Now that the dust has settled, what the fuck was his problem? Why did he disavow his work on imperialism and what's he doing today?
The booty was too short or empty.
>>2931871I guess hes realized he was wrong about unequal exchange.
>>2931871He became really angry that the left refused to condemn Hamas.
On a more serious note this explanation itself sounds like a major cope (lol) and my hypothesis is that since he got a comfortable academic gig in a university he decided to sell out his soul in exchange for keeping that job. Sad! Many such cases!
>"My last two published monographs (Cope, 2015, 2019) are based on Marxist views that are outright false or misleadingly one-sided. I hereby retract them. Having been committed to the toxic Marxist perspective for more than half my life, it ultimately proved impossible for me not to perceive the consistent and century-old pattern of far-left apologetics for every conceivable atrocity committed by avowed enemies of the West (including war crimes and genocide), these typically starting with denial, moving to excuse, and ending in justification (Glazov, 2009, p. 208). This was starkly highlighted in the leftist response to the bestial violence unleashed by Hamas terrorists in Israel on October 7, 2023 (Berkovits, 2024). Laboring under Marxian fantasies for so long, following the shock of recognition in witnessing such moral and intellectual decrepitude its dissolution in my mind was precipitate. Undoubtedly, as Polish philosopher and historian Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) wrote, “the extinction of myths requires certain conditions. But,” he continues, “it will be a mass extinction: once one myth is exposed, the rest will follow, hurtling down like an avalanche. [. . .] And its collapse had to be as total as its rule had been: a chain of divinities, collapsing like a pack of cards. What folly to imagine it was possible to extract just one!” (Kolakowski, 2012)."
>“In the name of anti-imperialism, nominal socialists have, inter alia, denied the genocidal colonialism of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia during the Balkans Wars of the 1990s. Today, proponents of ‘multipolarity’ deny the appalling repression conducted by the Chinese government against the Uyghur people of Xinjiang/East Turkestan, and China’s record of human rights violations, extreme labour exploitation, widespread environmental despoliation, and unequal relations with weaker economic partners. Contemporary ‘anti-imperialists’ have justified, denied, or simply ignored crimes against humanity on the part of Syria’s (neo)patrimonial billionaire dictatorship and its Russian and Iranian patrons. They have defended or minimized the deadly Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine, and they have disregarded Russian economic imperialism in the former Soviet Republics. Self-professed ‘anti-imperialists’ have lionized the rentier-capitalist governments of ‘socialist’ Venezuela and other corrupt and authoritarian populist regimes in Central and South America. Many socialists routinely confuse anti-imperialism with anti-Semitism, all of the above with frequent recourse to rhetorical strawman, tu quoque, and ad hominem illogic.
>In their shared anti-elitism, ideological antipluralism, and threatened nationalism, the far left and far right often espouse a similar paranoid and conspiracist populism."
>>2931882<i denounce marxism>lists off positions that have nothing to do with marxism (commies didn't condom serbia and uyghurs o algo)>uses kolakowski to advocate against opposition to genocide and zionist censorshipKek, looks like the anon who said he did it for some academia grift was right
>>2931880Bordiga could have saved him
>>2931882>Muh evil serbs, muh poor uyghurs, muh russiayeah there's 0% chance he actually believes any of this shit he really did just sell himself out for a comfy job.
>>2931920>yeah there's 0% chance he actually believes any of this shit Hes a basic bitch liberal. Of course he believes CIA funded propaganda.
>>2931879Unequal exchange has been reaffirmed endlessly. Only lolbertarians and Eurocentric liberals deny it at this point.
>>2931960>Unequal exchange has been reaffirmed endlessly.It rests on debunked LTV theory.
>>2931969>debunkedRetard detected. Opinion discarded.
>>2931969Right… and only lolbertarians and Eurocentric liberals think LTV has been "debunked."
Besides, you don't even need LTV to prove unequal exchange, just use a relevant metric and a benchmark.
>>2931969>LTV… badOk liberal how about you try to have a society without working?
>>2931871>Now that the dust has settled, what the fuck was his problem? Why did he disavow his work on imperialism and what's he doing today?>>2931879>I guess hes realized he was wrong about unequal exchange.If only it were that simple. He didn't just disavow his own work, he turned into a gigazionist. I think he either was always a reactionary, or he got kidnapped by the CIA and tortured or was given involuntary brain surgery.
>>2931882>unequal exchange>marxistanyone who call themselves a marxist and at the same time believes in unequal exchange is a grifter just like this guy. regardless of whether you think ue is real or not, it is fundamentally incompatible with marxism. anyone claiming to uphold both, doesn't actually give a shit about either
>>2931992So, Eurocentric liberal it is.
