial suffering. The obvious remedy is to remove those whose labour has ceased to be profitable, to a country that will afford room for their exertions. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
We see something similar in the Cromwell period of the Commonwealth (1649-1660), that the Irish were sent out to the American colonies to be indentured servants. This is at least interesting, since it defies the Marxist presumption of surplus populations acting as a reserve for domestic labour. Malthus similarly sought to reduce the number of the poor rather than increasinfg it, despite Smith already in 1776 describing the rising and falling of working populations according to capital accumulation. It only seems in the next decade of Senior's treatment (1840s) that mass immigration has its conspiratorial strategy to lower wages, which Marx by 1870 speaks as to its conscious realisation. Engels in 1845 discusses the lowering of English wages on account of the Irish. Senior does actually comment on this event (1850):
<We have heard it made a subject of complaint, that the uneducated Irish have dispossessed the English of the lowest employments in London and its neighbourhood. We rather rejoice that the English are sufficiently educated to be fit for better things.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/senior-political-economy-1850-ed#lf0205_head_021
Yet, in a world where job guarantees are "slavery", skills entail no necessary means of employment. We see "over-education" today concurrent with unemployment. We can compare his comments in 1850 with 1830:
<It is true, that to remove a million of persons might, perhaps, cost £12,000,000 sterling; that is to say, might cost as much as the direct expenditure of three months war; and that an expenditure of £12,000,000 sterling is an evil. But in the first place, it has been demonstrated that the expense of keeping paupers at home is far greater than that of their removal. […] We are told that the labourers form the strength of the country, and that to diminish their number is to incur voluntary feebleness. But does the pauper, — the man whose labour is not worth his subsistence, who consumes more than he produces,—does he add to the strength of the country?
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/intro.htm
Here, lowering the population by forced emigration is an unconditional virtue, but increasing the population by immigration is also good, since it takes away jobs. He is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Incoherence.

Moving from the preface to the first lecture, we receive some interesting data about nominal and real wages:
<wages have risen since the reign of Henry VII, because the labourer now receives 1 s. 6d. or 2.s. a day, and then received only 4½d […] wages have fallen since the reign of Henry VII, because the labourer then earned two pecks of wheat a day, and now earns only one.
These results are absolutely shocking, that in 330 years, the average worker has become twice as poor as they were (displaying the grand illusion of progress). Senior no doubt attributes this decline to population increase (though he never offers an historical cause). After this, Senior gives a hilariously dishonest statement:
<The poor and half-employed Irish labourer, or the still poorer and less industrious savage, is as inferior in happiness as tie is in income to the hard-worked English artisan. […] It is generally admitted, that during the last fifty years, a marked increase has taken place in the industry of our manufacturing population, and that they are now the hardest working labourers in the world. But during the whole of that period the average duration of their lives has been constantly increasing, and appears still to increase: and notwithstanding the apparent unhealthiness of many of their occupations, notwithstanding the atmosphere of smoke and steam in which they labour for seventy-two hours a week, they enjoy longer life than the lightly-toiled inhabitants of the most favoured soils and climates. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch01.htm
If this were true, that working 72-hour weeks caused a length in life and an increase in happiness, then why didn't Senior decide to work in a factory himself? Why?

In the second lecture, Senior extends his claim of the labour fund being a sum of consumed commodities for a given population, and it is this logistical sum which determines the fund per worker. From this he writes:
<It is inconsistent with the doctrine, that the rate of wages depends on the proportion which the number of labourers beam to the amount of capital in a country […] if my proposition be correct, no increase or diminution of these things can directly affect wages
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch02.htm
He makes this argument by simply denying a definition of whay may constitute "capital" as a category:
<The word capital has been used in so many senses, that it is difficult to state this doctrine precisely
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch02.htm
If capital is to include means of production however, then how does productivity not relate to rates of wages, based in proportions between populations and goods? We notice that Senior never explains what increases the rate of productivity per worker besides "self-restraint", which itself has no meaning to the productive process. Phenomena like overproduction was clearly evident in the industrial era; so much so, that Malthus himself was a promoter of increasing effective demand. His early article "An Investigation of the Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions" (1800) describes market gluts which are relieved by increased market consumption:
<There is one circumstance, however, that ought to be attended to. To circulate the same, or nearly the same quantity of commodities through a country, when they bear a much higher price, must require a greater quantity of the medium, whatever that may be. The circulation naturally takes up more. It is probable, therefore, that the Bank has found it necessary to issue a greater number of its notes on this account.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004861579.0001.000/1:2?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Thus, since at least 1800, overproduction is present. So then, if increased production itself cannot raise wages, even by market demand, then the claim of wages having relation to the social product proves contradictory. On this point, both Smith and Marx see that an investment in capital raises demand, and demand for labour, which is corrected by increased worker population. There is consistency here, but not in Senior's basic denial.

In the third lecture however, Senior reverts his opinion:
<In either case, the additional produce obtained from the machine would have been an additional fund for the maintenance of labour; and wages must, according to my elementary proposition, have risen.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
So, Senior does in fact correlate capital investment with the rise of wages. We see his citation of real wages between 1500 and 1830. If machines add so much productivity, then how has real consumption declined? Only by population. Looking at numbers, we see that ~2 million people lived in England in 1500, and from the 1831 census, 13 million lived there in 1830. This difference is around 600% and so by proportion, the only way for real consumption to have halved is for economic growth to be 300% from this time. This would mean that there was >1% growth per year.

As a final point, Senior makes a remarkable statement:
<it is not employment, but food, clothing, shelter, and fuel — in short, the materials of subsistence and comfort, that the labouring classes require. The word employment is merely a concise form of designating toil, trouble, exposure, and fatigue. All these, per se, are evils, and the less of them that is required for obtaining a given amount of subsistence and comfort, — or, in other words, the greater the facility of obtaining that given amount, — the better, caeteris paribus, will be the condition of the labouring classes; indeed, of all classes in the community. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
This is entirely correct, of course, but shockingly lucid, but it is also wrapped up in a more elaborate conclusion:
<If the higher orders were to return to the customs of a century ago, and cover their coats with gold lace, they might enjoy their own finery; but how would that benefit their inferiors? The theory which I am considering, replies that they would be benefited by being employed in making the lace. It is true that a coat, instead of costing £5, would cost £55 But what becomes now of the extra £50? for it cannot be said that because it is not spent on a laced coat, it does not exist. If a landlord with £10,000 a year spends it unproductively, he pays it away to those who furnish the embellishments of his house and grounds, and supply his stable, his equipage, and his clothes. Suppose him now to abandon all unproductive expenditure, to confine himself to bare necessaries, and to earn them by his own labour, the first consequence would be, that those among whom he previously spent his £10,000 a year would lose him as an employer; and beyond this the theory in question sees nothing. But what would he do with the £10,000 which he would still annually receive? No one supposes that he would lock it up in a box, or bury it in his garden. Whether productively or unproductively, it still must be spent. […] If not spent by himself, it must be lent to some other person, and by that person it must be spent productively or unproductively. 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
This is related to a comment by Ricardo, that wasteful spending should hire unproductive labourers rather than simply emptied out into hoards of luxury (returning the argument of Malthus, that what is important is the act of circulation itself). Senior adds that last interesting comment: "If not spent by himself, it must be lent to some other person", which implies that saving is itself a detriment to the wealth of a nation, and so, say, this idle money was given to the poor, since it is considered a fund for them in the first place, would this not be more efficient? Uniting all theorists then, it seems that the optimal form of economy is one of redistributing funds:
<the labourer can generally manage better his own income than it can be managed for him by his master
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/senior/ch03.htm
So, Senior surprised me in his final analysis!

Karl Kautsky's response to Rudolf Hilferding's "Finance Capital" (1911) is a rebuke of Hilferding's revision of the Marxist theory of money, which rather than proceeding from socially necessary labour time directly, through a money commodity (e.g. gold), proceeds from what is described by Rudolf as socially necessary circulation:
<The real measure of value is not money. On the contrary, the ‘value’ of money is determined by what I would call the socially necessary circulation value. […] In other words, under a system of pure legal-tender paper currency, given a constant velocity of circulation, the value of paper money is determined by the total price of all the commodities in circulation. The value of paper money in such circumstances is completely independent of the value of gold and reflects directly the value of commodities.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
Kautsky shows a difference to Marx's own theory:
<The formula is constructed in imitation of Marx’s formula, which reads: “The quantity of money functioning as the circulating medium is equal to the sum of the prices of the commodities divided by the number of moves made by coins of the same denomination.” Both formulas outwardly say the same, yet they are fundamentally different. […] But in Marx the value of money, the value of a mark, is presupposed as given. What changes with the sum of prices of the commodities and the velocity of circulation of money is not the value of particular coins, but the number of coins in circulation at the same time.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
Here, the quantity of currency is based in a standard of measurement, such that if paper (in its representation of gold) exceeded 1:1 supply, this would be reflected in the value of the currency, which to Marx, is equivalent to the debasement of gold for silver (e.g. depreciation, such as in the Roman fiat system, which minted de-valued coin under the pretense of a higher value). Thus, Marx has a theory of inflation, but ties it back to gold in its limited supply based in production. Thus, this is commensurate with Hilferding's judgement, since a rise in price is also concurrent with a rise in supply of money - the only real difference between Marx's theory and Hilferding's is that Marx's requires mediation by a money commodity, so as to measure value, since otherwise, money as a valueless asset becomes measured by valueless commodities. It is a direct reversal of equivalence, since commodities do not express their value in money, but money gains its value from commodities. This is certainly problematic. Kautsky tells us what circumstances beguile Hilferding:
<In this way a “social regulation of circulation” was established through the central banks, which did not exist as long as gold, coming from private mines, was bought by private persons, who also accumulated the gold hoards. Under those circumstances, the value of money was indeed determined by its production costs. Today it is determined by the ratio between the amount of money in circulation and the socially necessary circulation value, and since that ratio is always kept at the same level by the central bank, we have a constant gold value.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
It is the imposition of monopoly which converts the 'value' of money in its determination by production, to its regulation by distribution. Marx writing on fiat saw that the treatment of money as anything besides a value is erroneous, and so denied the "vulgar" quantity theory of money, despite effecting the same basic arithmetic.

Here too, Kautsky sees that although central banks regulate the supply of money, the storage of gold in a hoard (e.g. bank vaults) necessitates the medium of gold for both: (i) the measure of value, and (ii) the supply of money. Why do banks require gold to begin with, if gold is immaterial? The same question could be asked of contemporary central banks; if money doesn't require taxation or securities, why do banks only make money in consideration of taxation and securities? For example, The Bank of England acts as a central reserve for other commercial banks, and money is authorised from the account of this treasury at a certain fractional rate. This is the limit of central banking in practice, but not in theory, as it goes. Modern Monetary Theorist L. Randal Wray tells us that taxation is not a fund for the public budget, but only a means of limiting personal consumption, and the means of creating demand for currency. Here, Wray slips in the implicit admission of what drives the value of money - if taxation did not exist, money would lose demand, and so would lose value, leading to inflation. If personal consumption was not restricted, there would be inflation, etc. So then, money in its bare mechanism may be produced ex nihilo, and so does not strictly "circulate" as a medium, but at the same time, it necessarily functions from its appearance, as the redistribution of existing funds through taxation. Any mysticism of MMT is thus surely unveiled, in that where banks account outstanding assets or liabilities, circulation depends upon production, or 'SNLT'. Thus, it is the monopoly of capital which regulates the supply of money in actuality, not otherwise - Gesell discusses this, in how Manchester liberals wanted a free market of commodities, but a monopoly on money - evidently, it is that the rate of profit determines supply; indeed, Engels in 1844 calls money a "monopoly", yet Kautsky sees that money only has value in its anarchy of production; Marx himself has deadly silence on the topic. This brings in even deeper issues though, since if profits are managed according to manual pricing which determines the rate of supply of money, then money gets its "value" from an aggregate of valueless prices, the same as Kautsky's own criticism against Hilferding. So then, we can have a comparison: If circulation determines production, then what regulates the supply of money, except production? If production determines circulation, money supply is regulated by commodities. In each case, production is the determining factor (e.g. Smith's "absolute supply").

