Quick rundown of Marxian political economics

[untermensche]

So, it sounds like you're saying value is personal, subjective and contextual.

I am saying those things are only considerations in the assigning of value.

But the value is only assigned to something when the money is paid for it. That is the way it works in the world we have created today.

That is the objective value that allows an objective as opposed to romanticized economy to exist.

 

[PyramidHead]

Because the painting is a fetishized commodity that rich people use to display their wealth, and is not priced according to how much labor it took to create. In other words, it's a rip-off.


Because the value of sports in society has been displaced from the effort it takes to play them, and is primarily derived from the usefulness they serve as vehicles for advertising. In other words, basketball players are grossly overpaid.


In principle, there's an amount of labor time that, on average, any given thing will take to produce under average conditions using whatever resources are available. You might recall this from my previous post. Things that take longer tend to cost more, and when innovations are created that make them take less labor time, the price tends to drop. When conditions make it so that it takes more labor time to produce the same thing, such as when there is a shortage of something required to use the innovation, price tends to climb again. It's not the whole picture, because the theory is not an explanation of price but of value, which itself is only a basis or starting point for price.


Because he's fucking exorbitantly, absurdly overpaid, and the theory of value that lets you say that and show why it's true is mine, not yours. Yours is the one that silences any notion that Tiger Woods shouldn't have as much money as a small town just because he's a womanizing golfer.


I bet you've read the covers of so many books on Marxian economics.

Ah, so things stubbornly refuse to cost what they're supposed to in your theories.

The real world just doesn't seem to want to cooperate.

But we can still be sure the theories are good.

Since the theory in question isn't supposed to explain how much everything costs I guess we can. It strikes me as funny that you think offering examples of celebrity golfers and art museum pieces being exorbitantly overpriced relative to their labor input refutes the guy who wrote volumes about prices and wages not reflecting labor input under capitalism. That was kind of his theme song.

How much does the theory in question say a Beyonce song is worth?

A Britney Spears CD?

How about a pound of Asparagus?

A bottle of water?

Is there some point to all this? Under capitalism, the value of these commodities hovers around a monetary representation of the amount of labor power, in the abstract, required for their production. This goes through the usual fluctuations owing to supply and demand, and can be influenced by government policies or corporate strategies. Whatever the value, the workers who physically make each commodity are not paid as much in wages as the value they create in production. They couldn't be, otherwise the company who hired them would make no profit! As a condition of their employment, they are expected to churn out more value in terms of productive output than the cost of their labor, and to say bye-bye to the surplus as soon as they generate it. Whether this is represented by CDs, bottles, or vegetables makes no difference.

 

[dismal]

So, it sounds like you're saying value is personal, subjective and contextual.

I am saying those things are only considerations in the assigning of value.

But the value is only assigned to something when the money is paid for it. That is the way it works in the world we have created today.

That is the objective value that allows an objective as opposed to romanticized economy to exist.

There is no “assigning of value”. Value is personal, subjective and contextual. You place a different value on things than I do. You place a different value on things at different times of the day, depending on what you did today. You value a hamburger more when you are hungry than when you just ate two hamburgers. A hamburger has no intrinsic value.

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Ah, so things stubbornly refuse to cost what they're supposed to in your theories.

The real world just doesn't seem to want to cooperate.

But we can still be sure the theories are good.

Since the theory in question isn't supposed to explain how much everything costs I guess we can. It strikes me as funny that you think offering examples of celebrity golfers and art museum pieces being exorbitantly overpriced relative to their labor input refutes the guy who wrote volumes about prices and wages not reflecting labor input under capitalism. That was kind of his theme song.

How much does the theory in question say a Beyonce song is worth?

A Britney Spears CD?

How about a pound of Asparagus?

A bottle of water?

Is there some point to all this? Under capitalism, the value of these commodities hovers around a monetary representation of the amount of labor power, in the abstract, required for their production. This goes through the usual fluctuations owing to supply and demand, and can be influenced by government policies or corporate strategies. Whatever the value, the workers who physically make each commodity are not paid as much in wages as the value they create in production. They couldn't be, otherwise the company who hired them would make no profit! As a condition of their employment, they are expected to churn out more value in terms of productive output than the cost of their labor, and to say bye-bye to the surplus as soon as they generate it. Whether this is represented by CDs, bottles, or vegetables makes no difference.

The point seems to be you lack a basic understanding of economics. You appear to have wasted your time studying Marxism instead.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That is not a rational response.

It is totally useless nonsense.

As if your characterization of things without any supporting argument has any value.

Because you're preaching you can't provide a proper response to any disagreement with what you say.

I made a claim.

I said that all value is exchange value. I also claimed that all value is the result of labor.