>>2931992marx pioneered unequal exchmage, thobeit.
>>2931969my belief in Unequal exchange has been reaffirmed
>>2931891based on what he says here
>>2931882 he seems pretty ultra left. "the anti imperialists are all hypocrites doing apologetics for alt-imperialism" is something we hear frequently out of the so called "Bordigists" on this board. He left communism because it wasn't left enough for him. It's especially embittering that out of the grab bag of examples he chose to cry about October 7 2023 first and foremost. really buddy? Gaza striking back is what made you finally give up on Communism? Muh hecking "antisemitism" of a genocided people doing the modern equivalent of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?
>>2931992>>2931997>marx pioneered unequal exchmage, thobeit.the people who say unequal exchange isn't true (like cockshott) rest on a highly pedantic foundation of "well under generalized commodity production in bourgeois society, equal values are always exchanged". they get this from a vulgar reading of marx
>>2931999Bordiga cheered on the Axis powers against the Allies during WW2 on the basis that the Axis would hasten the collapse of the British Empire, but leftcoms somehow don't extend that logic to the Global South destabilizing Northern imperialism.
>>2931999You don't need to be a leftcom to see the marcyite tier mental gymnastics of supporting serbian/russian irredentism and random regimes built on the corpses of socialist movements as silly. Zak was one of those guys!
>>2932003'Diga didn't actually cheer them on, this is a meme that could be rectified by reading any single one of his texts where he mentions WW2. It's based on a quote he made under police surveillance in fascist Italy during the war.
>>2932000Cockshott only says that shit because it's required to uphold the "Falling Rate of Profit" line constantly going down doom graphs which point towards a final irreversible end to capitalism sometime in the next 10 years. It's pure copium just ignore his L take on this. He's a STEMtard so he wants there to be a scientifically verifiable final conclusion and he'll ignore or slander everything that doesn't support it.
>>2932017Yeah rate of profit falling is a tendency and not an absolute rule like gravity or entropy. You can get around it through capital destruction like in WWII, government subsidies (no farm can exist without them), keeping wages down and having the government pick up the tab through welfare.
>>2932011>'Diga didn't actually cheer them onHe did, and there is no evidence he ever retracted or denounced his pro-Axis WW2 views after the war ended. His pro-Axis stance was consistent throughout the entirety of WW2 and aligns with his broader anti-anti-fascist philosophy. I don't even know why leftcoms try to deny Bordiga supported the Axis; he was right.
>>2932034Why do you think marxist parties in the third world have largely failed to take power in the last 30 years? precisely because their theory is wrong.
>>2932017for someone calling cockshott vulgar you seem to have no understand of what marx meant by the tendency of falling rate of profits. it is a tendency, not a vibe, you can measure it. and the reasons are fairly mechanical (bet you hate that word) and inescapable. here is the thing though: you're going to have to do some math. speaking of latin-america, here is the line that is common here on the subject, explained by david laibman
it's crazy how focused you're on cockshott, I'm going to have to read him
>>2932025Again, you didn't read shit you stupid uyghur. I hate it when leftyfaggots just type shit and act authoritative on subject they have no idea about.
>>2932045Right wingers and liberals do it all the time and they consistently get power and hold on to it while Marxists bury themselves in footnotes as the world moves on without them, stop caring about being right
>>2932045Show me where Bordiga denounced his pro-Axis views after the war had ended then. In his last interview, he said he was unrepentant about everything.
>>2932039Marx took the idea of a falling rate of profit from bourgeois writers like Ricardo. It used to be considered non-controversial, since it is simply an effect of equalising by competition, whether in local or global markets. Adam Smith traces the national rate of profit from the 16th century, which he saw as declining up to his time, due to accumulation of capital – mercantilists such as Potter (1650) and Child (1668) also noted the difference of interest rates between Holland and England, which Petty (1662) and Locke (1690) explained as a factor of capital stock employed in production. Naturally, total profits decrease at the margins – so as Marx says, the rate of profit declines in proportion to an increase in the rate of exploitation. The tendency is suspended in the case that the law of value is also suspended by monopoly, though, which manually sets price at the highest margin of bargaining power. Competition is central to Marx's theory, which presumes free markets. It is entirely contested whether such things survived the 20th century.
>>2932017what? but cockshott doesnt view the tendency of the profit to fall that important, he agrees that there might be a tendency but he thinks it will never truly reach zero. Michael Roberts is the one arguing that it is trending towards zero however with the huge caveat that would only happen decades from now for major economies, at best somewhere around 2100 and even that would only happen if everything else stays the same, like no new wars breaking out, rising productivity etc…. Current vulgar economists deny it (even though people like Adam Smith already were aware of it) simply because it would threaten their entire viewpoint.