Now, this is not denied by Hilferding, since he is basing value in value; of money for commodities, but he does not answer why gold is more or less stable than paper for the same purposes, if its supply is regulated by 'circulation value' rather than circulation having its value in SNLT. On this point, he writes about paper's volatility:
<A pure paper currency of this kind cannot meet the demands imposed on a medium of circulation for any extended period of time. Since its value is determined by the value of the circulating commodities, constantly subject to fluctuations, the value of money would also fluctuate constantly. Money would not be a measure of the value of commodities; on the contrary, its own value would be measured by the current requirements of circulation, that is to say, by the value of commodities, assuming a constant velocity of circulation. A pure paper currency is, therefore, impossible as a permanent institution, because it would subject circulation to constant disturbances.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
Here there is mystery, since if paper is volatile with a change in the supply of commodities, why is gold not subject to the same effects? Only due to a higher value stamped by its coinage. This is why gold bullion became a standard of international trade (e.g. "world money"), as opposed to silver, copper or paper, since its value is stable; but what is stable? Its relatively limited supply, based in bare costs of production. Of course, the "value" of money only appears in commodity exchange, and so Kautsky using Marx asks the most important question:
<The question: why does not money directly represent labour-time, so that a piece of paper may represent, for instance, X hours’ labour? is at bottom the same as the question: why, given the production of commodities, must products take the form of commodities?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1912/xx/gpcc.htm
If at the same time that paper money abolishes a means of intrinsic valuation, it in effect, ceases to be money (in the Marxian sense), and so if it is not money, how can it take the form of money and exchange for commodities? Thus as Kautsky concludes, wherever a token is traded for a commodity, the token itself must be a symbol of a money commodity, lest there is no realisation of value. Whether or not this is the case is still debated, but most often from the right, not the left. Libertarians like Peter Schiff state that only gold can be money, and that it is still serving as the measure of value for commodities. Schiff here is indeed a "disguised" Marxist, like so many others, but with the Keynesian revolution, money was treated as an inherently monopolised asset, and with value simply being based in aggregate demand, yet the cause of aggregate demand must surely be based in production, which then regulates the supply of money - along with class warfare in general, as Keynes notes. So then, the question is, if we have abolished money (e.g. universal equivalence in commodity exchange), then why do we still have money? As it is suspected by some, fiat currency is secretly regulated by a commodity - in common terms, it is based in debt - while others will say that Marx was simply incorrect about money, and as a consequence, his theory of value formation falls apart.

The juxtaposition of the Classical from the Marxist, to the "Neoclassical" is an historical retroprojection, which was not consciously considered in its own period of theoretical development. There was the consideration of a general continuity of similar concepts, but hardly ever was there a proposed break from what was established. We see this most evidently in Jevons - one of the fathers of marginal utility theory, who in all his writing, accepts the Labour Theory of Value of Smith, Ricardo and Mill, just in an modified form, as we may read (1871):
<Cost of production determines supply. Supply determines final degree of utility. Final degree of utility determines value.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-theory-of-political-economy#lf0237_head_054
We see then, a general consensus, which is decoded by proper analysis, since of course, there is only one reality of economic phenomena, just different interpretations. No one can deny apparent effects, only causes, and so the great debate is philosophical rather than statistical.

In terms of bare theory, then, there can be reconciliation, even if something must always be lost by translation. As it is often attributed to Keynes, "It's better to be generally right than precisely wrong." So then, we may proceed in this discussion of the Marxist view of the marginal utility theory. We will begin with Engels himself (1894):
<this explanation for the profits of capital, as advanced by "vulgar economy," amounts in practice to the same thing as the Marxian theory of surplus-value […] it is just as easy to build up an at least equally plausible vulgar socialism on the basis of this theory, as that built in England on the foundation of Jevons’s and Menger’s theory of use-value and marginal utility […] In reality, however, this theory is merely a paraphrase of the Marxian. What defrays all the price additions? It is the workers’ "total product" […] Hence the resultant extra profit accruing to the capitalist, or capitalist class, arises, and can only arise, in the last analysis, from the fact that the worker, after reproducing the equivalent for the price of his labour-power, must produce an additional product for which he is not paid — i.e., a surplus-product, a product of unpaid labour, or surplus-value […] we are not dealing with one of those ordinary vulgar economists […] but with a Marxist disguised as a vulgar economist.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/pref.htm
Thus, the "vulgar socialism" of Bernard Shaw is based in marginal utility theory, as a "paraphrase" of the Marxian. Engels finds no controversy in its proposition, but only that it repeats what has already been said, which has always been my own position since I first read Jevons; that he is explicitly appropriating Ricardo, and proving that the disutility of labour is the real measure of value, the same as what Gossen wrote in the theory's genesis. Thus, to Engels, marginalism is a "disguised" Marxism, which will be a surprising conclusion to many, but he is not alone, since Paul Cockshott also recognises that Jevons as a marginalist nonetheless possessed an LTV in effect (the same as Gossen). Engels also includes the founder of the Austrian School, Carl Menger, and thus, Engels saw that Austrian analysis has its socialist possibility (the same way I have proven the exploitation of labour by the time-preference theory of interest; a precise reversal of Hoppe - thus I follow Engels in saying that all theories are 'correct'; some are just more correct than others, like how Catholicity is the 'fullness' of faith). We can then disregard the philistine prejudices of both Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff who proclaim the marginalist 'counter-revolution' to be a conspiracy of capitalists to subvert the LTV, especially after Marxism. The first Marxist rebuke of marginalism is seemingly Bukharin's "Theory of the Leisure Class" (1914). Here, the "leisure class" refers to an ascending rentierism in capitalist society, diagnosed by Veblen in 1899:
<This stratum of the bourgeoisie is distinctly parasitical; it develops the same psychological traits as may be found in the decayed nobility at the end of the ancien regime and the heads of the financial aristocracy of the same epoch.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
I shall give a summary of Bukharin's perspective, then.

Bukharin begins by identifying his opponent:
<Our selection of an opponent for our criticism probably does not require discussion, for it is well known that the most powerful opponent of Marxism is the Austrian School.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/preface1.htm
This of course continues today, mostly politically, and it's interesting, since Marxists and Austrians are both the biggest cultists in social science; pure dogmatists, so they deserve each other, really. I should add that the prophetic ecstasy is also present in this work as well:
<The historical mission of the bourgeoisie has already been fulfilled all over the world.It is now approaching its end.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
These were also the sentiments of Engels back in 1886. Bukharin diagnoses marginalism as a rentier ideology:
<Turning to the Austrian School and to its most prominent representative, Böhm-Bawerk, we shall find that the psychological traits of the rentiers, as described above, here present their logical equivalents. In the first place, we here find for the first time a consistent carrying out of the point of view of consumption […] crass individualism is likewise neatly paralleled in the ”subjectivist-psychological” method of the new tendency […] Finally, the fear of revolution is expressed in the representatives of the theory of marginal utility in their most pronounced aversion towards every-thing historical […] We consider the Austrian theory as the ideology of the bourgeois who has already been eliminated from the process of production […] It is therefore precisely the rentier type which represents the border type of the bourgeoisie, and the theory of marginal utility is the ideology of this border type.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
Thus, the 3 'logics' of marginalism are: (i) consumption, (ii) individualism, and (iii) ahistoricity. Bukharin presents the Marxist alternative to these:
<The methodological difference between Karl Marx and Böhm-Bawerk may be summarized concisely as follows: objectivism subjectivism, a historical standpoint an unhistorical stand-point, the point of view of production the point of view of consumption.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/introduction.htm
A basic reversal of the marginalist logic. So we proceed.

Bukharin derives 'objective' and 'subjective' methods of analysis through a review of Sombart, who thus defines two approaches to economic phenomena; individuals creating society, or society creating individuals:
<Marx is never concerned with motivating, but always with defining (limiting) the individual caprice of the economic person.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/ch01.htm
We read this explicitly in Marx's [preface] to Capital Vol. 1, that individual actors are irrelevant to general laws - the same way that although quantity turns to quality, the margins of transformation (say, from a liquid to a solid state of matter) only determine the process where it becomes general. Until the single straw breaks the camel's back, the process is not in actual transition. The same thing applies to commodity values - one person's market valuation is regulated by the limits of society. Böhm-Bawerk himself admits to these 'laws' (1896):
<[the total price paid for the entire national produce coincides exactly with the total amount of value or labour incorporated in it] […] I have nothing to omit and nothing to add to this judgment […] Every economist knows such laws.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Heliocentrism and geocentrism use the same data.

The main issue Bukharin has here is precisely a lack of causation underpinning the surfaces of economic relations given from the Austrian theory; supply and demand emerge ex nihilo. Now, here I will defend Carl Menger, who begins from an historical basis of primitive "communism" (as he expressly describes it), which is disrupted through the scarcity of resources, which then leads to the faculty of "economisation" (the "principle" of his framework). The economic faculty assorts goods between short and long term production/consumption. Ecomomisation then scales goods by the time it takes to produce, with longer durations extracting a greater value (at the same time that he affirms "time" as a measure of value, he does not signify this as labour time explicitly, but only implicitly; e.g. 'toil and trouble'). Also, Menger does actually give an account as to the origin of exchange, which is identical to Smith (although he still slanders Smith in the same breath), Gossen and Marx; that trade begins at the margin of surplus production, and as he writes, it is only with commodity exchange that use-value and exchange-value appear as features of social intercourse. This to me is not simply historic, but it defies charges put against the Austrian school:
<We have investigated the three initial fallacies of the Austrian School: its subjectivism, its unhistorical point of view, its beginning with consumption.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/ch01.htm#s4
I would also say that in Menger's notion of economic faculty, he proves what Jevons also does to a lesser extent, that high value commodities (luxuries) are a result of rational systems of production, but irrational systems of consumption, and so in turn, an irrational system of production itself, by means of distribution. This is precisely the "vulgar socialism" Engels wrote of, immanent to the critical logic of political economy.

After Bukharin, there is Paul Mattick in 1939:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1939/marginal.htm
His criticism is mostly political, by seeing the state capitalism of the USSR as its impedement to science in the domain of political economy, which for this sake has apparently led to an embrace of marginalism over Marx. Mattick on marginal utility asserts that its sole reason for existence is to justify income differentials, but we see early on with Gossen, a total criticism of landlords and the request to nationalise land for redistribution. This evidently conflicts with Bukharin's hypothesis that this theory is a rentier ideology. In terms of industrial revenue, we see in Clark (1899) an application of Von Thünen's law of final utility (1832) to derive a "natural" wage. Clark is himself a capitalist apologist, but only tentatively, for he writes in his introduction that if it can be found that labour is exploited, then one has recourse to socialist politics. Indeed, he writes that Von Thünen's theory gives appearance to labour exploitation (in how labour is diminished at the margin), and in applying Von Thünen's law, he also misinterprets it. Von Thünen's "frontier wage" is described by Marx (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 33) in terms of the frustration of capitalists, who seek to lower wages by concentrating land ownership in the US. Clark misinterprets Von Thünen's "natural" wage simply as the minimum wage, and not the frontier wage itself. So, Mattick is right, but in his hyperbole, also wrong.

Next, we may read from Ernest Mandel’s book, "Marxist Economic Theory", on the topic of marginalism (1962):
<the labour theory of value had to be demolished. This was the great turning-point of bourgeois political economy, towards the marginal theory of value
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/works/marxist-economic-theory/marginalists.htm
Thus, we discover once more this idle repetition which has been canonical of Marxist myopia since Bukharin, at the very least. It is a thought-terminating cliché, as they say, to avoid the work of primary engagement. This sort of academic laziness and dishonestly is too common, and too effective, in teaching people how to disable their own reason. Mendel continues:
<From Petty to Ricardo and Marx, every theory of value was objective. that is. its ultimate starting-point was production; value was identified with cost of production, or revolved around it […] demand upon value. as an independent variable, was denied […] The neo-classical school […] regarded this value no longer as a function of cost of production but as a function of the independent influence of demand upon cost of production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/works/marxist-economic-theory/marginalists.htm
What is troublesome here of course is that it disregards the constitution of value by demand in both classical and Marxian political economy, and also neglects the consideration of how costs of production influence demand in the marginalist theory. It disservices both, because Mendel presumes the duality of an absolutely "objective" and "subjective" framework. He concludes:
<The labour theory of value can be demonstrated empirically. even if only in the sense that, in the last analysis. all the elements of the cost of production of a commodity tend to. be reduced to labour, and to labour alone, if one goes far enough back in the analysis. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/works/marxist-economic-theory/marginalists.htm
Of course, this is not denied by any marginalist, in that labour is the primary element of cost which is able to be stored up as capital; the cost-function is simply given as an independent product, reflected in revenue (e.g. the "prices of production", proper). This is why capital "adds" value, as an element of cost in the final accounting.