Only a fool would call that preaching.

The thing is it has little to do with what you were responding to.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why does an NBA basketball player make ten thousand times what a professional kayaker makes?

Because the value of sports in society has been displaced from the effort it takes to play them, and is primarily derived from the usefulness they serve as vehicles for advertising. In other words, basketball players are grossly overpaid.

No. Even if you're right about the advertising it merely says their play not only produces entertainment value for watchers but advertising value. It's possible for one thing to accomplish two objectives.

Why when Bill takes 4 hours to produce something and Bob takes 2 hours to produce an identical thing do the things sell for the same price?

In principle, there's an amount of labor time that, on average, any given thing will take to produce under average conditions using whatever resources are available. You might recall this from my previous post. Things that take longer tend to cost more, and when innovations are created that make them take less labor time, the price tends to drop. When conditions make it so that it takes more labor time to produce the same thing, such as when there is a shortage of something required to use the innovation, price tends to climb again. It's not the whole picture, because the theory is not an explanation of price but of value, which itself is only a basis or starting point for price.

Which means Bill is half as valuable as Bob? Somehow I think the left won't agree with that.

 

[PyramidHead]

No. Even if you're right about the advertising it merely says their play not only produces entertainment value for watchers but advertising value. It's possible for one thing to accomplish two objectives.

Why when Bill takes 4 hours to produce something and Bob takes 2 hours to produce an identical thing do the things sell for the same price?

In principle, there's an amount of labor time that, on average, any given thing will take to produce under average conditions using whatever resources are available. You might recall this from my previous post. Things that take longer tend to cost more, and when innovations are created that make them take less labor time, the price tends to drop. When conditions make it so that it takes more labor time to produce the same thing, such as when there is a shortage of something required to use the innovation, price tends to climb again. It's not the whole picture, because the theory is not an explanation of price but of value, which itself is only a basis or starting point for price.

Which means Bill is half as valuable as Bob? Somehow I think the left won't agree with that.

UNDER CAPITALISM, Bill is half as valuable TO THE CAPITALIST as Bob if he takes twice as long to do the same amount of work. This seems incontrovertibly true and is not a matter of political persuasion.

You all do realize that Marx's theories were about describing capitalism, right?

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The point seems to be you lack a basic understanding of economics. You appear to have wasted your time studying Marxism instead.

Cool. That makes one of us who has studied Marx enough to know what he was talking about.

 

[untermensche]

There is no “assigning of value”. Value is personal, subjective and contextual. You place a different value on things than I do. You place a different value on things at different times of the day, depending on what you did today. You value a hamburger more when you are hungry than when you just ate two hamburgers. A hamburger has no intrinsic value.

There IS an objective assignment.

And it is only when we have this assignment we know for certain the value of something.

And the assignment of value comes when some thing that has value is exchanged. And exchange occurs within an environment of exchange. So if water was scarce it would be very expensive.

Exchange is the only time we know the value.

You valuing your velvet painting of Elvis is only imaginary value.

It has no meaning in any real world economy.

 

[PyramidHead]

It's almost like trying to capture valuations of multiple different types (usefulness, trade, sentimental) occurring at multiple scales (individual to society-wide) from multiple contexts (during production, during purchase, during pricing, during wage negotiation) requires a more nuanced theory than

 

[untermensche]

It's almost like trying to capture valuations of multiple different types (usefulness, trade, sentimental) occurring at multiple scales (individual to society-wide) from multiple contexts (during production, during purchase, during pricing, during wage negotiation) requires a more nuanced theory than

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In a real world economy you can know exchange value with certainty.

You can know no other value for certain and subjective value many times means nothing.

There can be mental factors that influence value but it is only known through exchange.

But the important part is that the value of labor is related to the exchange value of the "product" of labor.

A market wage has no connection to value of any kind.

 

[PyramidHead]

But the important part is that the value of labor is related to the exchange value of the "product" of labor.

Not exclusively, though. The value of labor to capital is also social control. Productivity gains over the past century have never resulted in us working less.

A market wage has no connection to value of any kind.

I would disagree, on the grounds that the wage (per hour, say) must be less than the exchange value of whatever the waged worker can produce (in that same hour). Otherwise the enterprise would be operating at a loss.

If you get paid $10 an hour to make donuts, you can be absolutely certain that your employer expects you to make more than $10 worth of donuts per hour on average. You wouldn't keep the job if you stopped making donuts every hour after you finished making $10 worth of them. So, built into the very arrangement of labor is systematic exploitation via wages, and this has everything to do with the imbalance between value created--the dollar amount of how much stuff you made--and wages received.

