/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2933841
Post >>2932488 (was that your post?) "'argues" for (just asserts) the soundness of unequal exchange because
>Why else was Hitler so obsessed with colonizing Eastern Europe?
And this isn't an actual argument for the theory of unequal exchange. Have you read as much as a single paragraph of Zak Cope or Arghiri Emmanuel or Jason Hickel?

>>2934005
WTF are you still talking about? Hitler wanted extractive colonies in Eastern Europe, especially after Germany lost her colonies in Africa and Asia after WW1. The point of unequal exchange is to extract wealth and labor-power from the periphery and semi-periphery.

>>2934008
>The point of unequal exchange is
*record scratch* I asked you something: Have you read as much as a single paragraph of Zak Cope or Arghiri Emmanuel or Jason Hickel? That's not asking for much. So don't call me an elitist and don't evade. But I don't respect this tumblr "Marxism" or whatever shit you are doing here.

In the following I will explain very important stuff in not very complicated language, but you learning that requires you being honest with yourself and your lack of knowledge which is getting very visible and grating here, so I suggest you drop this cringe act.

Do you not know what market exchange is. An invasion is not exchange. Enslaving people is not exchange (though buying and selling them is). Mass murder is not exchange.

Equality between people plays a part in pro-capitalist propaganda. This talk is not all clever manipulation, and the belief of the honest capitalism evangelists is not simply mistaken either. There is substantial equality between people in capitalism compared to feudalism. The formal legal equality between employers and employees as actors in markets has merit, it's not just a show for bamboozling people. And despite all that, there is still massive inequality, points out Marx, as do many others. And (here comes the specialty of Marx who wasn't even an equality fetishist) the massive inequality develops and is sustained through this equality.

Once that thought sits firmly in one's mind, it seems quite natural to try and extend this take to the trade between nations, as Hickel does and Cope used to do. And that is the idea of unequal exchange. The theory claims something systematic happening in everyday trade between nations that is quite automatically creating, re-creating, maintaining, increasing the inequality. Some country A invading some country B is not an illustration of the theory.

>>2934034
>Have you read as much as a single paragraph of Zak Cope or Arghiri Emmanuel or Jason Hickel?
Yes.
>An invasion is not exchange. Enslaving people is not exchange (though buying and selling them is). Mass murder is not exchange.
WTF are you still talking about? No one said murdering people was exchange. Also, enslavement is appropriation of embodied labor, so it is unequal exchange. Slavery is the most extreme form of appropriated labor.

>>2934036
>Yes
Nah.

>>2933868
gotcha; thanks!

>>2934038
Slavery is the highest form of unequal exchange.
Hahahaha, you're so retarded snd obsessed with Hitler all you can say is "NUH-UH."

>>2934044
It was not me who brought up Hitler as an attempt to illustrate a theory you are not familiar with and you were just vibing about. Calling enslavement or theft an example of a market exchange is just you making up a brand-new definition on the spot because you haven't thought through your words so you got caught spewing nonsense.

>>2934049
>It was not me who brought up Hitler as an attempt to illustrate a theory you are not familiar with and you were just vibing about.
You are mistaken. Lebensraum sought to plunder and rob Eastern Europe of its wealth. That is the unequal exchange.
>Calling enslavement or theft an example of a market exchange is just you making up a brand-new definition on the spot because you haven't thought through your words so you got caught spewing nonsense.
WTF are you talking about? Extracting labor-power from an imperialized territory is theft. Slavery is theft of value from an imperialized territory/people. Slavery is the highest form of unequal exchange.

>>2934061 (me)
>Lebensraum sought to plunder and rob Eastern Europe of its wealth. That is the unequal exchange.
BTW this was literally no different from what the other European powers did. Nazis were directly inspired by the British colonization of India and the US' Manifest Destiny.

>>2934067
>Nazis were directly inspired by the British colonization of India and the US' Manifest Destiny
You already said that. AND YOU GOT ALREADY TOLD THIS IS NOT UNEQUAL EXCHANGE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unequal_exchange
First paragraph:
<Unequal exchange is used primarily in Marxist economics, but also in ecological economics (more specifically also as ecologically unequal exchange), to describe the systemic hidden transfer of labor and ecological value from poor countries in the imperial periphery (mainly in the Global South) to rich countries and monopolistic corporations in the imperial core (mainly in the Global North) due to structural inequalities in the global economy.

>>2934073
WTF are you still talking about? Your own scrambling for Wikipedia proves me correct:
<transfer of labor and ecological value from poor countries in the imperial periphery (mainly in the Global South) to rich countries and monopolistic corporations in the imperial core (mainly in the Global North) due to structural inequalities in the global economy
What do you think the goal of colonization is? TO TRANSFER VALUE, I.E., THEFT. Absolute fucking retard…

>>2934075
Are profits theft. Is exchange theft. Can you show a citation of Marx stating that. Can you show a citation from any book on economics, mainstream or radical, or any dictionary, sharing your definitions.

>>2934082
>Are profits theft
Yes.
>Is exchange theft
Unequal exchange is theft, yes.
>Can you show a citation of Marx stating that
A citation of Marx saying capitalist profit is simply the extraction of surplus value, i.e. THEFT from the worker? Are you retarded or just trolling?
>Can you show a citation from any book on economics, mainstream or radical, or any dictionary, sharing your definitions.
Don't feel like looking for quotes for you. Hickel, Samir Amin, etc. write about this. You already embarrassed yourself with Wikipedia (only proved me correct).

>>2932034
>The majority says ____! Therefore it's correct!
Ah yeah I remember that famous line from Lenin in his letter to Boris Souvarine:
<"Marxists are extremely concerned with being in the majority all the time. Don't worry about forming an analysis of what is or isn't opportunist, the majority is always correct. This is why we Bolsheviks gladly follow the largest and most experienced Party in social democracy — the Social-Democratic Party of Germany and its leading theorist Karl Kautsky!"
Lenin Collected Works Vol. 23, page 200 if you wanna check.