This will conclude my brief review of these writers. I would then see that Engels is least deluded about the theoretical project of the marginalists, whom possess as their political potential, a "vulgar socialism", which as Engels writes, portrays a "diguised" 'Marxism', in effect.

Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694) was a jurist and a contributor to the European enlightenment. What he brings of relevance to political economy is a short discourse upon the nature of economic value, in his "Duty of Man and Citizen" (1673), Bk. 1, Ch. 14, wherein he conceives of the paradox of value, use and exchange:
<After ownership [was] introduced […] it soon became customary among men to exchange commodities […] it was necessary for human convention to assign things a quantity, according to which they could be compared and balanced with one another […] This quantity usually goes by the name of value […] Value is divided into common value and value par excellence. The former is seen in things, and actions or services, which enter into trade, in so far as they bring men some use and pleasure. The latter is seen in money, in so far as it is understood virtually to contain the price of all things and services, and to furnish them a common standard […] we usually call things that serve no use at all things of no value. Yet there are some things most useful for human life, upon which things no definite value is understood to have been set, either because they do not admit of ownership
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Here, "value" is understood, not as a natural relationship, but something internal to commodities, or at least to objects of personal possession. Utility evidently exists in things which are nonetheless valueless in character. Upon this same point, Samuel invokes the ecclesiastical law of "simony", or of putting a price on sacred things so as to buy or sell them, which is forbidden. In the same paragraph he also says that man cannot have a price:
<a free person has no value, because free men are not articles of commerce.
Perhaps a rhetorical counterpart to this would then to assign man with sacredness and his commercial sale a type of simony. Pufendorf writes of exchange-value:
<there are various reasons why the value of one and the same thing is increased or diminished […] men hold in lowest esteem the things with which human life cannot dispense […] this because […] a bountiful supply of them. Hence an increase of value tends to be produced especially by scarcity […] As for services and acts, difficulty enhances their price, as do also skill, utility, necessity, the scarcity or rank or freedom […] The opposites of these things usually lower the price.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Thus, Pufendorf reconises that value "par excellence", given in price, is relative to supply, but he also adds that the "difficulty" of work enhances price, the same as skill. Labour is thus introduced as an element of price, but he does not quite relate supply to costs of production, but rather appeals to transcendent categories, like God:
<nature, not without the singular providence of God, pours forth a bountiful supply
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Is it really "nature", or is it man and his labour? Finally on the price of commodities, Pufendorf sees that with free trade, and without legal regulation, the market decides:
<The common price, to be sure, not being fixed by law, admits a certain latitude, within which more or less can be, and usually is, given and received, according as the contracting parties have agreed. Generally, however, it follows the custom of the market. In this account is usually taken of the labor and expense ordinarily incurred by merchants in transporting and handling their wares; also of the manner of buying and selling, whether wholesale or retail.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Here, notice that labour is seen as a cause of price, but only for the merchant, and in a contradictory manner. If the merchant only suffers the task of commerce, why does he do it? Pufendorf concludes, mysteriously:
<in civilized states, where the citizens are marked off into different classes, there must necessarily be several classes that would be entirely unable to make a living, or scarcely able to do so, if the old-time simple exchange of commodities [e.g. barter by use-value as a measure] and services were still in vogue. Hence most nations, attracted by a richer mode of life, have seen fit by convention to impose a value par excellence upon a certain thing, in order that the common values of the other things might be tested by this, and virtually contained in the same; so that by this medium one could acquire anything that is for sale, and engage conveniently in any sort of dealings and contracts.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/pufendorf/ch14.htm
Here, the claim is that exchange-value (by the "medium" of money) was "imposed" by means of class interest to "make a living" through expanding free contract. As I have shown, capitalist relations of labour in England are developed from the Feudal composite wage, which in transition to the cash wage, equalised with the wage of everyone else. This struggle was first beneficial to the plight of labour, but then became harmful. Senior in 1830 is complaining that the agricultural wage is better than the industrial, since it is paid in-kind, and so like Pufendorf tells us, as utility loses its standard measure of "value", useless things attain a higher social status (the same way Augustine distinguishes between nature and society in the designation of prices upon creation). Thus, Pufendorf is critical, yet insufficiently inquisitive.

Joseph Schumpeter's text "On the Concept of Social Value" (1908) is an investigation into the difference of an individual and "social" theory of value, or in precisely Marxian terms, subjective and objective methodologies. To the individualists, Schumpeter assigns Jevons and Walras, and to social theorists he assigns Wieser and Clark. I would only add that in Jevons' "Theory" (1871), he necessarily presumes social equilibrium to give an analysis of "statics". It's this very consideration which draws the criticism of Veblen (1899), and so Jevons in discussing value is presuming a general social concept. As Schumpeter writes, however, it is with Clark that the distribution of social production is allocated in terms of marginal efficiency, and this is absent from Jevons.

Individual and social value both resemble each other:
<It is true that in some connections, and, in particular, in applying pure theory to practical problems, it is desirable to combine all the individual demand and supply curves into general demand and supply curves. In similar connections we speak of general utility curves. But these are by no means the same as the utility curves of a communistic society. They resemble them and have about the same shape; but they refer to individual wants and to a given distribution of wealth.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
Thus, general equilibrium is duly considered, but it only aggregates from individual choices, and not from the subject of "society" as a whole, which is his contention. As he infers here, however, "they resemble them and have about the same shape", and so is there distinction without a difference? Indeed, Schumpeter sees that man is determined by various social forces, and sees that in the case of commodity exchange, this is a social act, and for which, views "social value" as having relevance:
<It may, in explicit terms, be held that what appears prima fade as the result of individual actions turns out, in the end, to be the very thing that would be brought about by the conscious action of society itself […] The concept of social value would, in this case, acquire in economics an importance similar to that of the fiction of a "central sun" in astronomy.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
Schumpeter thus views the result of individuals and of society as synonymous, and extends this to the idea of social distribution having equivalence under a system of free competition, and a non-competive communism:
<economic forces are not only of the same nature, at all times and everywhere, but also that they lead, under a régime of free competition, to the same results as in a communistic society. Competition and private ownership of productive agents are held to bring about a distributive process quite similar to one regulated by a benevolent and intelligent ruler.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
This is identical to what Gossen writes, that a totally just system of distribution based on free exchange would result in what socialists and communists envision, since value would be proportionally applied to the disutility of labour. The proper difference between Gossen and Schumpeter, however, is that Gossen advocated for the nationalisation of land, and the redistribution of rent, as the precondition of fair distribution, since as he puts it, rent by private land ownership is one-sided gain. The basic error in Schumpeter's argument then, is that rent and profit are fair distributions. For the same purposes, Adam Smith proposed a tax on ground rent as the best and fairest tax. This is rather basic in political economy, to criticise the institution of private rents. To continue, if Schumpeter argues that individual and social values are seemingly synonymous, what denies us being political and economic communists? Schumpeter explains:
<If it be really society that fixes values, then the exchange values of things could be called social values-in-use. This theory we may proceed to discuss now. Rodbertus held this view, and it amounts to saying that exchange-values, as represented by prices in a market, are identical with the values which the same commodities should have in a communistic society […] the theory of distribution cannot be based on value sans phrase, but can only be indirectly so based with the help of the theory of prices […] prices determine the marginal utilities of productive agents, because they decide how much of them will be offered for the production of a certain commodity […] It appears, therefore, that the theory of prices is not to be dispensed with in a full explanation of social distribution; and this theory of prices is based on individual values.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/schumpeter/value.htm
So then, in essence, Schumpeter is assigning the ECP (Economic Calculation Problem) to communist modes of distribution, and sees rather, that a free market gives the same results as communism. This assertion is very interesting, since Marx also writes of putting bourgeois theory into practice (e.g. Gothakritik) by a distribution of the social product according to individual contribution - at least in the 'lower phase'. This differs from capitalism, Marx says, since in capitalism, revenues generalise by competition, while in communism, revenues are given individually. Here, Marx applies a staggering reversal; that it is in fact capitalism which conceives of "social" value, while communism applies individual value! Marx also assigns Owen's "labour money" as the form of the social product in renumeration. This doesn't simply modify "price" (as a signal of demand), but perfects it (e.g. labour money is incapable of monetary crisis). This is continuous of Rodbertus' own judgement (from whom Schumpeter proceeds in the view of "social" use-value); that a more rational mode of exchange would directly represent the labour of its constituents - a system that Josiah Warren termed "true civilisation". We see then that Schumpeter properly analyses the distribution of a social product according to productive agents, but fails to see how contained in the socialist critique is already the realisation of a more perfect economic calculation. Schumpeter's view of "competition" in land and capital then being decisive in establishing a rational system of pricing is incorrect - already attested to by H.H. Gossen.

Eugen Böhm-Bawerk is, after Menger and Wieser, the main theorist of the Austrian School of Economics. His critical text "Karl Marx and the Close of His System" (1896) was written and published 2 years after the posthomous publication of Capital Vol. 3 (1894), and attempts to analyse the different theories of value given between the first and third volume of Marx's trilogy.