Doubly so because the revenue that comes from selling the donuts you make each hour over that $10 threshold is entirely under the control of your employer. He can use it to hire managers to hound you and make you work faster, security guards to keep you from stealing out of the register, or as taxes to fund the infrastructure that allows customers to get to the donut shop, grants to universities to publish studies that say donuts are good for your health, interest payments to banks that lend money to donut franchises, marketing to attract low-income clientele, outsourcing the production of ingredients to poor countries, dividends for the board of directors and stockholders, profits for his own salary, and last but not least... maybe a small "merit based" increase in your hourly wage if there is anything left over.

You have no say in any of this of course, even though the only reason that extra revenue even exists is because you exerted your energy turning dough and sugar into something people want to pay money to consume. I'd say that there is some kind of value discrepancy going on there, even if we lack the precision to fully quantify it objectively.

 

[untermensche]

But the important part is that the value of labor is related to the exchange value of the "product" of labor.

Not exclusively, though. The value of labor to capital is also social control. Productivity gains over the past century have never resulted in us working less.

The most successful capitalists can gain social control when members of a government are bought and sold to the highest bidder.

The main purpose of capitalism is to allow a very few to become incredibly wealthy. It fulfills the irrational greed of a small amount of humans. Unions have made it somewhat decent for many people.

Becoming wealthy can be done in many ways. You might have incredible talent. Or you might create a scheme where you take a little bit from many people who have no ownership rights to the fruits of their labor.

A market wage has no connection to value of any kind.

I would disagree, on the grounds that the wage (per hour, say) must be less than the exchange value of whatever the waged worker can produce (in that same hour). Otherwise the enterprise would be operating at a loss.

Since market wage is synonymous with "lowest possible wage" that is a given.

This is why I say that value is exchange value.

Exchange value is known so we can have a more objective value of labor. We have a ceiling as well. We know the maximum we can give labor.

You have no say in any of this of course, even though the only reason that extra revenue even exists is because you exerted your energy turning dough and sugar into something people want to pay money to consume. I'd say that there is some kind of value discrepancy going on there, even if we lack the precision to fully quantify it objectively.

It's called surplus labor.

The labor required in capitalism. The day's labor that must produce more than you are paid.

But what is better is a system where pay has some relationship to value produced.

 

[PyramidHead]

The most successful capitalists can gain social control when members of a government are bought and sold to the highest bidder.

The main purpose of capitalism is to allow a very few to become incredibly wealthy.

I don't disagree with much of what you posted after this so I won't comment on it. But I think this might be incomplete. Sure, capitalism has used the levers of government to gain influence when it has been possible to do so. And individual capitalists are certainly driven by the desire to be wealthy. But I think both are manifestations of the underlying mechanism of capitalism, its constant feature, realized through different mechanisms but always present, which is social control through the imposition of work. When the chips are down and a choice has to be made, capital will always preserve above all else its ability to impose endless labor as a condition of survival, as it has from the beginning. Workers have always resisted this, because we'd rather not spend our whole lives working, but as long as we have to sustain ourselves by working all the time we don't have the time or energy to overturn the system and replace it with something less onerous. Don't get me wrong, your take is correct for the most part, but if we ignore the way work functions in capitalism and treat the problem as one of wealth distribution or government corruption, nothing will ever change. This is where I take some inspiration from the old anarchists like Kropotkin. But Marx said much the same thing.

 

[untermensche]

You're talking about control of labor.

I'm talking about control over the direction of economic activity and ultimately social progress.

 

[PyramidHead]

You're talking about control of labor.

I'm talking about control over the direction of economic activity and ultimately social progress.

That's true; but this thread is about Marx's theory, which says economic activity is nothing more than control of labor and determines social progress. Maybe he was right, maybe not.

 

[untermensche]

You're talking about control of labor.

I'm talking about control over the direction of economic activity and ultimately social progress.

That's true; but this thread is about Marx's theory, which says economic activity is nothing more than control of labor and determines social progress. Maybe he was right, maybe not.

There is economic activity.

And there is political activity that having successful economic activity allows in a system where democratic representatives can be selected and controlled by those with the most expendable wealth.

 

[steve_bank]

Under our system producers do not control destitution of wealth. Business is motivated sole by profit, period. Jon creation and excess wealth is a byproduct not a goal. It is a system that dynamically aghast value by supply and demand, it is not a social system.

Wages, prices for goods and service, and prices for mistrial vary in accordance with supply and demand.

When framing today in terms of 19th century Marxist views and terminology, the 19th century capitalism and modern capitalism share little in common.

Disproportionate accumulation of wealth at the top is the result of no limits on accumulating wealth and no requirements to be anything but selfish.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Under our system producers do not control destitution of wealth. Business is motivated sole by profit, period. Jon creation and excess wealth is a byproduct not a goal. It is a system that dynamically aghast value by supply and demand, it is not a social system.