>>2934043
To go into more detail, Marx in his Zur Kritik (1859) gives a history of the labour theory of value, which he traces from Petty (1662) and Boisguilbert (1690), to Franklin (1731), and finally to Smith (1776) – "labour" here is considered "abstract" labour, or labour in general. From this comes the standard measure of labour time, which treats all labour as a homogenous quantity to be tallied up (Marx in Capital Vol. 1 sees that this is only to be perceived after prices have been established). This presupposes the most efficient labour in employment (e.g. socially necessary labour time) since as Smith puts it; a 'master' wouldn't employ a servant without getting the most of out of them. Competition is the means to equilibrate supply and demand of labour to thus realise the minimum wage. This is the 'value' of labour (e.g. its "natural price"). When costs are given in the factors of production (e.g. labour, land and capital), as revenues (e.g. wages, rent and profit), Smith sees that each of these can be computed as labour costs, so are able to be divided into labour time (Martin Luther in a discourse on trade has the same intuition). In this, however, Smith conflates labour itself with its revenue – this is Marx's concern; hence the heading of "Smith’s Two Different Definitions of Value", which we may read from (1861):
<he makes wages the measure; for wages are equal to the quantity of commodities bought with a definite quantity of living labour […] value is made the measuring rod and the basis for the explanation of value—so we have a vicious circle.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch03.htm
By the same reasoning, rent and profit as surplus value are only potential wages (e.g. such that Smith sees how wages increase inverse to the rate of profit – given the conditions of competition). On this "vicious circle", Marx wishes to distinguish "labour" from labour-power (1867):
<could the labourer give it an independent objective existence, he would sell a commodity and not labour […] the value of labour is only an irrational expression for the value of labour-power
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch19.htm
It is not "labour", but the labourer himself. Both Smith and Ricardo make the same point, but less specifically:
<Adam Smith was well aware that the labour-time expended on the reproduction and maintenance of labour-power is very different from the labour which it [i.e., labour-power] itself can perform.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch03.htm
The difficulty is in choosing the former as "measure of value", rather than the latter, such as Ricardo. It is in the formulation of Smith, however, that one can say that the full product of labour is undercut, and that this the origin of exploitation, such as he calls the landlord a thief;
<rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour […] profit makes a second deduction
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch03.htm
It is the contrary opinion of Marx that no theft takes place, since what is exchanged (e.g. the wage) and that which is produced (e.g. surplus produce) have different determinations, so as to maintain "laws" exchange:
<the equating here of labour and product of labour in fact provides the first occasion for the confusion between the determination of the value of commodities by the quantity of labour contained in them
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch03.htm
Engels appears to take the Smithian position (1885):
<Adam Smith in plain terms describes rent and profit on capital as mere deductions from the workman’s product or the value of his product […] Thus even Adam Smith knew “the source of the surplus-value of the capitalist,” and furthermore also of that of the landlord.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch00.htm
Most Marxists also intuitively treat wages as a type of theft, but Marx himself declines this conclusion in the means of an obscure dialectical framework, to show a conflict between form and content – which is really the same thing, viewed properly. I have previously seen that Libertarians claim that "taxation is theft", like Anarchists claim that "property is theft", so have suggested that Socialists should claim that "profit is theft", but astute Marxists will intervene, such as Engels makes the claim:
<The axioms which qualify as robbery the landowner’s method of deriving an income – namely, that each has a right to the product of his labour, or that no one shall reap where he has not sown – are not advanced by us.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
He is right, from his own perspective, that defending the rights of property, as against property (like Anarchists) is self-evidently absurd, but this is why I'm not a Marxist. So, basically, both are saying the same thing, but not in the same language. Each agree to 'labour' being value, and surplus vaiue being unearned income by class war. I consider Smith to be a Socialist figure, as I have written here:
>>2863918

>>2934092
I'm afraid the other anon is right.
To Marx, profit is not theft, since all exchanges are equivalent.
I touch on the issue in this post: >>2934113

>>2934114
>To Marx, profit is not theft, since all exchanges are equivalent.
No, that's a cherrypicked reading. Labor-power is bought at its value, i.e., the cost of reproducing the worker, but its use creates more value than it costs. The capitalist thus appropriates unpaid labor, and this is described as exploitation, which he morally characterized as a form of theft. On the surface, the wage exchange is formally equal but this disguises an unequal exchange of unpaid labor.‌ Profit is theft.

>>2934123
You're still cherrypicking. He is simply arguing that surplus value can be extracted without violating the laws of commodity exchange. He is saying that while the form of exchange can appear to look just, the content of the relationship, i.e., the appropriation of unpaid labor, is exploitative.

>>2934127
Do you have a SINGLE instance of Marx saying "profit is theft"

>>2934129
Yes.

>>2934131
Can I see it?

>>2934134
Nah.

>>2934289
Capital got quoted here: >>2934123
Again:
<The circumstance, that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labour-power costs only half a day’s labour, while on the other hand the very same labour-power can work during a whole day, that consequently the value which its use during one day creates, is double what he pays for that use, this circumstance is, without doubt, a piece of good luck for the buyer, but by no means an injury to the seller.
It's even more clear in the German original where Marx wrote:
<aber durchaus kein Unrecht gegen den Verkäufer
This corresponds roughly to the part I bolded above, but instead of the broader term injury (that would have been Verletzung in German) Marx wrote the more specific injustice (Unrecht). By no means an injustice happening to the seller of labour-power! Literally said by Marx in Capital Volume One.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160304065358/http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me23/me23_192.htm

>>2934315
The kind of cherrypicking that yields many cherries.

>>2934317
Cherrypicking when Marx talks about surplus value extraction in accordance to the laws of exchange will get you nowhere, retard. I already addressed your bullshit here: >>2934127 >>2934128

<There is not one single atom of its value that does not owe its existence to unpaid labour. The means of production, with which the additional labour-power is incorporated, as well as the necessaries with which the labourers are sustained, are nothing but component parts of the surplus-product, of the tribute annually exacted from the working class by the capitalist class. Though the latter with a portion of that tribute purchases the additional labour-power even at its full price, so that equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, yet the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm

<So far, therefore, as his actions are a mere function of capital — endowed as capital is, in his person, with consciousness and a will — his own private consumption is a robbery perpetrated on accumulation, just as in book-keeping by double entry, the private expenditure of the capitalist is placed on the debtor side of his account against his capital. To accumulate, is to conquer the world of social wealth, to increase the mass of human beings exploited by him, and thus to extend both the direct and the indirect sway of the capitalist.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm

>>2934113
>Socialists should claim that "profit is theft", but astute Marxists will intervene, such as Engels makes the claim:
><The axioms which qualify as robbery the landowner’s method of deriving an income – namely, that each has a right to the product of his labour, or that no one shall reap where he has not sown – are not advanced by us.
The entire post is a bunch of psuedointellect nonsense, but this quote-mine is particularly egregious and deserves to be addressed directly.
Look at what Engels says directly before the quote-mine:
<The landowner has nothing with which to reproach the merchant. He practices robbery in monopolising the land. He practices robbery in exploiting for his own benefit the increase in population which increases competition and thus the value of his estate; in turning into a source of personal advantage that which has not been his own doing – that which is his by sheer accident. He practices robbery in leasing his land, when he eventually seizes for himself the improvements effected by his tenant. This is the secret of the ever-increasing wealth of the big landowners.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm
So, only AFTER establishing that rent is a form of robbery does Engels say:
<The axioms which qualify as robbery the landowner’s method of deriving an income – namely, that each has a right to the product of his labour, or that no one shall reap where he has not sown – are not advanced by us.
Engels' point is that the critique of exploitation should not be grounded in bourgeois juridical axioms, as those axioms are themselves consequences of private property. He isn't claiming that theft is not occurring, he is making the point the ultimate goal should be the abandonment of private property as a premise.

>>2932017
Better to be a moralist and support third world small capitalists cause "they look poor" then

>>2934127
>he morally characterized as a form of theft
Nowhere does he do this. He does the opposite: >>2934123
<The owner of the money has paid the value of a day’s labour-power; his, therefore, is the use of it for a day; a day’s labour belongs to him.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm
Theft denotes a relationship of unrightful property ownership.
Marx sees that profit 'belongs' to the capitalist by its own terms.
>>2934324
>psuedointellect nonsense
It's a basic reading of Marx on Smith with primary sources.
But if I'm incorrect on anything, you could correct me, surely.
>Engels' point is that the critique of exploitation should not be grounded in bourgeois juridical axioms, as those axioms are themselves consequences of private property.
But that's literally what I wrote.
You're agreeing with me, then getting mad at yourself.
>He isn't claiming that theft is not occurring
I already said that Engels agrees with Smith on profit/rent as theft.
Forwarding the cause of reclaiming property is abandoned, however.
This is the political limit of Marxism, is my point.

>>2934347
>Nowhere does he do this.
Except he does multiple times. Marx and Engels repeatedly polemically condemn capitalist accumulation and surplus value extraction as "robbery," "loot," and "theft." You are selectively quoting their analytical framework that treats the wage exchange as lawful under bourgeois axioms and claiming they're saying that no theft is occurring. Either you're being deceptive or you're a psuedointellect (probably both imo).
>Marx sees that profit 'belongs' to the capitalist by its own terms.
That conclusion isn't supported by your cherrypicked quotation. Again, you're citing Marx's analysis of the juridical appearance of equivalent exchange, while ignoring the appropriation it conceals, which Marx and Engels characterize as robbery and theft. Marx and Engels are essentially saying the capitalist is able to steal without needing to cheat; profit is "legitimate" only under the bourgeoisie's juridical terms. They are NOT accepting the capitalist entitlement to profit. Marx explicitly says that even in the case where an "equivalent is exchanged for equivalent," the transaction is "only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of."
>But if I'm incorrect on anything, you could correct me, surely.
Your credibility goes down the shitter the moment you start misrepresenting sources, and you've done that multiple times.
>But that's literally what I wrote.
>I already said that Engels agrees with Smith on profit/rent as theft.
No, it isn't. Don't backpedal. You've been arguing the exact opposite:
<Most Marxists also intuitively treat wages as a type of theft, but Marx himself declines this conclusion
<Socialists should claim that "profit is theft", but astute Marxists will intervene
<To Marx, profit is not theft, since all exchanges are equivalent.
Engels calls the landowner's rent robbery, then says communists do not ground their critique in bourgeois axioms. That is not a denial of theft, but rather a refusal to base communism on bourgeois right.
>Forwarding the cause of reclaiming property is abandoned, however.
Marxism does not aim to "reclaim property" within bourgeois right. Seizing the means of production and then abolishing private property in them as a social relation, part of which is the capitalist's ability to accumulate profit, is the entire cause of Marxism, dimwit.

>>2934397
>he does multiple times
Present the "multiple times".
>selectively quoting
As opposed to unselectively quoting?
To Marx, wages are an equivalent exchange for labour-power.
There is no exploitation in the exchange relation itself.
Exploitation is an overemployment in production. You know this.
>deceptive
What lies have I said? Quote them directly.
>the juridical appearance of equivalent exchange
Question: does the capitalist undervalue labour-power in exchange?
Is exchange the site of exploitation by a discount?
>ignoring the appropriation it conceals
I am the one who invoked the dialectic of form and content.
What exactly am I ignorant of?
>They are NOT accepting the capitalist entitlement to profit.
I never said they were – I explicitly state the opposite.
>can't actually say what I am incorrect about.
If you can't say what I'm incorrect about, you must agree with me.
This anger against me is only an anger against yourself, anon.
>No, it isn't.
Anon, I'm afraid to say that you lack reading comprehension. Read:
>>2934113
<It is in the formulation of Smith, however, that one can say that the full product of labour is undercut […] Engels appears to take the Smithian position
>Engels calls the landowner's rent robbery
I literally quote Engels quoting Smith on the robbery of rent.
>communists do not ground their critique in bourgeois axioms
Yes – that's what I wrote.
>Marxism does not aim to "reclaim property" within bourgeois right.
I know – that's why I said Marxism is a political failure; an incoherence.