He begins in his introduction to the work:
<Marx had taught in his first volume that the whole value of commodities was based on the labour embodied in them, and that by virtue of this "law of value" they must exchange in proportion to the quantity of labour which they contain […] In daily life, however, the profit of capital is in proportion to the total capital invested; and, largely on this account, the commodities do not as a fact exchange in proportion to the amount of work incorporated in them. Here, therefore, there was a contradiction between System and fact which hardly seemed to admit of a satisfactory explanation. Nor did the obvious contradiction escape Marx himself […] Has Marx himself solved his own problem?
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/intro.htm
We then move into the first chapter:
<The pillars of the system of Marx are his conception of value and his law of value. Without them, as Marx repeatedly asserts, all scientific knowledge of economic facts would be impossible.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch01.htm
It should be mentioned that the term "law of value", while being applicable to Marx's own understanding, is largely a term invented by Engels, the same as "simple commodity production", acting as an editorial insertion. Böhm-Baerk proceeds to elaborate on Marx's theory:
<[value] is in dialectical form not identical with exchange value, but it stands, as I would now make plain, in the most intimate and inseparable relation to it. It is a kind of logical distillation from it […] It states, and must state, after what has gone before, that commodities are exchanged in proportion to the socially necessary working time incorporated in them […] he even calls the deviation "a breach of the law of the exchange of commodities" […] whence comes "the surplus value" as Marx calls it? […] The solution Marx finds in this, that there is one commodity whose value in use possesses the peculiar property of being a source of exchange value. This commodity is the capacity of labour, the working powers […] Surplus value […] is due to the fact that the capitalist makes the labourer work for him a part of the day without paying him for it. In the labourer's working-day two portions may be distinguished. In the first part–the "necessary working time" […] the second part-the "surplus working time" […] Really new surplus value can only be created by the living work which the capitalist gets the worker to perform. The value of the means of production which are used is maintained, and it reappears in a different form in the value of the product, but adds no surplus value […] the proportion in which the surplus value stands to the advanced variable part of capital […] Marx calls the rate of surplus value […] Totally different from this is the rate of profit. The capitalist calculates the surplus value, which he appropriates, not only upon the variable capital but upon the total amount of capital employed […] the same rate of surplus value can and must present itself in very different rates of profit according to the composition of the capital concerned
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch01.htm
This is all completely correct. Chapter 2 concerns the average rate of profit and the costs of production:
<The "organic composition" of the capital is for technical reasons necessarily different in the different "spheres of production." […] therefore, given an equal rate of surplus value, every branch of production must show a different, a special rate of profit, on the condition certainly, which Marx has hitherto always assumed, that commodities exchange with each other "according to their values," or in proportion to the work embodied in them.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch02.htm
Accordingly, Böhm-Bawerk highlights the contradiction between the theory of unique costs of production with a general rate of profit, since here, commodities evidently fail to exchange at their particular values. Continuing:
<How does Marx himself try to solve this contradiction?To speak plainly his solution is obtained at the cost of the assumption from which Marx has hitherto started, viz., that commodities exchange according to their values. This assumption Marx now simply drops.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch02.htm
After this, Böhm-Bawerk perfectly explains the alteration of value to prices of production, based in competition, which then equalises an average rate of profit, thereby qualifying cost-price against surplus. He also writes that Marx presupposes the equality of value in commodity exchange as a pre-capitalist condition - something that Marx unfortunately fails to ever offer detail for, and so Engels must fill in the gaps with "simple commodity exchange". So then, Böhm-Bawerk infers that in Capital Vol. 1, the "law of value" is a pre-capitalist condition, the same as Engels' crucial "supplement" the work (1894):
<In a word: the Marxian law of value holds generally, as far as economic laws are valid at all, for the whole period of simple commodity production — that is, up to the time when the latter suffers a modification through the appearance of the capitalist form of production. Up to that time, prices gravitate towards the values fixed according to the Marxian law and oscillate around those values, so that the more fully simple commodity production develops, the more the average prices over long periods uninterrupted by external violent disturbances coincide with values within a negligible margin. Thus, the Marxian law of value has general economic validity for a period lasting from the beginning of exchange, which transforms products into commodities, down to the 15th century of the present era. But the exchange of commodities dates from a time before all written history — which in Egypt goes back to at least 2500 B.C., and perhaps 5000 B.C., and in Babylon to 4000 B.C., perhaps to 6000 B.C.; thus, the law of value has prevailed during a period of from five to seven thousand years.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm
This is utterly unknown in Marx's original formulation, and so stinks of revision, but facts can be extracted as to Marx's own feelings on the topic, such as here (1864):
<The production and circulation of commodities, however, do not conversely presuppose the capitalist mode of production for their existence; on the contrary, as I have already demonstrated, they also “exist in pre-bourgeois social formations”. They are the historical presupposition of the capitalist mode of production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm
This is understood from the writings of Smith (1776):
<In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another. If among a nation of hunters, for example, it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does to kill a deer, one beaver should naturally exchange for or be worth two deer. It is natural that what is usually the produce of two days' or two hours' labour, should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one day's or one hour's labour […] As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials […] As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce […] Labour measures the value not only of that part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into profit. In every society the price of every commodity finally resolves itself into some one or other, or all of those three parts; and in every improved society, all the three enter more or less, as component parts, into the price of the far greater part of commodities.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch06.htm
Here, we begin with equivalent exchange in value, but as the social product is divided, it becomes distributed into the component prices of production. Marx is repeating Smith. Smith also comments on the rate of profit being affected by capital competition, and the rate of profit being based in the amount invested. Marx's view is very similar to Smith's basic conception, so this is its origin.

Böhm-Bawerk in the next chapter is seeking to unfurl the apparent "contradiction" between the value of simple commodities [LP = d/i] and capitalist commodities [C = k + s] on this basis, then. He quotes himself (1884):
<Either products do actually exchange in the long run in proportion to the labour attaching to them–in which case an equalisation of the gains of capital is impossible; or there is an equalisation of the gains of capital–in which case it is impossible that products should continue to exchange in proportion to the labour attaching to them.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
This is true, of course. The square cannot be circled. He attributes the first Marxian admission of this to Schmidt (1889), who again, we must remember, is writing before the publishing of Capital Vol. 3 (1894). He writes this:
<I cannot help myself; I see here no explanation and reconciliation of a contradiction, but the bare contradiction itself. Marx's third volume contradicts the first. The theory of the average rate of profit and of the prices of production cannot be reconciled with the theory of value. This is the impression which must, I believe, be received by every logical thinker.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Of course, his logic is entirely valid, and Böhm-Bawerk quotes Sombart in conclusion of Marx's simplicity:
<For, when suddenly out of the depths emerges a 'quite ordinary' theory of cost of production, it means that the celebrated doctrine of value has come to grief. For, if I have in the end to explain the profits by the cost of production, wherefore the whole cumbrous apparatus of the theories of value and surplus value?
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
The point here is that prices of production appear as the cause of exchange-value, rather than the opposite, and so the "transformation problem" is accounted for. Four consecutive arguments are then proposed as counters:
<First argument […] the total of the prices of production  of the commodities produced still remains equal to the sum of their values […] Second argument: The law of value governs the movement of prices, since the diminution or increase of the requisite working time makes the prices of production rise or fall […] Third argument: The law of value, Marx affirms, governs with undiminished authority the exchange of commodities in certain "primary" stages, in which the change of values into prices of production has not yet been accomplished […] the total value of the commodities, determined by the law of value, determines the total surplus value.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Böhm-Bawerk then provides a detailed response to each.

For the first argument (that total value = total price, by means of market value, or socially average price), Böhm-Bawerk cites Schmidt, who made the same argument, and he simply affirms that this is a simple contradiction. If commodities are presumed to have labour-embodied values which make up the substance of their value, and for which, their exchange-value is determined, then the assertion that "value" is a function of average sale price means that commodities (in general) share a common value, but no commodity in itself has an absolute value. The theory of value then deconstructs itself by means of its justification - I find this to be a rather fair judgement.

For the third argument (e.g. simple/capitalist values), Böhm-Bawerk states clearly that "This argument has not been developed with precision and clearness by Marx, but the substance of it has been woven into those processes of reasoning" which is entirely true. Böhm-Bawerk then sees that Marx's inference of the law of value operating in pre-capitalist society is conjectural. No evidence attests to this reality - but we must see that the theory of value never offers empirical proofs; it is a logic based upon a primary proposition of equivalent exchange - if there is equivalent exchange, there is an equivalent quantity of a "third thing" shared between two commodities, which is labour. It is a logic, not a history. Upon this point, Böhm-Bawerk states that independent rates of profit (e.g. before equalisation by competition) should correspond to investment in capital. He writes that no evidence of this exists, and Sombart agrees. In reading accounts of profit in pre-capitalist periods, it was exclusively regarded as a mercantile phenomenon (e.g. Chrematistics), and never an industrial revenue. Land was considered to have a "natural" yield in rents, however, and this is an extremely common trope in all manner of historical accounts. Medieval writers, such as Aquinas and Khaldun both comment upon the rate of profit for merchants being based upon supply, and thus, the marginal price of goods. Here, profit is understood exclusively as a market phenomenon, with the mantra of commerce being about buying low and selling high. The realisation of equivalence then is limited to equilibrium. Profit to Aristotle is immoral, but equality brings mutual gain. Smith in discussing profit limits his empirical study to the capitalist era, beginning in the year 1546, by a history of the rate of interest. As Marx and Hudson write, there was no pre-capitalist regulation for interest, identical to the conclusions of Massie (1750), who limits the attribution of interest rates to rates of profit. Böhm-Bawerk's inference of Marx's pre-capitalist profit relations is then rightfully discerned as problematic.

The Fourth Argument begins by a summary:
<We have now seen, wrecked in succession, three contentions which affirmed the existence of certain reserved areas under the immediate control of the law of value. The application of the law of value to the sum total of all commodities and prices of commodities instead of to their several exchange relations (first argument) has been proved to be pure nonsense. The movement of prices (second argument) does not really obey the alleged law of value, and just as little does it exercise a real influence in "primitive conditions" (third argument). There is only one possibility left. Does the law of value, which has no real immediate power anywhere, have perhaps an indirect control, a sort of suzerainty? Marx does not omit to assert this also. It is the subject of the fourth argument, to which we now proceed.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Böhm-Bawerk ends the chapter with this long criticism:
<This is what Marx does. He declares most emphatically that nothing can be at the root of exchange relations but quantity of labour alone; he argues strenuously with the economists who acknowledge other determinants of value and price besides the quantity of labour–the influence of which on the exchange value of goods freely reproduced no one denies. From the exclusive position of quantity of labour as the sole determinant of exchange relations he deduces in two volumes the most weighty and practical conclusions–his theory of surplus value and his denunciation of the capitalistic organisation of society–in order, in the third volume, to develop a theory of prices of production which substantially recognises the influence of other determinants as well. But instead of thoroughly analysing these other determinants, he always lays his finger triumphantly on the points where his idol, quantity of labour, either actually, or in his opinion, exerts an influence; on such points as the change in prices when the amount of labour changes, the influence of "aggregate value" on average rate of profit, &c. He is silent about the co-ordinate influence of foreign determinants as well as about the influence of the amount of social capital on the rate of profit, and about the alteration of prices through a change in the organic composition of the capital, or in the rate of wages […] This is to evade the admission of the contradiction; it is not to escape from the contradiction itself.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch03.htm
Böhm-Bawerk is unclear in this - he seems to assume that "labour" here is not comprising the value of both prices of production, wages and profits. Marx is only borrowing from Smith, but we do eventually see the ruthless criticism of Smith by Rothbard, who puts the victims of communism upon his conscience. From the analysis so far, Böhm-Bawerk is right that Marx offers implicit contradictions in his work, but he also seems to misunderstand some of Marx's perspective, as well. This misunderstanding is clearer in the next chapter:
<Smith, in the same way as Marx in his third volume, taught that in a developed economic system values and prices gravitate towards a level of costs which besides labour comprises an average profit of capital. And Ricardo, too, in the celebrated fourth section of the chapter "On Value," clearly and definitely stated that by the side of labour, mediate or immediate, the amount of capital invested and the duration of the investment exercise a determining influence on the value of the goods. 
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch04.htm
Here, Böhm-Bawerk is taking the category of "labour" opaquely, as that which is assorted into wages, and not seeing that "capital" is a sum of labour to these thinkers.

In Chapter 4, Böhm-Bawerk advances his polemics not simply against the doctrine of surplus value, but also the very idea of labour value itself. He develops it thusly:
<Value and effort, as I have stated at length in another place, are not ideas so intimately connected that one is forced immediately to adopt the view that effort is the basis of value […] When therefore it is affirmed that a necessary and natural correspondence between value and effort exists in any quarter, it behoves us to give ourselves and our readers some grounds in support of such a statement […] If Marx had not confined his research, at the decisive point, to products of labour, but had sought for the common factor in the exchangeable gifts of nature as well, it would have become obvious that work cannot be the common factor […] Marx might have seen that we do not absolutely disregard value in use, from the fact that there can be no exchange value where there is no value in use–a fact which Marx is himself repeatedly forced to admit […] If Marx had chanced to reverse the order of the examination, the same reasoning which led to the exclusion of the value in use would have excluded labour; and then the reasoning which resulted in the crowning of labour might have led him to declare the value in use to be the only property left, and therefore to be the sought-for common property, and value to be "the cellular tissue of value in use." […] In order to maintain without obvious contradiction their cherished philosophical principle that labour is the "true" source of value, they were obliged to beat a retreat to mythical times and places in which capitalists and landed proprietors did not exist.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch04.htm
Now, this is reminiscent of Philip Wicksteed's critique of Marx's theory of value, positing "abstract utility" (1884):
<Simple and obvious as this seems, it in reality surrenders the whole of the previous analysis, for if it is only useful labour that counts, then in stripping the wares of all the specific properties conferred upon them by specific kinds of useful work, we must not be supposed to have stripped them of the abstract utility, conferred upon them by abstractly useful work […] Now the "common something," which all exchangeable things contain, is neither more nor less than abstract utility, i.e., power of satisfying human desires.
https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/today/1884/10/wicksteed-capital.htm
This is of course correct, but Böhm-Bawerk declines the graduation to a conception of Wicksteed's precision. It shouldn't be hard, since it is written so early in Kapital:
<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
Böhm-Bawerk's bloviation does him no favours. For the rest, he criticises the 'reduction problem' of simple and complex labour - indeed, Engels himself struggled on this question, and Marx sidelines it as an impracticable consideration, since industry de-skills labour anyway. Jevons and Gossen apply increased disutility of labour to the long-term investment of professional careers, which is similar to some neo-Marxian ideas of added value for education - but in all these cases, these are "imaginary" commodities, so cannot directly relate a transfer of value by Marxian standards. This is then an unanswered problem, but in political economy in general (e.g. Smith's "unproductive labour"). Perhaps the vulgar economists have the best answer; supply and demand.