>>2931992The marxist interpretation of unequal exchange is an equalising of the rate of profit by combining capitals. In less developed nations, the rate is higher due to lesser proportions of fixed stock; the more developed can then shift the price down to usurp the average rate of profit from them – by international competition. This is why a capital-intensive firm (e.g. in the developed world) can still operate on stable profits (since it siphens profits away from smaller businesses). That is the compatibility within a Marxist framework. I don't know whether it's true.
>>2932000But the value of capitalist commodities includes the surplus, which in Marx's view, combines in complex markets, averaging out profit rates. This is why to Marx, particular commodities do not sell at their values (e.g. their "market values" are determined from an average case):
<Those who produce at the worst extreme must then sell their commodities below the individual value; those producing at the best extreme sell them above it […] Demand and supply imply the conversion of value into market-value, and so far as they proceed on a capitalist basis […] The price of production includes the average profit […] Our analysis has revealed how the market-value (and everything said concerning it applies with appropriate modifications to the price of production) embraces a surplus-profit for those who produce in any particular sphere of production under the most favourable conditions.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htmThis term, "surplus profit" is called "super profit" in Leninist analysis.
>>2932057if marx's theory is the same as ricardo, then you didn't understand ricardo
if you did understand ricardo, then marx's theory is different because it has nothing to do with competition or what you posted
rates of profit tend to fall because the organic composition of capital tends to rise. competition or not, you need people to produce things, the more tools and machines there are, the bigger the ratio of work that goes back into producing those machines and tools. and thus, it is the other way around: increasing exploitation rates (the % appropriated) is often the only way to maintain the profit rates. in turn, increasing exploitation disincentivizes innovation and reproduction
>>2932077>it has nothing to do with competitionI'm afraid to say that you are illiterate of Marx's work.
The tendency of a falling GENERAL rate of profit is by competition:
<Equalisation of the General Rate of Profit Through Competition […] Competition so distributes the social capital among the various spheres of production that the prices of production in each sphere take shape according to the model of the prices of production in these spheres of average composition […] All other capitals, of whatever composition, tend toward this average under pressure of competition […] And it is competition of capitals in different spheres, which first brings out the price of production equalizing the rates of profit in the different spheres.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htmEt cetera, et cetera. Good day, sir!
>>2932034>most marxist parties in latin america take autistic care to say "unequal development" (the marxist line that you call vulgar) instead of "unequal exchange", because of how irrational and stupid that theory isquick rundown on what's the difference for normies
>>2932075>the more developed can then shift the price down to usurp the average rate of profit from themthis doesn't make any sense at all
>can still operate on stable profitsbecause the exploitation rates are higher
let cc be the constant capital, vc the variable capital, and p the product
if cc=1, vc=1 and p=4, then the worker produced 3 units, was paid 1, and the profit was 2 units
if you invested into new machines and now cc=2, vc=?, and p=6; note that productivity has gone up, but
- if the new wage is 1u like it was before, exploitation went from 66% to 75%
- if wages increase with productivity, then the profit rate will be lower than before, making the switch pointless
this means that, usually, exploitation rates are higher in the developed economies
>>2932080the volume 3 was not published by marx, it was published after his death from his notes. if you go to the first volume of capital:
<From what has gone before, we know that surplus-value is purely the result of a variation in the value of v, of that portion of the capital which is transformed into labour-power; consequently, v + s = v + v', or v plus an increment of v. But the fact that it is v alone that varies, and the conditions of that variation, are obscured by the circumstance that in consequence of the increase in the variable component of the capital, there is also an increase in the sum total of the advanced capital. It was originally £500 and becomes £590. Therefore in order that our investigation may lead to accurate results, we must make abstraction from that portion of the value of the product, in which constant capital alone appears, and consequently must equate the constant capital to zero or make c = 0. This is merely an application of a mathematical rule, employed whenever we operate with constant and variable magnitudes, related to each other by the symbols of addition and subtraction only. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch09.htm>>2932081the unequal exchange theory claims that countries in the third world sell commodities to the first world for less than they are worth, that the first world does the opposite, and that this order is maintained through coercion. the evidence for this was taken from aggregated economic statistics: A sold 100kg of "minerals" to B for 100$, and then bought 50kg of "minerals" from B for 100$. it then follows that this explains the unequal living conditions in the first and the third world
the unequal development theory claims that economies in the developed countries are more capital intensive and more productive, and that explains the differences in wealth between nations. the evidence given is that most commodities with an international market have global prices. the international cost of a barrel of diesel is ~200$ + shipping regardless of if you are in brazil or in the uk. then there is taxes and such particular to each country, but that's not expressed in international prices
the practical difference is that the first one pursues an isolationist policy and the second the development of the means of production
>>2932083yes, there is pillaging, but the problem of the theory is that pillaging doesn't happen through some convoluted international trade trickery. stealing shit is a rather straightforward process that doesn't involve price differences
>>2932083Why did saddam try to make his economy basef upon a gold standard again
>>2932100>this doesn't make any sense at allMany struggle with Capital Vol. 3.