>>2934399
>Present the "multiple times".
Already done. Scroll up. >>2934323 >>2934324
>To Marx, wages are an equivalent exchange for labour-power. There is no exploitation in the exchange relation itself. Exploitation is an overemployment in production.
Right. But that does not establish "profit is not theft" like you're trying to claim. The charge of robbery isn't a charge of fraud at the point of sale, but rather against the property relation that permits appropriation of unpaid labor. That is how profit is theft. Again, you're either deceptive or a psuedointellect.
>What lies have I said? Quote them directly.
These are objective distortions and/or outright falsehoods:
<Most Marxists also intuitively treat wages as a type of theft, but Marx himself declines this conclusion
<Socialists should claim that "profit is theft", but astute Marxists will intervene
<To Marx, profit is not theft, since all exchanges are equivalent.
<Nowhere does he do this. He does the opposite:
The first three equivocates exchange with the substance of the relation. The fourth is false on the documentary record.
>Question: does the capitalist undervalue labour-power in exchange?
>Is exchange the site of exploitation by a discount?
No and no. That still does not contradict with the assertion that profit is theft. Marx's point is precisely that robbery can occur through formally equivalent exchange. You keep quote-mining the latter.
>I am the one who invoked the dialectic of form and content. What exactly am I ignorant of?
You invoke form and content, then collapse content back into the form. You say that exchange is equivalent, therefore there is no theft; however, the dialectic you invoke says the form of equivalent exchange conceals the content, i.e., the appropriation of unpaid labour.
>I never said they were – I explicitly state the opposite.
If you agree that Marx does not accept capitalist entitlement, your "profit is not theft" line must mean only "not theft in the bourgeois-juridical sense." It does not mean there is no theft in the appropriation of labor, which is intrinsic to capitalist accumulation.
>If you can't say what I'm incorrect about, you must agree with me.
Are you retarded? You're incorrect in saying "nowhere" when Marx and Engels do it repeatedly and inferring no theft because there is no fraud in exchange.
><It is in the formulation of Smith, however, that one can say that the full product of labour is undercut […] Engels appears to take the Smithian position
If the "full product of labour is undercut" then you have conceded my point about where the theft occurs.
>I literally quote Engels quoting Smith on the robbery of rent.
>Yes – that's what I wrote.
Then your earlier "nowhere does he do this" and your "profit is not theft" framing collapses.
>Marxism is a political failure; an incoherence.
No, it isn't retard because Marxism explicitly rejects that premise. It aims to abolish capitalist private property in the means of production as a social relation, i.e., an end to the capitalist's ability to appropriate surplus labor. That is not a failure to reclaim property, but rather a rejection of the terms on which your objection depends. You are measuring Marxism by the standard it explicitly criticizes and then calling it incoherent for not meeting that standard.

>>2934323
>>2934324
>>2934403
In addition…
<Again, one must be a Pomeranian manor owner in order to imagine that a working class would put up with working twelve hours in order to receive a certificate for four hours of labour. If the hocus-pocus of capitalist production is translated into this naïve language, in which it appears as naked robbery, it is made impossible.
Engels, The Poverty of Philosophy – Preface
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/pre-1885.htm

<The means of production, with which the additional labour-power is incorporated, as well as the necessaries with which the labourers are sustained, are nothing but component parts of the surplus-product, of the tribute annually exacted from the working class by the capitalist class. Though the latter with a portion of that tribute purchases the additional labour-power even at its full price, so that equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, yet the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of.
<…
<The greater part of the yearly accruing surplus-product, embezzled, because abstracted without return of an equivalent, from the English labourer, is thus used as capital, not in England, but in foreign countries.
Marx, Capital Volume 1, Chapter 24
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm

>>2934406
Once more, Engels brings the British common sense.
>>2934403
>Already done:
<equivalent is exchanged for equivalent
Right. So, still no examples.
>The charge of robbery isn't a charge of fraud
>appropriation of unpaid labor
Why isn't it a matter of fraud if it has a disguised reality?
You Marxists are confused people.
I easily say that "profit is theft", but you have to twist it in jargon. Workers do not receive the full value in exchange – that is my position. Rent and profit are deductions, as Smith says; thencewise, commodities would be cheaper without rents and profits. This is the Smithian position – that the added real cost of commodities is itself theft.
>equivocates exchange with the substance of the relation.
If wages are entirely equal to the value of labour-power, what is being stolen and how? Where is the theft, anon? For example, since we both engage in this conversation with our own living labour, and produce use-values, are we stealing from each other, or conducting free service? We are both performing unpaid labour. Is there a theft? If not, when does a free or paid service exploit people?
>profit is theft
Define "theft". This is the crux of the matter.
>You say that exchange is equivalent, therefore there is no theft
No, that's what Marx says.
>the form of equivalent exchange conceals the content, i.e., the appropriation of unpaid labour.
Yes… but this appropriation is not "theft" to Marx.
>It does not mean there is no theft in the appropriation of labor, which is intrinsic to capitalist accumulation.
It depends how you define "theft".
I think profit is theft, but not for the same stated reason.
I prefer common sense over Hegelian hogwash – which is why I am careful to say that Smith and Marx agreed in essence. One is more straightforward than the other. Or do you actually think that distinguishing between labour and labour-power is theoretically imperative for things?
>You're incorrect in saying "nowhere"
Nowhere does Marx say that profit is theft. This is true.
You already began by framing it as "moral" theft.
>you have conceded my point about where the theft occurs.
I think theft occurs in non-equivalent exchange.
This is what most Socialists think, besides intervening Marxoids who want to be "dialectical" (masturbatory).
>nowhere does he do this
This refers to Marx, not Engels.
>an end to the capitalist's ability to appropriate surplus labor
You mean the private capitalist.
What about the state capitalist?
Your theory has already been put into practice.
>That is not a failure to reclaim property
So you want to abolish private property but also affirm private property? Sounds like a contradiction to me.