Bohm-Bawerk finally concludes rather optimistically:
<What will be the final judgment of the world? Of that I have no manner of doubt. The Marxian system has a past and a present, but no abiding future. Of all sorts of scientific systems those which, like the Marxian a hollow dialectic, are based on a hollow dialectic, most surely doomed. A clever dialectic may make a temporary impression on the human mind, but cannot make a lasting one. […] But even when this will have happened Socialism will certainly not be overthrown with the Marxian system,–neither practical nor theoretic Socialism. As there was a Socialism before Marx, so there will be one after him. […] Marx, however, will maintain a permanent place in the history of the social sciences for the same reasons and with the same mixture of positive and negative merits as his prototype Hegel. Both of them were philosophical geniuses. Both of them, each in his own domain, had an enormous influence upon the thought and feeling of whole generations, one might almost say even upon the spirit of the age. The specific theoretical work of each was a most ingeniously conceived structure, built up by a magical power of combination, of numerous storeys of thought, held together by a marvellous mental grasp, but–a house of cards.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/bohm/ch05.htm
So then, no emnity is between these men, but only the tide of history, which Böhm-Bawerk sees progressively upon a future socialism which has abandoned Marx. Indeed, Keynes writes the same as regards this politics:
<The purpose of [Gesell's] book as a whole may be described as the establishment of an anti-Marxian socialism, a reaction against laissez-faire built on theoretical foundations totally unlike those of Marx in being based on a repudiation instead of on an acceptance of the classical hypotheses, and on an unfettering of competition instead of its abolition. I believe that the future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx. The preface to The Natural Economic Order will indicate to the reader, if he will refer to it, the moral quality of Gesell. The answer to Marxism is, I think, to be found along the lines of this preface.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch23.htm
So then, socialism has a future, but it won't be Marxist.

>>2858688
>around 9:00
>the bank doesn't hold onto the capitalist's paid-off loan it deletes the money
what? more on this?

>>2847559
the anon never gave me that source

>>2861692
The typical view of money is that it is circulated from a bank hoard, and is limited in its distribution by directly transferring coins, notes, etc. But what this disjunctive circuitry proposes is that money is created ex nihilo, from an account of assets and liabilities, between the creditor and the debtor, and upon the completion of a loan contract, this money is destroyed. So, the process is rather identical (e.g. money is transferred from banks to the public, and the money is returned to the bank), except that the mechanism is different (e.g. rather than "tax and spend", its "spend and tax"). So, no bother.

Theoretically, however, this can pose certain problems, as we read in Kautsky: >>2859865
Money loses its status as "commodity", and so its function as a "measure of value" is uncertain. As Hilferding writes, the contrary is true; money is not what measures value, but it is value which measures money. This all plainly contradicts Marx, yet Marx can still be useful in squaring the circle between "value" and debt. We read that labour acts as credit and value is a debt:
<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
Thus, debt may serve as a measure of value, yet money in itself has no representative debt-commodity. Some thinkers say otherwise; that bonds can act as the money commodity, but a bond takes no labour to produce, and that is the issue. As Hilferding writes, money was once based in its production cost, but in monopoly, it has no cost, and thus, no value. The real question then arises; if money is no longer money, how can it take the form of money? MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) attempts to answer this, by seeing that money never had value, but was always a monopoly asset which recorded social debt. Nonetheless, Hilferding still agrees with Marx:
<the quantity of money functioning as the circulating medium is equal to the sum of the prices of the commodities
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm
Labour still regulates money supply, just in reverse. The practical conclusions one can make about the supply of money today is that money can be supplied to reduce the distance between absolute and effective supply of commodities. Malthus as early as 1800, and Senior in 1830 both suggested redistributing money to resolve the crises of overproduction (e.g. underconsumption) in their time. OP's two files represent capitalist waste.

Charles Kindleberger's "A Financial History of Western Europe" (1984) is a basic chronology of money and banking in Europe, and serves as a textbook for the topic. For this review, I will be going through chapters 1-8, which traces a development of banking from 1200 - 1900 CE, from independent creditors to central banks.

Chapter 1 is an introduction which can be passed over, but it does present a comprehensive timeline [pp. 9-14], so we will begin with Chapter 2, which concerns the development of money. The first section concerns the "function of money" [pp. 19-20], which as he writes, has a spatio-temporal dimension, for short-term and long-term uses, and also between distant transactions. He ascribes three basic functions to money: (i) medium of exchange, (ii) unit of account, (iii) store of value. Media of exchange overcomes the "double coincidence of wants", unit of account allows for relative valuation, and store of value is a function for long-term investment. In terms of the origin of money [pg. 21], Charles cites the work of Bruno Hildebrand (1864) to show that the view of an original barter is incorrect, and that credit relations existed all throughout the ancient and medieval periods. He doesn't go in depth, but still offers this consideration - along with stating that a medium of exchange is not required to have a money of account, using France from the 10-18th century to display an independence of circulation and accounting [pg. 22]. Here then, accounts can be abstractly recorded between creditor and debtor.

In Chapter 3, the origin of banking is connected to the bills of exchange circulated by international merchants [pg. 35]; an apparent 13th century innovation [pg. 39]. We do know that crediting obviously preceded banking, and that international accounting for deposits and withdrawals (along with bills of exchange) at least emerged with the Knights Templar Bank (1150-1307). Around the same time, he writes [pg. 36], medieval fairs were established for the sake of international trade. In the 12th century, transnational markets existed, just like in ancient times, but this was not yet a global market, such as we see emerge within the 16-17th century. W.S. Jevons comments on the decline of "merry England" and the May Pole, connected to the decline of medieval fairs, which is in tandem with the rise of capitalism, and so it proves Marx right, that in prior times, commerce ruled industry, but now the reverse is true. International trade is then not at all identical to capitalist production. At fairs, as Charles continues, a merchant book kept an account of "vostro" and "nostro", or claims and liabilities, with the difference being settled by officials. Fairs are shown to decline and become exclusive as the 16th century approached [pg. 37], but Antwerp established fairs in the period of its decline to increase revenue, but this was suspended before the 17th century.

Along with innovating bills of exchange, the Italians also established banking in its city-states [pg. 42], beginning locally at first, but then expanding. North Italians (known as Lombards) set up in City of London, and were making loans to the King of England from 1272-1310 for a sum of £400,000. The creditors of the king were then Italian bankers [pg. 43]. The hub of finance in the 13th century was the ancient 'City of London' district (Londinium). An interesting history surrounds the City of London, with its internal council preceding parliament, and its "ancient freedoms" protected by the Magna Carta (1215). Many conspiracy theories surround this supposedly 'sovereign' corporation, and is most often connected to Catholicity, by protestant prejudice, especially against the Jesuits. Certainly it is true, that global power lived in the "square mile", but it is not clear whether it does anymore. At the very least, we can connect Catholic, Italian creditors in the 12-13th centuries to the rise of global banking. The Hundred Years' War was also financed by Italians (e.g. The Bardi and the Peruzzi of Florence), yet Edward III defaulted on the loan in 1348, and this bankrupted the bankers. At once then, creditors gained power over their debtors, but debtors also have powers, if the loss is big enough - like what is attributed to Keynes; the greatest debtor makes creditors their slaves, and so the function of debt is beneficial at a certain threshold, which is also why credit is limited in its borrowing powers - when the function of borrowing is unlimited, you get things like the 2008 crisis, based on sub-prime mortgage lending. Charles tells us that the risks of lending to royalty was known, but there was also a high reward. Italians in England would often receive special privileges in return for their contributions, and so we see the plutocracy at work in the supposedly "noble" system of feudalism. But as the Bible reveals, even one's soul has a price.

Arising from the dissolution of the Templars (1307) and the ruination of the Bardi and Peruzzi (1348), we get the Medici Bank (1397), which was also established within London, but also Venice, Rome, Bruges, Geneva, Lyons, etc. Here, international banking was firmly instituted (what Charles leaves out is the invention of double entry book keeping by the Medici Bank). As yet, the Italian age of banking was soon diminished, beginning in the early Reformation period; e.g. 1520s [pg. 44]. It was Genoa which then became the centre of finance by 1550 (which established the first state deposit bank in 1407), but they were later outdone by the Dutch in 1620. In this time, South Germans gained relevance and so we see the banking clan of "Fuggers". Consecutive financial crises in Spain from 1557-1647 brought ultimate ruin to the Fuggers in 1596, by their failure to pay back loans [pg. 45]. Germans had also brought in 'intermediation' for loans, by contributions from the wealthy, which was a new technique in the rise of banking. So then, banking moved from the heart of the Catholic Church (1150) to the heart of the Reformation (1550), to further move toward Northern Europe, which also established central banks (1668-94). The "Jewish" age of finance is then a later development, with European recognition of it from ~1820, the post-Napoleonic era of the Rothschilds. So, referring to my original timeline, we see this progresion:

• Catholic Period (1150 - 1550)
  
• Protestant Period (1550 - 1820)
  
• Jewish Period (1820 -)
  
  

The Bank of Amsterdam was set up in 1609 (7 years after the Dutch East India Company), and in the style of the Bank of Venice (1574), sought to have high deposits from merchants, with the minimum of 300 florins being preferred, but with smaller deposits permitted, just at a higher fee (pp. 48). It was these transfer fees and the like which generated profit for the bank. Various other public banks arose from this time, but all ended up failing in the crisis of 1672 (pp.49). We should see here that every banking system has failed, so far, and as Marx sees, the crisis of overproduction (beginning in the 1820s) is a commercial crisis of capital, but general crises are inevitable with the rise of financial capital, and as we see from the first global depression from the 1870s, to the 1920s, to 2008, financial crises are very common, and this is empirically verified, since at least the 13th century (with the financial risk of lending being recorded from at least 1000 BCE but only having local crisis). As I have also related, most labour (in the West) is also paid through digital bank deposits, and so all transactions are mediated by this system. The rise of capitalism is the rise of banking (e.g. Marx does not write much on this, but he sees that capitalism emerged in Italy before anywhere else - the same as banking). While the Bank of Amsterdam was not a credit bank, the Bank of Sweden (est. 1656) was (pp. 49-50). The Bank of Sweden (Riskbank) had its precedent model in the Dutch Bank of Lending (1614) for one sector of it, while the other was based around the Bank of Amsterdam's exchange bank model. Riksbank then had its Lanebank (lending bank) and the Wechselbank (exchange bank); both based on the Dutch models (this composite bank was also suggested in the English Bank Act 1844, but probably unknowingly of the example of the Riskbank). The state took it over in 1668, and it became the world's first central bank, but already in 1661, it was issuing the first banknotes in Europe.

Henry VIII permitted interest in England from 1545, after the dissolution of the monateries, which saw the rise of goldsmiths and jewellers, originally from the scrivener, a type of broker, from whom many suggested banking originated [pg. 51]. Banking in England was rather slow [pg. 52], in that the creation of seven banks in 1571 were not commercial banks - banking only came to attention in the middle of the 17th century, such as with William Potter (1650), but also Hugh Peters, who after spending nearly a decade in Holland, promoted commercial banks in every major city. As Charles tells us [pg. 53] the Bank of England brought disaster to the economy, since its founders were more interested in private, rather than a public service. War financing was especially prevalant. The bank was established by various creditors who all collectively pooled £1,200,000 for an annual payment of £100,000 in return. Investors [stockholders] included the Dutch, Huguenots, Jews, English Emigrants and existing financiers in England. The Bank grew in size alongside the East India Company, as outsider merchants rebelled against the monopoly - Marx also writes that the Bank of England was the financial engine of the Empire. This then concludes Chapter 3, which I will summarise:

Banking was invented by Italians in the 12-13th century, concurrent with fairs, which would provide international trade. Merchants would provide accounts for claims and liabilities at the fairs. Banks fell into ruin by risky lending, such as the Lombards, and Bardi/Peruzzi, who were all bankrupted from lending to England, from 1270-1350. From this arose the Medici Bank (est. 1397) which had continental dominance until the 1520s. German banking arose in the 1550s, but was overtaken by the Dutch in the 1620s, yet most public banks failed by 1672. The models of dutch banking, exchange/lending, inspired the Riskbank (est. 1656) which became the first central bank (1668), followed by the Bank of England (1694), which was preceded by ideas from Potter (1650) and Peters, to establish commercial banks. The Bank of England however, was set up for stockholder profits, by increasing trade monopoly, and financing British wars. It should be noted that most central banks were created to provide funds for wars, beyond simple war bonds.