Wages, prices for goods and service, and prices for mistrial vary in accordance with supply and demand.

When framing today in terms of 19th century Marxist views and terminology, the 19th century capitalism and modern capitalism share little in common.

Disproportionate accumulation of wealth at the top is the result of no limits on accumulating wealth and no requirements to be anything but selfish.

Actually the vast majority of businesses try to not show profit! Profits require taxes. There is a huge industry of advisers, tax attorney's and CPAs whose sole job is to help a companies lower their profits through investing, IC Discs, conversions, R&D, prepays, shells, and etc.

 

[PyramidHead]

Under our system producers do not control destitution of wealth. Business is motivated sole by profit, period. Jon creation and excess wealth is a byproduct not a goal. It is a system that dynamically aghast value by supply and demand, it is not a social system.

Wages, prices for goods and service, and prices for mistrial vary in accordance with supply and demand.

When framing today in terms of 19th century Marxist views and terminology, the 19th century capitalism and modern capitalism share little in common.

Disproportionate accumulation of wealth at the top is the result of no limits on accumulating wealth and no requirements to be anything but selfish.

Actually the vast majority of businesses try to not show profit! Profits require taxes. There is a huge industry of advisers, tax attorney's and CPAs whose sole job is to help a companies lower their profits through investing, IC Discs, conversions, R&D, prepays, shells, and etc.

This is a good point, which is why I have been careful lately to differentiate between profit and surplus, without necessarily specifying that it be used as profit (it can be used for reinvestment, taxes, to hire non-producers who are needed to keep the system running i.e. managers and HR people, security, charity, interest on loans, and so on). The major point, at least for the purposes of this thread, is not that profits are the problem, but rather that the producers don't get to decide how much surplus is taken as profit, how much goes back to them as wages, or what gets used for all those ancillary functions. Nor do they set the pace of their work, its duration, or its style.

If nothing else, what I would like readers to take from my summary of Marx is that something is weird about a system that is arranged in this way, where workers simultaneously have to navigate a precarious job market in order to survive while lacking the power over their circumstances and productive output that would instantly make their situation less precarious. This should seem unfair at least from a social perspective, even if you don't also agree that, in fact, all of the wealth a society has is the result of this segment of the population that actually designs and fabricates the commodities we use to live in the world. But this second point makes it doubly suspicious that the owners of the productive output and the ones who set the circumstances workers must abide by--and here I'm lumping capitalist and state authority into the same bucket--are not part of this productive segment, and actually survive off what the workers produce.

 

[steve_bank]

Under our system producers do not control destitution of wealth. Business is motivated sole by profit, period. Jon creation and excess wealth is a byproduct not a goal. It is a system that dynamically aghast value by supply and demand, it is not a social system.

Wages, prices for goods and service, and prices for mistrial vary in accordance with supply and demand.

When framing today in terms of 19th century Marxist views and terminology, the 19th century capitalism and modern capitalism share little in common.

Disproportionate accumulation of wealth at the top is the result of no limits on accumulating wealth and no requirements to be anything but selfish.

Actually the vast majority of businesses try to not show profit! Profits require taxes. There is a huge industry of advisers, tax attorney's and CPAs whose sole job is to help a companies lower their profits through investing, IC Discs, conversions, R&D, prepays, shells, and etc.

I know. But making use of legal tax avoidance is not redistribution of wealth. I call it corporate welfare.

My stomach churns when I hear conservatives talk about Medicare and a welfare state when busness does not operate in a truye capitalist risk system.

 

[untermensche]

Under our system producers do not control destitution of wealth. Business is motivated sole by profit, period. Jon creation and excess wealth is a byproduct not a goal. It is a system that dynamically aghast value by supply and demand, it is not a social system.

Wages, prices for goods and service, and prices for mistrial vary in accordance with supply and demand.

When framing today in terms of 19th century Marxist views and terminology, the 19th century capitalism and modern capitalism share little in common.

Disproportionate accumulation of wealth at the top is the result of no limits on accumulating wealth and no requirements to be anything but selfish.

Actually the vast majority of businesses try to not show profit! Profits require taxes. There is a huge industry of advisers, tax attorney's and CPAs whose sole job is to help a companies lower their profits through investing, IC Discs, conversions, R&D, prepays, shells, and etc.

All a capitalist business is is a scheme to give a tiny few at the top (dictators within the organization) as much as possible.

They try to do this in many ways.

It is a system of irrational greed. It is a destructive system

It is a system that uses the capital made by one group of workers to send their jobs to China because this allows the dictators to make a little more. The whole purpose of the capitalist system.