>>2934408
>Right. So, still no examples.
Plenty of examples have been provided, you're just playing dumb.
>Why isn't it a matter of fraud if it has a disguised reality?
Because fraud is a misrepresentation in the transaction. The Marxist claim is that there is no fraud in the exchange because labor-power is bought at its value. The "disguise" is the structural appearance of equivalent exchange which conceals the appropriation of unpaid labor in production. This is where capitalist profit is theft.
>Workers do not receive the full value in exchange – that is my position. Rent and profit are deductions, as Smith says
Then you are equivocating on "value." The worker receives the value of labor-power. The worker does not receive the value of the product.
>If wages are entirely equal to the value of labour-power, what is being stolen and how? Where is the theft, anon?
Fucking idiot. What is stolen is the surplus labor, i.e. labor time performed beyond what is necessary to reproduce the worker. How it's stolen is via the property relation. Workers are separated from the means of production, so they must sell their labor-power while the capitalist appropriates the surplus value created by their unpaid surplus labor.
>For example, since we both engage in this conversation with our own living labour, and produce use-values, are we stealing from each other, or conducting free service?
No. Theft in the Marxian sense requires appropriation of another person's labor by someone who has a property claim to the product, under conditions of class dependence. If we freely collaborate, there is no appropriation of surplus.
>Define "theft". This is the crux of the matter.
I defined it multiple times and you pretend like it doesn't exist. It is the unpaid appropriation of the worker's surplus labor without equivalent. It is theft from the standpoint of labor, but not in the standpoint of labor-power, which is enshrined in bourgeois axiom. The relation is equivalent in exchange, but not in production.
>No, that's what Marx says.
Going "NUH UH" like a child after I've explained to you why your interpretation is at best inaccurate while also supplying my own citations to substantiate my criticism will get you nowhere. Sorry!
>Yes… but this appropriation is not "theft" to Marx.
Yes, it is LMFAO.
For example, in Chapter 24 of Capital Volune 1, Marx explicitly says that even in the case where an "equivalent is exchanged for equivalent," the transaction is "only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of."
>I think profit is theft, but not for the same stated reason.
Okay? I don't care what you think. I care that you're deliberately misquoting Marx and Engels.
>Or do you actually think that distinguishing between labour and labour-power is theoretically imperative for things?
That is literally the Marxian position, you absolute doofus. Marx's whole point is that capitalism can be lawful and exploitative at the same time. Smith conflates labor with labor-power, which produces the vicious circle Marx criticizes.
>Nowhere does Marx say that profit is theft. This is true. You already began by framing it as "moral" theft.
I reiterate what I said above. Going "NUH UH" is not an argument. Marx repeatedly calls the appropriation of surplus value robbery, theft, embezzlement, and tribute.
>I think theft occurs in non-equivalent exchange. This is what most Socialists think
Then you disagree with the Marxian position. Marx's critique is precisely that theft occurs even when exchange is equivalent.
>This refers to Marx, not Engels.
Marx and Engels are in agreement with one another.
>You mean the private capitalist. What about the state capitalist? Your theory has already been put into practice.
Marx's target is capital as a social relation. If the state owns the means of production while workers still sell labor-power and surplus is appropriated by state managers, that is state capitalism. AES failures don't refute the analytical claim.
>So you want to abolish private property but also affirm private property?
Again, are you retarded? You're equivocating on "private property." Marxism seeks to abolish bourgeois ownership of productive assets, not all forms of private property.

>>2934445
>fraud is a misrepresentation in the transaction
If I say to you "I'll pay you for a day's work" and only pay you for half the day, am I being fraudulent? Yes. Who is playing dumb, now?
>labor-power is bought at its value.
Only if you abstract "labour-power" as a real variable. Characterising the capacity of labour as its own "commodity" is the tenuous logic of Marx.
Labour as such is underpaid; that is the Socialist understanding.
>conceals the appropriation of unpaid labor
And how is the concealment of unpaid labour not a type of fraud?
See how as a Marxist you must believe in the honesty of exchange?
>The worker receives the value of labor-power.
>The worker does not receive the value of the product.
So the worker is paid in full, but also robbed? Contradiction.
>What is stolen is the surplus labor
Again – how? You are currently performing surplus labour, but this isn't being stolen from you. The exertion of a surplus in the service of another person is not theft – unless you were promised full payment and denied it. We return to Smith – surplus value is a deduction.
>[theft is] appropriation of another person's labor by someone who has a property claim to the product
This is circular. Theft is a property relation, you agree, but at the same time see that property can nonetheless be unrightfully possessed – Marx says that the purchaser of labour has full rights to it, so also has the right to its product. This cannot be "theft" in any legal sense. Not in any "Marxian" sense either, since Marxists don't believe in property. To boil it down, what property of the worker is being stolen, exactly?
>If we freely collaborate, there is no appropriation of surplus.
What? Free contract presupposes the condition of inequality.
It is the free market that is endemic to capitalist relations, no?
The issue with employment is that it's dishonest more than it's unfair.
>It is theft from the standpoint of labor, but not in the standpoint of labor-power
Great – now, who has the right of property to this labour?
If the capitalist retains rights over this labour, there cannot be theft.
>I care that you're deliberately misquoting Marx and Engels.
Nowhere have I done this.
>Smith conflates labor with labor-power
Do you actually think a commodity called "labour-power" exists?
There is only labour in reality. I thought you were a materialist, no?
>Then you disagree with the Marxian position
I already began with this.
>Marx and Engels are in agreement with one another.
Spoken like a true dogmatist.
>Marx's target is capital as a social relation
State capitalism is still capitalism.
>Marxism seeks to abolish bourgeois ownership of productive assets, not all forms of private property.
Ask two Marxists what Communism is and you get two different answers – wouldn't you agree? It is incoherence.