Chapter 4 concerns bimetallism (e.g. gold and silver), which has been a common means of securing exchange for lower and higher order goods. Gresham's Law is discussed (pp. 56-57), also described by Copernicus, as the way that greater circulation requires lower value coins and the adoption of this currency consequently leads to the removal of gold from circulation. Steuart (1767) describes the order of trade, of domestic coin, and foreign bullion, scaled in terms of the metal grade. This was also inferred by Copernicus in 1526. "World money" as an institution, as Kindleberg informs us, was established in the 19th century (pp. 66-67), from original conferences, first held in 1857, when the West was embraced bimetallism (pp. 58-65), first in Britain (1717). The gold standard became universal from 1880 (pg. 68).

Chapter 5 begins by a description of immediate issues with the Bank of England, which created inflation in the 1690s, with subsequent bank runs til 1707 (pg. 75). A rival to the Bank of England was the Sword Blade Bank, which created the South Sea Company (1711). With a debt of £300,000, state lotteries raised funds, but since not enough people participated, rights to sell tickets was granted to the Sword Blade Bank. The Sword Blade Bank raised £2,000,000 which were the funds for the South Sea Company. The South Sea Company failed from 1720, and the Bank of England gained dominance in England by applying monopoly rights of notes in an act of 1742 (pg. 76). Kindleberger explains that for its early history, the Bank of England only operated within London, even as late as 1802. Notes were also not for basic circulation, but as securities for gold deposits. So, the circulation of notes would have been limited anyway (pp. 76-77). Over time, lower denomination notes were made. No note below £20 was issued before 1759, but afterwards, there was the £10 and £5 note by 1794. £2 and £1 notes were issued by 1797, but were revoked by 1817, in the post-Napoleonic period. We see the central location of London, with only about a dozen banks being outside of London (pg. 79). We see that the Bank of England expanded as a lender from 1826 all over the country, maintaining monopoly rights of 65 miles from London. Here, joint-stock banking is created (pp. 83-84). Private banks were shrinking in number, while joint-stock banks increased in proportion. We can see stats [pg. 88] of the monopoly which branches gained from 1855-1913. So then, joint-stock banking was created in 1826 and this led to the monopoly of banking markets.

Chapter 6 discusses French banking. We can read this: "The fair at Lyons made it the financial center of France from the transfer of the fair from Geneva in 1461 to the failure of Samuel Bernard in 1709 […] The failure of Samuel Bernard in 1709 was of the usual sort: he had loaned Louis XIV 15 million livres by 1703, 20 million by 1704 and 30 million by 1708 when he refused further advances, needed to fight the War of the Spanish Succession, was cut off from payments on the out-standing debt, and unable to repay his drafts" (pp. 95-6). This then gives the pre-history. John Law is attributed as the theorist of money as "blood" which "circulates" (1705), and for this sake, wantes to increase supply so that unemployment could be reduced. John Law after being exiled, eventually convinced France to start its own national bank in 1716 (Banque Generale). Law served as Minister of France until 1720. After Law, Isaac Panchaud formed the Caisse d'Escompte in 1776 that lasted until the French Revolution, and was followed by a successor, created in 1798, that was quickly assimilated into the new Bank of France two years later (pg. 98). The Bank of France began to invest in the economy from 1830 onwards (pp. 109-110).

Chapter 7 concerns German banking. The pre-Prussian period saw the Hanseatic League, but because Germany was not yet unified until 1871, officially, it relied on the use of foreign coinage, such that "the Rhineland, for example, had at least seventy types of foreign coins in circulation in 1816" (pg. 119). The customs union began unifying Germany from 1818-1833. Independent coins were minted from 1837 onwards. The Mark was made the official coinage in 1871. The first German great bank was Darmstüdter Bank of 1853 (pg. 123), until the establishement of the central Deutsche Bank, in 1870 (with the Reichsbank also operating from 1876-1945). After this, industry was invested into (pp. 125-6).

Chapter 8 concerns Italian and Spanish banking. Italy, like Germany, was not unified, until tariffs, and in 1847 had reacted against the German Zollverein (pg. 136). Italy was united in 1861, and with this established both central and regional banks by incorporation (pg. 138). These regional banks were further incorporated into the Bank of Italy in 1893. On Spain, Kindleberger writes that "For present purposes, Spanish financial history may be said to begin with the American War of Independence when Spain joined France on the side of the colonies against Britain." (pg. 146). The bank which financed this was the Bank of St. Charles, which declined by 1822, and the Bank of San Ferdinando took its place (pg. 147). There was a shortage of Spanish coins, and by 1848, half of currency was foreign. After an 1856 Banking Act, banks were set up all over Spain, with San Ferdinando becoming the Bank of Spain, officially, and in 1874, it gained a monopoly over the issuing of notes (pg. 150).

So then, we can see that banking was invented during the Crusades (~1100 - 1300), with The Knights Templar creating banking (1150 - 1307), which moves into the Bardi and Peruzzi dynasties (1290 - 1350), then Medici (1400 - 1500). Genoa was the centre of finance, yet we see the transition from the Bank of Venice (1574), to the Bank of Amsterdam (1609), which borrowed its model. The Swedish Riksbank (1656) became the world's first central bank (1668), after first copying Amsterdam's exchange model. We see the Bank of England (1694) lead into the General Bank of France (1716-20), until the Bank of France was established (1800). After this, we have the Bank of Spain (1856) the Bank of Italy (1861), and the Bank of Germany (1871). This is the timeline.

Friedrich List's brief "Outlines of an American Political Economy" (1827) is a series of 8 letters to Charles Ingersoll, and it portrays the necessity to protect and develop manufacturing (as per his later work, "National System of Political Economy", 1841). List was part of a movement which promoted the "American System", and which has attribution as early as Henry Clay's advocacy, such as delivered in this speech (30-31 March, 1824):
https://archive.org/details/mrclaysspeechins00clay/page/n1/mode/1up?ref=ol

Friedrich List in his first letter offers his perspective [pg. 8]:
<Economy of individuals and economy of mankind, as treated by Adam Smith, teach by what means an individual creates, increases and consumes wealth in society with other individuals, and how the industry and wealth of mankind influence the industry and wealth of individuals. National Economy teaches by what means a certain nation, in her particular situation, may direct and regulate the economy of individuals, and restrict the economy of mankind, either to prevent foreign restrictions and foreign power, or to increase the productive powers within herself.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/outlines-of-american-political-economy-in-a-series-of-letters-1827
Afterwards, List emphasises the politics of economics [pg. 9]:
<They do not treat political economy, but cosmopolitical economy. To complete the science we must add the principle of national economy. The idea of national economy arises, with the idea of nations. A nation is the medium between individuals and mankind
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/outlines-of-american-political-economy-in-a-series-of-letters-1827
Thus, List is seeking to complete the original logic. National "power" is seen as the object [pg. 10], since power and wealth increase each other. Letter two ends with a distinction between American and English political economy as the difference between monopoly and enterprise; of tyranny and liberty. List says that the American system seeks to invite immigration to add to the nation, and that the land is so wide that it could support hundreds of millions of independent farmers [pg. 12]. List has so far made distinction between: (i) individual, (ii) national, (iii) world economy, which is also the difference between (i) political (national) economy, and (ii) cosmopolitical (individual/world) economy. Power and politics are considered within the national system, but cosmopolitics only considers wealth itself. We see that free trade is considered cosmopolitan [pg. 18] and so is problematised. Capital as a concept is also expanded to include not simply "capital of matter" (e.g. commodities), but also "capital of mind" - or what today is most often described as "human capital" [pp. 19-21]. The base of human capital to List then adds to the total "productive power" of a nation, and so each capital can act against the other. To increase material riches can be the loss of skill [pp. 22-24]. For the rest, he simple seeks to affirm that "cosmopolitical economy is not political economy". Of course, Smith never described himself as a "political economist", and the neologism of Antoine Montchretien (1615) certainly bears more resemblance to List's own meaning. It is at least in the 1871 preface of Jevons' "Theory" that "Economics" is offered as an alternative classification (which we see with Menger's "Principles" of the same year), but the Physiocrats also referred to themselves as "economists" before this time, which Smith does reference. The earliest accounts of "economics" and "economy" in Ancient Greece refer to the management of the oikos (household), but still has what are considered "economic" insights. It was with Montchretien who simply transposed the oikos to the polis, so Political Economy extended from Economics, and in turn, "Political Economy" returns to "Economics".

What is most interesting in List's "Outline" however, is an attached letter of Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Austen (9 January, 1816). Jefferson makes a shocking claim that he has foregone his cause of an agrarian utopia, built upon the export of raw materials to Europe, and has 'proudly' seen the necessity of manufacture as a means of preserving national independence [pp. 37-9]:
<You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependence on England for manufactures—There was a time when Imight have been so quoted with more candor. But within the thirty years which have since elapsed, how are circumstances changed! […] We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturalist […] He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufactures, must be for reducing us eiflier to a dependenreon that nation, or be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts indens and caverns. I am proud to say, I am not one ofthese.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/outlines-of-american-political-economy-in-a-series-of-letters-1827
So then, even Jefferson's idealism became pragmatic.

Richard Whately followed Nassau Senior as Professor of Political Economy at the University of Oxford. His brief "Introductory Lectures on Political Economy" (1831) then concern the orthodoxy of the time. We begin with a definition of "political economy" itself:
<Man might be defined, "An animal that makes Exchanges:" no other, even of thoseanimals which in other points make the nearest approach to rationality, having, to allappearance, the least notion of bartering, or in any way exchanging one thing foranother. And it is in this point of view alone that Man is contemplated by Political-Economy. This view does not essentially differ from that of A. Smith; since in thisscience the term Wealth is limited to exchangeable commodities; and it treats of themso far forth only as they are, or are designed to be, the subjects of exchange. But forthis very reason it is perhaps the more convenient to describe Political-Economy asthe science of Exchanges, rather than as the science of national Wealth.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_004
This he maintains, despite the internal contradiction of the term "wealth", as he also highlights, such as here:
<Though one thousand pounds' worth of jewels be of the same value as one thousand pounds' worth of instructive books, which must as surely be the case as that a poundof feathers and a pound of lead are equal in weight, it does not follow that each must contribute equally to public and private happiness.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_004
He simply raises the problem but does not solve it.

The second lecture begins with an indulgent digression upon religion, but it eventually circles back to discussing the morality of Mandeville's "private vices", such as it relates to Smith, and the theory of wealth altogether. As Whatley confers, many view wealth as corrupting, and so this is duly considered, especially upon "luxury", which is accursed as increasing effeminacy in nations:
<As for the effeminizing effects that have been attributed to national luxury, which has been charged with causing a decay of national energy, mental and bodily, no such results appear traceable to any such cause. Xenophon indeed attributes the degeneracy of the Persians to the inroads of luxury, which was carried, he says, to such a pitch of effeminacy, that they even adopted the use of gloves to protect their hands. We probably have gone as much beyond them
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_005
I have previously problematised luxury in itself, in the same sense that Keynes did. Luxury is a result of the advancement of divisions of labour, which increasingly specialise production for generally useless goods. Even Bataille in his General Economy apllies this marginalism. Further on, Whatley seems to contradict himself:
<Rich men are indeed often most laboriously and honourably active; but they may, and sometimes do, spend their lives in such idleness as cannot be found among the poor, excepting in the class of beggars.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_005
How can the rich both be laborious and idle? Clearly, Whatley is conflicted in his judgement. Adding:
<A rich nation, on the contrary, is always an industrious nation; and almost alwaysmore industrious than poor ones.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_005
Here, he properly concludes that national wealth has never been judged as evil, though individual wealth may be. The case stands thus that there is an antagonism:
<The “national wealth” of the English is very great and yet they are the poorest people under the sun.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
This is a central consideration.