>because the exploitation rates are higherYes, but the rate of profit is inverse of the rate of exploitation.
This is why larger investments lead to lesser marginal returns.
Rate of exploitation (surplus): s/v
Rate of profit: s/(c+v)
>volume 3 was not published by marx, it was published after his death from his notesYou can read his "notes" here:
https://libcom.org/article/capital-volume-3-unedited-engelsIt's basically the same book.
>>2932102He didn't, that was Gaddafi. Saddam moved over to the Euro.
The reason Gaddafi wanted to do it was to hold a monopoly over the terms of trade, since to purchase Libyan oil in gold, you'd have to pay a higher price; it was basically forcing the rising of oil prices to then invest into a Bank of Africa (as he proposed).
>>2932083The bars are brass made to look like gold probably getting disposed by the US. It's not gold that the US took, the oil revenue to this day goes to the federal bank then is "given" to Iraq.
Also 900 million dollars are bread crumbs compared to the trillions that were and are made from privatization to this day. Stop giving chuds gotchas
>zak cope devolved into zio seethe
sad!
>>2932125>ignored the question, got all huffy about the picmany such cases
>>2932135I don't care to debate succdem delusions. Stop posting coal if you don't want to be called out.
>>2932113>the rate of profit is inverse of the rate of exploitation>Rate of exploitation (surplus): s/v>Rate of profit: s/(c+v)those are not inverses… I don't know what to tell you man, this is high-school math
let E be the rate of exploitation, the inverse of E would be 1/E, which is not the case here
case in point, imagine the capitalist decided to pay their workers less, say, half, it is evident that
s/v < s/(v/2)
the rate of profit would also be affected in the same direction (increase)
s/(c+v) < s/(c+v/2)
so not only is not the inverse, it is also evident that, all things equal, higher exploitation can produce higher profits. and in the developed economies it is often the only way of maintaining and increasing the profit rates
>You can read his "notes" here:>It's basically the same book.that's the problem. the problem is not the revisions, but that those are notes, not a book. the point of a draft is that you make mistakes
furthermore, you seem to be avoiding the main point I made, which is that the tendency of profit rates to fall doesn't depend on competition, but on the organic composition of capital, and the distinction between variable and constant capital. even if you uncritically accepted the claim that profit rates equalize among spheres of production, that's not the same as saying that the rate of profit tends to decrease. the book from laibman goes into detail about it
>>2932138>because I think that's what a lot of people who don't care about the diff between UE and UD are getting at.we are no talking about random people here but about the positions that political parties take, and the difference is important for them because they need a more or less consistent and practical model of the world. if you really want to take power, if you really want to change things, sometimes you need some precision and discipline when you talk about these things. the practical difference here is that if you believe in ue, then the logical strategy is to close foreign trade. whereas if you take ud, the strategy will probably be to accumulate and develop, maybe by replacing the local bourgeoisie if they have proven to be incapable of performing that task
>>2932138>what do you make of the notion that the first world is more capital intensive because it plunders resources from the third worldNot only does it plunder resources from the Global South, but also labor time. Like I said earlier in this thread, unequal exchange is basically undeniable.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49687-y<Researchers have argued that wealthy nations rely on a large net appropriation of labour and resources from the rest of the world through unequal exchange in international trade and global commodity chains. Here we assess this empirically by measuring flows of embodied labour in the world economy from 1995–2021, accounting for skill levels, sectors and wages. We find that, in 2021, the economies of the global North net-appropriated 826 billion hours of embodied labour from the global South, across all skill levels and sectors. The wage value of this net-appropriated labour was equivalent to €16.9 trillion in Northern prices, accounting for skill level. This appropriation roughly doubles the labour that is available for Northern consumption but drains the South of productive capacity that could be used instead for local human needs and development. Unequal exchange is understood to be driven in part by systematic wage inequalities. We find Southern wages are 87–95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income. >>2932135so countries never steal stuff from each other and believing otherwise is a 'succdem delusion' now? really? just checking.
>>2932235They do so through capital export as demonstrated in the case of Iraq 2 posts ago, not comical sensationalist nonsense.
>>2932291did it or did it not happen in real life, master baiter?
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