>>2934484
>If I say to you "I'll pay you for a day's work" and only pay you for half the day, am I being fraudulent? Yes. Who is playing dumb, now?
That is not the transaction Marx describes. You continue to misrepresent the Marxian position. The capitalist buys labor-power, not "a day's work." So who is playing dumb? You, but I don't think you're playing anymore.
>Only if you abstract "labour-power" as a real variable. Characterising the capacity of labour as its own "commodity" is the tenuous logic of Marx. Labour as such is underpaid; that is the Socialist understanding.
Labor-power isn't an abstraction. It is the real capacity to labor, which is what the worker sells to the capitalist when separated from the means of production. It is the only way to explain surplus value and exploitation under the LTV without fraud. This is how profit is theft.
>And how is the concealment of unpaid labour not a type of fraud? See how as a Marxist you must believe in the honesty of exchange?
Because fraud is a misrepresentation in the transaction. The capitalist does not need to lie or misrepresent anything when hiring the worker. Marx's argument is that the exploitation/theft is structural through the selling of labor-power which is intrinsic for capitalist accumulation, not through fraudulent exchange activities.
>So the worker is paid in full, but also robbed? Contradiction.
There is no contradiction, you moron. The worker is paid in full for his labor-power, i.e., the cost of reproducing the work, not in full for the labor that went into producing the commodity. The surplus value difference between the two is extracted by the capitalist as profit. That is the theft.
>Again – how? You are currently performing surplus labour, but this isn't being stolen from you. The exertion of a surplus in the service of another person is not theft – unless you were promised full payment and denied it.
It is theft under capitalism's relations of production where workers are separated from the means of production and must sell labor-power as a result. You are ignoring the property relation, which is structural and unavoidable to achieve subsistence as a worker in the capitalist mode of production. Exploitation is not any unpaid labor, but rather the appropriation of surplus labor by the bourgeoisie through their monopoly on the means of production.
>We return to Smith – surplus value is a deduction.
Please return to Smith. Marxism is obviously too complicated for you.
>This is circular. Theft is a property relation, you agree, but at the same time see that property can nonetheless be unrightfully possessed – Marx says that the purchaser of labour has full rights to it, so also has the right to its product. This cannot be "theft" in any legal sense. Not in any "Marxian" sense either, since Marxists don't believe in property. To boil it down, what property of the worker is being stolen, exactly?
WTF are you babbling about? "Marxists don't believe in property?" According to who? You, some random pseudointellect online? Marxism seeks to abolish bourgeois control of the means of production, but it isn't against ownership of property in and of itself. For fucks sake, they even clarify this in the Communist Manifesto.
Nothing about the theft is circular. The capitalist has a legal right under bourgeois property; however, that right is not morally self-justifying. The theft occurs via the worker selling labor-power for its value, despite labor-power in production creating more value than it costs, which the capitalist then appropriates surplus without equivalent. There is nothing circular about that because bourgeois property rights are irrelevant to Marxists.
>What? Free contract presupposes the condition of inequality. It is the free market that is endemic to capitalist relations, no? The issue with employment is that it's dishonest more than it's unfair.
Per Marx, the freedom of contract is made under class dependence. There is no dishonesty, but rather exploitation through bourgeois property ownership. If you reduce it to dishonesty, you have diverged from Marx.
>Great – now, who has the right of property to this labour? If the capitalist retains rights over this labour, there cannot be theft.
No, dumbass. Marx’s point is that legal right is not the final word. The capitalist's right is valid by capitalism's own terms, but not in an absolute sense. This is again, your own cherrypicked reading of Marx that you’re trying to force on to unsuspecting readers.
>Nowhere have I done this.
You have in fact. Repeatedly. You said "nowhere does he do this" about Marx's theft language. That is false: ch. 24 of Capital vol. 1 says the capitalist buys "with the money he has robbed them of"; the surplus product is "embezzled… without return of an equivalent"; private consumption is "a robbery perpetrated on accumulation." You also said “to Marx, profit is not theft." That is at best an equivocation between juridical theft and Marx's own language of robbery. Again, I supplied the citations earlier in the thread so anyone can go and see it.
>Do you actually think a commodity called "labour-power" exists? There is only labour in reality. I thought you were a materialist, no?
Labor-power is the real capacity to labor, distinct from its exercise. It is thus sold before it is used. If you collapse labor-power into labor, you get classical bourgeois economics propagated by the likes of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
>I already began with this.
Then you should be able to disagree without having to deceptively quote Marx, lol. I don't even care about your dogshit opinions; just demolishing your falsehoods of Marx because I know no one else will.
>Spoken like a true dogmatist.
Saying Marx and Engels textually agree with one another isn't dogma, dumbfuck.
>State capitalism is still capitalism.
The same social relations apply. State ownership isn't abolition. Engels makes this clear in Anti-Duhring.
>Ask two Marxists what Communism is and you get two different answers – wouldn't you agree? It is incoherence.
Disagreements about details do not make the core incoherent.

>>2932533
>You're not understanding my point.
I understand it perfectly well. you claim that marx said that the tprf is because of competition, and you base that on one of his unfinished drafts where he talks about equalization of the general rate of profit

which is… do you even understand how averages work? equalization, even if you want to argue that it happens, and that it happens because of competition, doesn't imply a change in the average. for example, imagine a situation where
<capitalist firm A has 50% profits, B has 40%, and C has 30%
if capital shifted hands through competition, you could have next A with 45%, B with 40%, and C with 35%. a equalization took place, but the general rate is still the same (because the capital added to A was taken from the unproductive C)

again, marx doesn't claim that the tprf is directly related to competition, and even in that note, he is not talking about the tprf, but about a hypothetical equalization of profit rates among different spheres of production

>That is probably my fault for bad communication.
your fault is that you said something stupid, and now you're trying to pivot to something else to save face

you do have a problem expressing yourself because you only have a surface knowledge of these things, and want to bend them to fit your anti-marxist ideology. for example, you make several terminological mistakes, such as:
>the rate of profit is inverse of the rate of exploitation
which is straight up wrong, no matter how you look at it

but despite those mistakes, I'm addressing the point you're trying to make. there is no comprehension issues between me and you, only between you and marx

>The absolute profit is inverse from the rate of profit.
>The higher the total profit, the lesser the margin of profit.
now you're reverting the the difference between absolute and relative surplus; except you aren't, because you don't understand marx. higher absolute surplus doesn't imply that the relative surplus has gone down. for example, let
c + v = 1; p = 2; (p/c+v) = 2
then, let
c + v = 2; p = 4; (p/c+v) = 2

what marx said is that the relative surplus will depend, ultimately, on the organic composition of capital. not on the "absolute profit" as a number alone, which doesn't mean anything by itself. then, the tprf depends on that organic composition, not on competition

>Competition affects the GENERAL rate of profit.
that claim is not related to the marx quote you posted though. we are not arguing about your theories. what marx wrote there (again, in something he didn't finish) was:
<The average profit would then be computed on that portion of the social capital which enters the equalization process. It is evident that the average profit can be nothing but the total mass of surplus-values allotted to the various quantities of capital proportionally to their magnitudes in their different spheres of production. It is the total realized unpaid labour, and this total mass, like the paid, congealed or living, labour, obtains in the total mass of commodities and money that falls to the capitalists.
the "total mass of surplus-values" doesn't change because of the equalization, the only thing that changes is how it is distributed between capitals

>You seem to be overly-rationalising your opposition.
? marxism isn't vibes, you can't just say whatever. btw

>explaining his concepts
this is false. you confused the rate of exploitation with the absolute surplus value, you don't understand these things

BTW
you write like a llm, what do you see in this pic?

>>2934554 (me)
>i.e., the cost of reproducing the work
I made a typo here. Should be the cost of reproducing the worker.

>>2934323
The first quote is a well-picked cherry. I can see how a reasonable person not familiar with Marx would read that as Marx saying profit is theft. The problem is: How does this fit with Marx explicitly stating the opposite, as shown in post >>2934309 (and there are other instances of Marx & Engels restating that, though I don't have them all at hand atm)?