After much meandering, Whatley finally provides some matter of content for what is political economy:
<An abundant supply causeshim to lower his prices, and thus enables the public to enjoy that abundance; while he is guided only by the apprehension of being undersold; and, on the other hand, an actual or apprehended scarcity causes him to demand a higher price, or to keep back his goods in expectation of a rise.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_007
All which he adds afterwards is that dealers provide a great service, and so cannot be blamed for anything. After this he moves into Lecture 5, where he begins by describing the division of labour in standard terms. He raises controversy however, in that the notion of pure savagery emerging into divisions of labour contradicts the Bible, in how Cain and Able already had their roles. Of course, it is easier to argue that Adam and Eve were themselves in an uncivilised condition (e.g. nakedness). Whatley sees that civilisation is prior to savagery:
<On looking around us and examiningall history, ancient and modern, we find, as I have said, that no savage tribe appears tohave risen into civilization, except through the aid of others who were civilized […] Now if this be the case, when, and how, did civilization first begin? […] in the beginning therefore of the human race, this, since there was no man to effect it, must have been the work of another Being.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_008
Now, this is not an entirely fabulous theory, in the sense that civilisation has most often been brought to people rather than been cultivated by itself. It could be argued that most Europeans in early modernity were uncivilised, by their lack of integration into world-historical events.

In Lecture 6, he develops from division into exchange:
In proportion then as the division of labour was extended, exchanges would become more and more frequent. For, diversity of production is evidently the foundation ofexchange; since, as long as each individual provides for all his own wants, and only for them, he will have nothing to part with, and nothing to receive. Barter then havingbecome a customary transaction, would naturally be superseded, in the progress of society, by the employment of some kind of Money […] It will suffice for our present purpose to state, that by Money, I mean, any commodity in general request, which is received in exchange forother commodities, not for the purpose of being directly used by the party receiving it,(for that is Barter,) but for the purpose of being again parted with in exchange forsomething else. It is not the very commodity which the party wants, or expectshereafter to want; but it is a security or pledge
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
Here, his idea of money is quite sophisticated, for I have also characterised money as a security, or anti-trust mechanism, following from David Graeber's own work. Money's "intrinsic" value substitutes an honour system for selfishness. Whatley makes a later terrible claim:
<Among poor and barbarous nations, (as I formerlyremarked,) we may find as much avarice, fraud, vanity, and envy, called forth, inreference perhaps to a string of beads, a hatchet, or a musket, as are to be found inwealthier communities.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
Of course, "rich" nations frequently engage in organised robbery under the name of law; kleptocracy is the rule. Whatley makes claims of the savage's lack of wealth:
<The savage is commonly found to be covetous, frequently rapacious, when his present inclination impels him to seek anyobject which he needs, or which his fancy is set on. He is not indeed not so steady or so provident, in his pursuit of gain, as the civilized man; but this is from the general unsteadiness and improvidence of his character; not from his being engrossed by higher pursuits. What keeps him poor, in addition to want of skill and insecurity ofproperty, is, not a philosophical contempt of riches, but a love of sluggish torpor and of present gratification.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
This is an important introduction of the psychological aspect of productivity (e.g. time-preference), preceded by Thomas Massie (1750), where prudence is defined by investment. Jevons offers the same judgement, that the lower state of society reflects a lower demand for higher order goods. Of course, wealth here is inherently relative to demand, yet still pretends to an absolute measure. Democritus vindicates the savage where he claims that true poverty is excessive demand, and we see that higher order products are generally useless. What need does the savage have for more than what is given to him in satisfaction? Here, realism conflicts with snobbery, and it necessarily misses the mark, against Adam Smith's own distinction, between absolute and effectual demand. What the "civilised" man possesses is only greater means, not greater ends.

After this, Whatley praises hoarders in a false fashion:
<in countries as far advanced in commercial transactions as almost the whole of Europe is, it may be said that, with hardly any exceptions, hoardingwithdraws nothing from the public use. If the miser is engaged in any kind ofbusiness; he lives himself indeed (as in the other case) on a miserable pittance; but his desire of gain naturally prompts him to add continually his profits to his capital; which is a part of the capital of the country
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_009
Here, Whatley equates the wealth of a miser with the wealth of all people in a nation; this is precisely what Smith criticises, that the rise of profits is a detriment, not a gain, for the majority of people. This is seen as early as 1691 by Sir Dudley North. Here, Whatley has the most disastrous idea of "wealth". The "private vices" of the worker has its basis in the general welfare, not the capitalist's self-interest. Whatley has reversed Smith.

Lecture 7 begins with a defense of the unnecessary as a cause to progress, and I agree - but the unnecessary must have its precondition. As Smith, Gossen, Marx and Menger all affirm, commodity production begins at the threshold of surplus - a surplus by its nature is wasteful to its possessor (as Xenophon identified). Thus, where necessity is fulfilled, waste may become useful, but if necessity itself becomes exchangeable, the realm of the necessary takes precedence again, in the same savage way that Whatley identifies. If we then first provide for the necessary product, we free ourselves to the surplus, the same way that Whatley quotes Cicero on the topic:
<it is, as Cicero observes, when men are released from the avocations of necessary business, that they are especially led to fix their desires on the hearing, the learning, the investigating, of whatever is attractive through its intrinsic grandeur or its novelty.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_010
It is the same as Aristotle or Marx claiming that man must eat and drink before he thinks. Precisely! Yet the capitalist ideologue is conflicted, between cultivating the pride of common luxury, and debasing private luxury. Jevons signs the alarm (1879) in his advocacy for the publicity of private goods, like books and paintings. The multiplication of utility (e.g. wealth) requires provisions.

Lecture 8 begins promisingly, by criticising thre idea of national wealth as a matter of distribution, yet Whatley devolves his argument into blaming poverty on the poor:
<the wealth of a nation would be computed according to that of the richest individuals […] among nations equal in wealth, the greatest and most important varieties may exist in respect of its distribution. If a large proportion of the wealth of a communityconsist of the enormous and overgrown fortunes of a few, that community has by nomeans such promising prospects in respect of the intellectual and moral advancement of the rest of the people, or even of the possessors of those fortunes, with one which enjoys a greater diffusion of wealth […] But there are means by which the evil in question may be much alleviated. A small degree of care in education will diminish the extreme helplessness which is oftenfound in manufacturing labourers. The women in particular are often so improvident, in devoting themselves exclusively and unremittingly to a single operation, for thesake of earning higher wages for the present, that they grow up ignorant of thecommon domestic offices; and when they marry, are wholly dependent on such asthey hire for those purposes; so that a fall of wages, or want of work, reduces theirfamilies to a state of much greater discomfort, than others, with the same absolutepoverty, have to encounter […] Another expedient which provident good-sense would suggest as a safeguard against the worst extremities of this evil, is, that the several members of a family should betake themselves, as far as that is possible, to different occupations.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_011

Lecture 9 begins by an admission to his deficiency. It would have been merciful to say this earlier:
<It is not my design, either now or hereafter, to attempt delivering a complete and detailed system of Political-Economy.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/whately-introductory-lectures-on-political-economy#lf0208_head_012
This is a massive understatement of course, and this can conclude the waste of time that this work entails. Beyond its indulgent pomposity is its allergy to theory. What has actually been said? That usuers are great, and that the poor need to be more responsible for their lack of wealth. That is what stands out least. This can hardly count as a work of political economy. It is a smothering.

Dudley North's "Discourses Upon Trade" (1691) is a collection of two short essays, "A Discourse Concerning The Abatement of Interest" and "A Discourse Of Coyned Money". We begin the first essay with three points upon the relative revenues of land and capital via trade:
<When Interest is less, Trade is incourag'd, and the Merchant can be a Gainer; whereas, when it is great, the Usurer, or Money-owner takes all. The Dutch, with whom Interest is low, Trade cheaper, and under-sell us. Land falls in value, as Interest riseth.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
Here, trade and interest are put at odds, as per the old mercantilist debates of that century, and with it are also the usurer and merchant, who compete, alongside the revenues of rent and interest. This is concurrent of phenomena identified by William Petty, that trade and rent grow as interest decreases, but he also sees this as caused by increased productivity, and so takes a supply-side position, as against Potter and Child. From stated correlations between the phenomena, North sets out to answer what part the state should have in regulating the rate of interest. From this he departs into a digression upon economic matters in general, and speaks upon the cause of poverty and riches as providence/profuseness:
<some are more provident, others more profuse […] And those are the Rich, who transmit what they have to their Posterity […] who by Trade serving the occasions of their Neighbours, supply themselves with what they have occasion for from abroad; which done, the rest is laid up, and is Silver, Gold, &c.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
Here, he is basically describing the function of saving. After this, he establishes equality in kind between land and capital, which relates to the Classical innovation:
<But as the Landed Man letts his Land, so these still lett their Stock; this latter is call'd Interest, but is only Rent for Stock, as the other is for Land […] Thus to be a Landlord, or a Stock-lord is the same thing; the Landlord hath the advantage only in this: That his Tenant cannot carry away the Land, as the Tenant of the other may the Stock; and therefore Land ought to yield less profit than Stock, which is let out at the greater hazard […] These things consider'd, it will be found, that as plenty makes cheapness in other things, as Corn, Wool, &c. when they come to Market in greater Quantities than there are Buyers to deal for, the Price will fall; so if there be more Lenders than Borrowers, Interest will also fall; wherefore it is not low Interest makes Trade, but Trade increasing, the Stock of the Nation makes Interest low […] It is said, that in Holland Interest is lower than in England. I answer, It is; because their Stock is greater than ours.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
We also thus see that he takes the supply-side position, in that an increase of stock in competition leads to lesser interest, not that lesser interest increases stock. This is also Adam Smith's position as regards the rate of profit; that the more capitalists who compete for labour, the lesser the profits (which has historical correlation with rates of interest; e.g. Massie, 1750). On top of this, the merchant is contrasted with the usurer in terms of the rate of interest; usurers will only lend when rates are high, and merchants will compete and make it low. He thus sees an issue between production and circulation. All in all, North sees that a lack of intervention is best for the promotion of trade, in the style of the Dutch, and so has a lasseiz-faire attitude. He makes a good point:
<Let any one Answer me, why do not the Legislators in those poor Countries, where Interest is at 10, & 12 per Cent, make such Laws to restrain Interest, and reduce |8| it for the good of the People? If they should attempt it, it wou'd soon appear, that such Laws would not be effectual to do it.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_003
In the same sense has it been declared that raising the minimum wage of a developing nation cannot increase its wealth, but only harm it (upon the minimum wage, I have previously demonstrated the universal perspective that raising the minimum wage is rejected by intelligent writers such as Marx, Jevons and Keynes, yet all still supported lowering the maximum working day - here, the cause of wages is identified, rather than mystified). Raising the minimum wage in the first place, as Keynes remarks, satisfies the trade union consciousness upon money wages, which often conceal a reduction of the real wage. Indeed, many poor countries have tried to print money to get themselves out of poverty, but this is a fatal illusion. This is North's point, then; we must care about identifying causes, not effects. As yet, there is such a thing as underconsumption granted from a lack of circulation, so this must also be duly considered.