The second quote gives no support whatsoever to your interpretation and is about something else entirely. You might want to read that again. Marx says about the capitalist:
<his own private consumption is a robbery perpetrated on accumulation
The capitalist as a living human being who needs to consume to live, and who wants to spend more on consumption than basics because he wants to live well, is in conflict with…
*drummroll*
…himself in his role as an accumulation-maxxer. One part of him is "stealing" from the other part of him. Very poetic, no?

>>2934895
>The first quote is a well-picked cherry. I can see how a reasonable person not familiar with Marx would read that as Marx saying profit is theft.
There is no cherrypick. It is Marx's own summary of accumulation: the surplus-product is "the tribute annually exacted from the working class by the capitalist class"; indeed, even when "equivalent is exchanged for equivalent," the transaction is "only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of." It is the conclusion of Marx's analysis of how capital accumulates through robbery.
>How does this fit with Marx explicitly stating the opposite, as shown in post >>2934309 (and there are other instances of Marx & Engels restating that, though I don't have them all at hand atm)
It fits because Marx is making two distinct points, and you keep collapsing them. This is either because you're too incompetent to understand Marx or you're deliberately misrepresenting Marx for ideological reasons. In chapter 7 (your quote), Marx says the worker suffers "by no means an injury" in the exchange, i.e., because labor-power is bought at its value, there is no fraud that occurs at the point of sale. But the theft is not located in the wage contract; it arises in production because the use-value of labor-power is labor that creates more value than the value of labor-power. Thus, in chapter 24 (my quote), Marx says capitalist accumulation reveals and reproduces the robbery because the capitalist buys labor-power with money that is itself the product of prior unpaid labor, and appropriates the surplus product without equivalent. Marx then combines the two concepts: "equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, yet the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror." There is no contradiction if you have an autism score above room temperature.
>The second quote gives no support whatsoever to your interpretation and is about something else entirely. You might want to read that again.
I have read it. It's about the capitalist's private consumption versus accumulation. I did not present it as the central proof of exploitation; I presented it as evidence that Marx habitually uses the language of thievery for capitalist functions.
>Marx says about the capitalist:
<his own private consumption is a robbery perpetrated on accumulation
Look at the surrounding text, retard: "To accumulate, is to conquer the world of social wealth, to increase the mass of human beings exploited by him." Marx is describing the capitalist as a function of capital, driven to accumulate by appropriating surplus labor. In chapter 24, Marx characterizes the exploitation of workers as the robbery:
<The means of production, with which the additional labour-power is incorporated, as well as the necessaries with which the labourers are sustained, are nothing but component parts of the surplus-product, of the tribute annually exacted from the working class by the capitalist class. Though the latter with a portion of that tribute purchases the additional labour-power even at its full price, so that equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, yet the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of.
>The capitalist as a living human being who needs to consume to live, and who wants to spend more on consumption than basics because he wants to live well, is in conflict with… *drummroll* …himself in his role as an accumulation-maxxer. One part of him is "stealing" from the other part of him. Very poetic, no?
Yes, and? Per Marx, the capitalist is a personification of capital, divided between consumption and accumulation. If Marx can call the capitalist's consumption a "robbery perpetrated on accumulation," then "robbery" is clearly not restricted to juridical fraud in exchange. It is a moral-political characterization of capital's drive to appropriate surplus labor.

>>2934577
I hope you feel better one day.
>>2934554
>That is not the transaction Marx describes
I'm not talking about Marx, I'm asking you as a person.
Is capitalist exchange fraudulent? Yes or no?
You obviously know it is, but want to appease your master.
>The capitalist buys labor-power, not "a day's work."
Labour-power is a euphemism for subsistence.
You are concerned with the forms in which capitalism appears, but everybody in society (i.e. except Marxists) knows that what is purported to be sold is "labour". It is in every economic textbook (i.e. except Marxists') that the "commodity" which is sold to employers is "labour". Back in ancient forms of wage labour, it was paid at the end of the day; we still use the expression. So again, there is what Marx says, and what you actually believe. Dialectical jargon doesn't escape the fact of the matter.
>the only way to explain surplus value and exploitation under the LTV without fraud
Precisely. But capitalist exchange is evidently fraudulent.
Don't you find it strange defending capitalist relations?
>fraud is a misrepresentation in the transaction
Yes – the capitalist purchases "labour" but undercuts it.
>There is no contradiction
But you're literally positing an internal contradiction.
>That is the theft.
You don't know what theft is. That's your problem.
>The capitalist has a legal right under bourgeois property; however, that right is not morally self-justifying.
Here we go. So then, property rights are metaphysical? They exist as a claim outside of its immanent social forms? You can "steal" from someone even if the state or society does not recognise it as theft? Please tell me.
>The theft occurs via the worker selling labor-power for its value
Okay, so exploitation begins in the exchange process?
>bourgeois property rights are irrelevant to Marxists.
Marxists only believe in metaphysical property, clearly.
>There is no dishonesty, but rather exploitation
So the capitalist exploits workers with transparency?
The capitalist says "I will steal this labour from you in return for your subsistence?" Please don't lie to yourself. The purpose of theory is to expose these real relations. If capitalists were honest, could capitalism persist? No.
>legal right is not the final word
So where do property rights come from? God? Nature? What gives "moral self-justification" for possessions?
>If you collapse labor-power into labor, you get classical bourgeois economics propagated by the likes of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
Notice how simple and easy my understanding of easy and simple phenomena are, while your circumlocution just ends up in the same place anyway. You say yourself that Marx is "complicated". That means he's a bad writer.
>you should be able to disagree without having to deceptively quote Marx
It's clear that you're too stubborn on this.
But I'll try to give a final word: Marx sees that the rights of property to labour belong to the capitalist by sale of the worker's own commodity. Profit is thus yielded from his own private consumption. For profit to be theft, the worker must have a claim to "labour", not "labour-power".
>Marx and Engels textually agree with one another
Not on everything.
Your dogma is presupposing a clean doctrine.
>Disagreements about details do not make the core incoherent.
And what is the core? That private property is abolished but also private property is affirmed? That capitalism is abolished but capitalism is affirmed? People are right when they say Communism is just when the government owns everything. That's what it seems to boil down to. But if I'm incorrect, please educate me on the "core" of it.

>>2934951
>Is capitalist exchange fraudulent? Yes or no?
No.
>You are concerned with the forms in which capitalism appears, but everybody in society (i.e. except Marxists) knows that what is purported to be sold is "labour". It is in every economic textbook (i.e. except Marxists') that the "commodity" which is sold to employers is "labour".
Nobody cares about what "every economic textbook" says, retard. The discussion at hand are your distortions of Marx.
>Precisely. But capitalist exchange is evidently fraudulent.
No, it isn't, dumbfuck. The wage contract is fulfilled; the worker is paid the value of labor-power, which is what the worker agrees to when he or she is hired. Fraud would be refusing to pay or deception.
>Yes – the capitalist purchases "labour" but undercuts it.
No, the capitalist purchases labor-power and pays it its full value. The "undercut" is the difference between value created and value paid for labor-power.
>But you're literally positing an internal contradiction.
Retard. Equivalent exchange and appropriation without equivalent coexist. That’s Marx's point.
>You don't know what theft is. That's your problem.
Appropriation of unpaid labor through a property relation, NOT through fraud in the exchange of labor-power.
>So then, property rights are metaphysical? They exist as a claim outside of its immanent social forms? You can "steal" from someone even if the state or society does not recognise it as theft?
>Marxists only believe in metaphysical property, clearly.
WTF are you babbling about, pseudointellect wannabe? Property rights are historical social relations, not metaphysical. Theft in the context of Marx is a moral-political judgment, not a legal one.
>Okay, so exploitation begins in the exchange process?
NO. It occurs in production.
>So the capitalist exploits workers with transparency? The capitalist says "I will steal this labour from you in return for your subsistence?" Please don't lie to yourself. The purpose of theory is to expose these real relations. If capitalists were honest, could capitalism persist? No.
You're braindead. The capitalist mode production does not require dishonesty to perpetuate itself. It requires the structural relation of wage labor and capital, that the workers remain disconnected from the means of production and therefore must rely on selling labor-power to survive. An honest capitalist who pays the full value of labor-power still extracts surplus value.
>So where do property rights come from? God? Nature? What gives "moral self-justification" for possessions?
Property rights come from political power and historical social relations.
>Notice how simple and easy my understanding of easy and simple phenomena are, while your circumlocution just ends up in the same place anyway. You say yourself that Marx is "complicated". That means he's a bad writer.
No, that just means you're not understanding it, lmfao.
>Marx sees that the rights of property to labour belong to the capitalist by sale of the worker's own commodity. Profit is thus yielded from his own private consumption. For profit to be theft, the worker must have a claim to "labour", not "labour-power".
You're attacking a strawman. Capitalist profit isn't "yielded from his own private consumption"; surplus value is produced in production. And the worker's claim isn't a bourgeois property right to labor, but rather that the wage relation presupposes separation from the means of production and appropriates unpaid labor time. Legal title can be valid and still not morally justified.
>Not on everything. Your dogma is presupposing a clean doctrine.
I didn't say everything, dumbass. On the point that surplus appropriation is theft, they textually agree.
>And what is the core? That private property is abolished but also private property is affirmed?
The core is abolishing capitalist private property in the means of production, i.e., ending the class relation that lets a minority monopolize production and exploit wage labor. That Marxists oppose private property in and of itself is a myth perpetuated by disingenuous retards like you.

>>2935012
You're hopeless at the moment.
I pray that one day you come to reason.
Best of luck to you and I hope you have a great life. 🙏

>>2935027
>I give up, but I'm gonna whine about how you're le hopeless to save face
Surrender accepted, but I could do without your coping.

>>>/leftypol/2934951
>completely gives up at the sight of a captcha
holy shit

>>2934908
>There is no cherrypick.
How many cherries do you have? Repeatedly referring to the same passage does not count as several quotations.
>In chapter 7 (your quote), Marx says the worker suffers "by no means an injury"
As was pointed out in >>2934309 already, the original word is Unrecht = injustice.
>because labor-power is bought at its value, there is no fraud that occurs at the point of sale. But the theft is not located in the wage contract; it arises in production
This amounts to poetry (derogatory).

There are two types of theft, a person steals A) by sneaky means or B) by violent means. Which one is it? A kid who fails at being sneaky fails at stealing from me. The capitalist process is intransparent. Some of the time I am working covers the cost of my wage and I work for some time beyond that point, but no bell rings to tell me when the switch happens. Suppose I hacked into the accounting database of my boss. Then I would know. Now, what do I do with that knowledge? Me become aware of the sneaky surplus-extraction switch point (picture a big ❗ popping up over my head) does not undo shit here. So yeah, there is something sneaky about the whole state of affairs, but it is not A). So is it B) then? Does my boss hold a gun to my head? No.

Is this concept to narrow and brittle? How about this, then: We might posit that capitalists are violent as a group and they steal together as a group. Does that work. Well, Dühring said something like that. He spoke of the capitalist as the "man with the rapier in hand" and Engels mocked him mercilessly for that. The police and army are the armed people protecting the state, but these armed people are not identical with the capitalists nor are they simply a sub-group of the capitalists, and besides, all these people together and all the capitalists would have no chance against the organized massive majority of the rest of society who C O N S E N T to capitalist society, as frustrating as that fact of life is.

You take Marx and Engels in their flattest and least precise expressions, the sort of thing that instantly feels good as a slogan, but is kinda dumb if you think about it for a moment, and you act like you were digging at the core of the deepest knowledge.

>It's about the capitalist's private consumption versus accumulation. I did not present it as the central proof of exploitation; I presented it as evidence that Marx habitually uses the language of thievery for capitalist functions.
The little problem you got here is that the victim of the metaphorical "robbery" is not the worker.
>Marx is describing the capitalist as a function of capital, driven to accumulate by appropriating surplus labor (…) Per Marx, the capitalist is a personification of capital, divided between consumption and accumulation.
One-sided. In that passage Marx says that the person who is a capitalist is a human being who is torn between conflicting goals and one of these is accumulating surplus, and the other is his own consumption. If he truly were the personification of capital 100 percent, he would not be divided.

You have not brought up anything new about these two passages. I said what I think about these two passages. If you want to go on referring to these same bits over and over you can do that and I can post a one-liner response referring to what I already posted, but for this discussion to have a chance of being even mildly interesting I suggest we look for other passages before continuing.