Next is "A Discourse Of Coyned Money" which begins:
<In the former Discourse, it hath been already made appear, that Gold and Silver for their scarcity, have obtained in small quantities, to equal in value far greater quantities of other Metals, &c. And farther, from their easie Removal, and convenient Custody, have also obtained to be the common Measure in the World between Man and Man in their dealings, as well for Land, Houses, &c., as for Goods and other Necessaries.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
This is rather self-explanatory. After this he describes the possession of money as inherently impoverishing:
<No Man is richer for having his Estate all in Money, Plate, &c. lying by him, but on the contrary, he is for that reason the poorer. That man is richest, whose Estate is in a growing condition, either in Land at Farm, Money at Interest, or Goods in Trade: If any man, out of an humour, should turn all his Estate into Money, and keep it dead, he would soon be sensible of Poverty growing upon him, whilst he is eating out of the quick stock.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
How different this sounds from his earlier text, that a man is rich or poor based on his capacity of saving. Clearly, saving is counted as dead money, and so capital is alive and enriching. Even here we have difficulty, for whatever is invested is lost to the capitalist, which is the means of his "abstinence". We see an enslavement of the capitalist to the abstraction of his wealth, since if whatever is returned as surplus is entered back into production, circulation is transposed toward others as a duty of its expansion. This could be tolerable if wealth was redistributed, to clear the "glut" of markets, which has been recorded since at least 1800, by Malthus. The contradiction between production and circulation then begins in the transformation of the merchant into a usurer, in North's terms, that "the Usurer, according to the saying, will take half a Loaf, rather than no bread". Ricardo thus sees that with monopoly price, the law of value (e.g. competition) is terminated for a maximum marginal profit (what Smith called a "tax" on the public). Moving on, we see what 'keeps down the market':
<1. Either there is too much Corn and Cattel in the Country, so that most who come to Market have need of selling, as he hath, and few of buying: Or, 2. There wants the usual vent abroad, by Transportation, as in time of War, when Trade is unsafe, or not permitted. Or, 3. The Consumption fails, as when men by reason of Poverty, do not spend so much in their Houses as formerly they did; wherefore it is not the increase of specifick Money, which would at all advance the Farmers Goods, but the removal of any of these three Causes, which do truly keep down the Market.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
What's interesting of course is that North identifies a glut in the market and poor people in want of money, without relating the two as synchronous phenomena. In diagnosing the cause of riches between nations as the amount of money (e.g. gold) they have in reserve, North proposes an interesting regulation to commerce:
<Let a Law be made, and what is more, be observ'd, that no Man whatsoever shall carry any Money out of a particular Town, County, or Division, with liberty to carry Goods of any sort: so that all the Money which every one brings with him, must be left behind, and none be carried out
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hollander-discourses-upon-trade#lf0446_head_004
He does not speak conclusively upon this, however, and concludes the essay by a suggestion to impose no laws upon regulating coin or trade, but rather that so long as you have an increase in trade, money will come to you.

I will begin this by a quote from Murray Rothbard's book, "The History of Economic Thought", Vol. 1 (1995), where Rothbard considers Smith the root of all evil [Ch. 17.6]:
<Smith's labour theory of value led to Marxism and all the horrors to which that creed has given rise; and his exclusive emphasis on long-run equilibrium has led to formalistic neoclassicism, which dominates today's economic theory, and to its exclusion from consideration of entrepreneurship and uncertainty.
Here, Smith is considered not simply mistaken, but an active and revolutionary agent toward socialism, as Rothbard also claims attribution of directly [Ch. 16.5]:
<Adam Smith also gave hostage to the later emergence of socialism by his repeatedly stated view that rent and profit are deductions from the produce of labour […] Smith was even less kindly to the role of landlords, where he recognized no economic function whatever that they might perform […] Smith's labour theory of value did inspire a number of English socialists before Marx, generally named 'Ricardian' but actually 'Smithian' socialists, who decided that if labour produced the whole product, and rent and profit are deductions from labour's produce, then the entire value of the product should rightfully go to its creators, the labourers.
This term, "Smithian" Socialist, is also present in Noel Thompson's "The People's Science" (1984), by reference to Esther Lowenthal's "The Ricardian Socialists" (1911):
<The term Ricardian socialism is probably due to the fact that Ricardo was a dominant figure of a school in which the labour theory of value was a common doctrine […] There is no evidence that the socialists were particularly impressed by his [Ricardo's] teachings. . . They all of them quote Adam Smith as their authority for the labour theory of value
Here then, the early British socialists were expressly identified with Adam Smith as their inspiration. Robert Owen was brief in his writing upon Political Economy, but in each place that he discussed it, he affirmed the labour theory of value, which obviously makes sense, considering his invention of "labour money" as an asset.

So then, the British socialists are all Smithian in kind, for all those who embrace a Labour Theory of Value feel compelled to criticise capitalist society; e.g. Mill (1848):
<The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-principles-of-political-economy-ashley-ed#lf0199_label_1041
Here, Mill is affirming socialist self-management, even with reference to Owen in proceeding passages. Mill then fits the type of a "liberal socialist", the same as how Matt McManus (2024) describes him. Another Political Economist is W.S. Jevons, principally inspired by Mill and Ricardo in his marginal theory of value. Although Jevons himself was known as an ardent liberal, he had imperative in promoting co-operative relations (1870):
<I wish to see workmen becoming by degrees their own capitalists—sharers in all the profits and all the advantages which capital confers. 
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-methods-of-social-reform-and-other-papers#lf0236_label_049
This is reminiscent of Reagan's own sentiments (1987):
<I can’t help but believe that in the future we will see in the United States and throughout the western world an increasing trend toward the next logical step, employee ownership. It is a path that befits a free people.
https://www.cesj.org/about-cesj-in-brief/history-accomplishments/pres-reagans-speech-on-project-economic-justice/
Thus, liberalism contains in itself the fruit of socialism, not as internal contradiction, but as non-contradiction. It is capitalism which is contradictory. I woukd say that in general, this can be traced back to the Levellers (1649), and from this to Locke's "Labour Theory of Property" (1688), which in itself contains Petty's formula for the wealth of nations (1664). Thus, we see an advance from the 17th century onwards, of liberalism to socialism.

It is not just the British, but also the continental radicals who appropriated Smith for their cause. We see P.J. Proudhon reject Fourier to praise Smith instead (1848):
<I have certainly read Fourier, and have spoken of him more than once in my works; but, upon the whole, I do not think that I owe anything to him. My real masters, those who have caused fertile ideas to spring up in my mind, are three in number: first, the Bible; next, Adam Smith; and last, Hegel.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/pierre-joseph-proudhon-what-is-property-an-inquiry-into-the-principle-of-right-and-of-governmen
So then, anarchy seems to have its roots in Adam Smith. Finally there is Marx, who is most well-known for his theory of "surplus value", but where did this theory originate? Engels tells us that it was Adam Smith, whom Marx himself also recognised as its discoverer (1885):
<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
But Engels is even conservative here. Marx declares the political ecomomy of Smith as "enlightened" in 1844:
<To this enlightened political economy, which has discovered – within private property – the subjective essence of wealth, the adherents of the monetary and mercantile system, who look upon private property only as an objective substance confronting men, seem therefore to be fetishists, Catholics. Engels was therefore right to call Adam Smith the Luther of Political Economy
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/third.htm
And so with this great Reformation, Smith heralded a new age of socialism, as Benjamin Tucker writes (1926):
<The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his “Wealth of Nations,” — namely, that labor is the true measure of price.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/benjamin-tucker-individual-liberty
So then, Smith as the 'Reformer' of Political Economy, is also an "enlightened" critic of capitalism, and the Father of Socialism.

my investments just increased $750 in value overnight

my fellow party members will be happy with my next financial contribution

Friedrich von Wieser in 'The Origin of Value' (1884) coins the first use of the term "marginal utility" (Ch. 4, Sct. 2):
<In the following, I shall refer to the utility of a good—which is decisive for the value of a unit of that good because it corresponds to the least important use permitted by economic considerations—as "economic marginal utility" or simply "marginal utility" (cf. Jevons's terms "final degree of utility" and "terminal utility"). It will become evident that, in all cases involving the value of individual goods that make up a stock, marginal utility determines the magnitude of that value. Economic value is marginal value. [Ich werde im Folgenden den für den Werth der Güter- einheit entscheidenden Güternutzen, weil er an der Grenze der wirthschaftlich zugelassenen Verwendungen steht, den wirth- schaftlichen Grenznutzen oder auch kurzweg den Grenznutzen nennen (vergl. die Ausdrücke y)final degree of utilüy(c und yiterminal utilitya bei Jevons). Es wird sich zeigen, dass in allen Verhältnissen, in denen es sich um den Werth der ein- zelnen, einen Vorrath bildenden Güter handelt, der Grenznutzen den Ausschlag fiir die Grösse des Werthes giebt. Der wirth- schaftliche Werth ist Grenzwerth].
https://archive.org/stream/berdenursprungu00wiesgoog/berdenursprungu00wiesgoog_djvu.txt

true or false?

>>2867040
Well, industry doesn't require selling to the world market; it can also sell to domestic markets (e.g. "Made in America"), which is naturally more expensive by costs:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/11/heres-how-much-a-made-in-the-usa-iphone-would-cost.html
It appears more expensive to producers and consumers in the short-term, but can lower over time. Regardless, it is acting as a security, most especially for employment. A notorious example is the decline of Detroit:
<In Detroit, the devastating economic effects of deindustrialization continue to push inhabitants away from what was once the fourth-largest city in America.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/detroit-decline_n_813696
<Data says 51% of children lived in poverty in 2024, a rate that is three times the national average
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2025/10/07/grim-reality-more-than-half-of-detroit-children-are-now-living-in-poverty-census-bureau-data-shows/
Of course, the lumpenisation of the proletariat doesn't reduce national costs, it only exacerbates them by the means of welfare payments. So, the national producer and consumer may be able to buy goods cheaper, but this is only relative to the social costs of unemployment and crime, resulting from it. In terms of effective policy for re-industrialisation, there have to either be incentives or interventions. In the UK for example, the post-war Labour government nationalised key industry sectors:
<Nationalisation was the Labour Party’s idea of putting the control of the main industries in the hands of the people, instead of a small group or shareholders […] 1 in 10 British people worked in these nationalised industries […] Many people believed the process artificially helped declining industries.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zsd68mn/revision/6
After Thatcher and Major (1981-97) privatised industry, unemployment rose and lumpenisation increased - the conservative Peter Hitchens rightly declares that under the rhetoric of independence, a culture of dependence on the state was the ultimate result. He also wishes to re-nationalise industry, especially the railways. So, this is one strategy; to either buy out industry or to confiscate it. Rothbard actually suggested something akin to this:
<I do not often agree with John Kenneth Galbraith, but his recent suggestion to nationalize businesses which get more than 75% of their revenue from government, or from the military, has considerable merit. […] But why stop at 75%? Fifty per cent seems to be a reasonable cutoff point on whether an organization is largely public or largely private.
https://panarchy.org/rothbard/confiscation.html
So, if social costs are subsidies for private gain, there is a right of the taxpayer to appropriate property for their own use. This is perhaps original in Benjamin Franklin:
<All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html
So then, property is conditional upon the social welfare, which is a principle found in Aristotle, Cicero, and even Carl Menger. Nationalisation can be for public interest. In terms of incentives, we see global competition lead to capital flight for the sake of lower wages, in most cases, so as anon says, lower wages can induce employment. This has common sense validity, such as in the case of illegal immigrants who work for less. Lower wages in themselves are not a bad policy, if it is met by additional subsidies (e.g. UBI or NIT), and so the private gains are funneled back into social reward, reversing prior woes. It is also the perspective of political economy that the real class struggle is not in terms of money wages, but in the length of the working day, which measures real wages.

This is a good collaboration between Michael Hudson and Carl Benjamin on the debt cycle, expressed as class warfare. If I could appeal to both men, I would portray the wage relation as a type of interest-bearing capital. Aquinas of course also demystifies rent as a type of usufruct, and thus a usurious "double payment", or as Carl properly declares, indebted students must 'move uphill just to stand still', like the ancestral debts put on children in the ancient world, as Graeber writes about; the pension fund is no different - life serves death. Carl also describes student debt as a "tax" on young people, which is true, but I would comment that Adam Smith described profits as a tax also. What is common in all of this is a mode of surplus extraction by unproductive elements of society, and so a unified class struggle. We can read Marx on this issue:
<In the corvée, the labour of the worker for himself, and his compulsory labour for his lord, differ in space and time in the clearest possible way. In slave labour, even that part of the working-day in which the slave is only replacing the value of his own means of existence, in which, therefore, in fact, he works for himself alone, appears as labour for his master. All the slave’s labour appears as unpaid labour. In wage labour, on the contrary, even surplus-labour, or unpaid labour, appears as paid. There the property-relation conceals the labour of the slave for himself; here the money-relation conceals the unrequited labour of the wage labourer.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch19.htm
So, the "5,000 Year War" is not particular, but is a general struggle.

Jevons Paradox getting a lot of attention, SmithAnon

>>2868055
Carl of Swindon makes videos that aren't reactionary slop? Pleasant surprise.

>>2865668
Mike Cocaine is smiling in that picture because it is raining Cocaine.