I have noticed that almost all of the debate about Marx on this board is about whether socialism would work or not. But that's only a small part of Marx’s theory. This thread is for talking about Marx’s critique of capitalism. So the first question Marx asks in capital is how can 2 items which have nothing in common and were made with different types of labor and serve totally different purposes be traded In order to be compared the items have to have some kind of common element that you can compare. Marx concludes that the only thing say a car and jar of peanut butter have in common is that they are both products of human labor in the abstract. Marx says the value of a commodity is the average amount of socially necessary labor time required to reproduce it. A commodity to Marx has 3 aspects. The aspect of utility or use value which cannot be measured but a commodity needs to be a commodity. The aspect of value which dictates the ration at which commodities exchange for each other in a market (sort of). And price. Price is complicated. Prices in some cases fluctuate around values. Supply and demand drive prices up and down buy they balance out. Say you have 2 factories one makes jelly beans and one makes base balls. A surge in demand for jelly beans will cause base ball manufactures to move capital and reapportion labor to the jelly bean industry thus meeting the demand and causing price to fall back down to value. In some cases this is different. Say you have 100 factories all making baseballs. Some have tons of machines and some have nearly none.
Marx's Critique of Capitalism
Machines cannot create value. They simply take the labor imbued into them and transfer it into the product. The profit rate for the factories with nearly no machines should be much higher but this is not the case. All the profits for all the baseball factories are roughly the same. Marx calls this rate of profit the “average rate of profit” and when it can be observed it means that surplus value being produced by laborers is being redistributed to different capitalists through price. In this case price will not fluctuate around value. It will instead fluctuate around “Price of production” which is the value of producing the commodity (machines + raw materials) plus the average rate of profit. But if value can only be produced via human labor then how do capitalists make profit? Marx first explores the possibility that capitalists buy low and sell high. But this sort of buying and selling can’t actually create value but only move it around. The reason capitalists make profit is actually due to the value of labor power. Labor power is the only commodity workers have to sell. It is their labor.
>Marx says concentration of capital is a problem
>his solution is centralization of capital into the state
Its value is determined like any other commodity by the amount of labor needed to produce it. In this case the value of labor power is the value of all the commodities that the laborer needs to substain his skill set and substain himself. The value of labor power is actually less than the value that labor power can create. The capitalist gives the worker the value of their labor power and then sets them to work producing more value then they were paid. This basic framework can be used to explain everything about capitalism. In fact we can establish 2 general rules. Total value = Total price, Total profit = Total surplus value with which you can understand all of capitalism. Including the falling rate of profit which has been empirically confirmed. scholarworks.umass.edu
I would like to keep this thread on the topic of marx's critique of capitalism. Not socialism.
Marx was a Jew.
Jews are inherently anti-White
Therefore Marx was inherently anti-White.
Also, Communism is inherently anti-White.
Capitalism is just as Jewish as Communism.
>amount of labor
No it isn't, it depends on the legal framework (protectionism, patent law), the ressources needed (poperty rights etc.), how much qualification is needed to do the Labor, transport coasts (also often mostly ressource related), planning, amount of labour and much more.
Protectionism can certainly change the value of labor just like minimum wages can and the thing about qualifications can be included in maintenance of skill.
The laborer mostly doesn't sustain the skill set on his own at least not in 70 or more percent of the cases. At least here in Germany this is mostly organized by the company (in most cases during their work time). The minimum wage is difficult, i've studied this subject for quiet a long time, i think if there is really a significant effect depends on the conditions of the paticular market.
Not that Communism protects anyone except Jews, mind you.
Ask anyone to critique capitalism and you will receive good critiques from most people. Ask them what to do about it and you will receive a bunch of very shitty ideas that wont work. Critiquing something is really fucking easy but fixing problems is really hard. Marx nailed the easy part but completely fucked up the fix which is the only part that actually matters.
I think we can agree that the laborers is paid at least enough for their training and to survive reasonable or else they can no longer do labor.
>I think we can agree
But you won't accept that communism is Jewish despite the fact that it's Jewish through and though.
>Machines cannot create value
thats where your wrong bucko, machines can do the job of laborers without human intervention.
Marx's idea of socialism is basically just a society without the things in capitalism has saw as unstable or bad. Its the critique that determines how you would invision a society without capitalism. Can we keep this thread focused on marx's critique of capitalism.
>Marx's idea of socialism is basically Jewish controlling everything.
FTFY
> Can we keep this thread focused on marx's critique of capitalism.
No, because you don't get to determine what we say here, you cowardly, post dodging faggot.
Marx was a Jew. Communism is Jewish. That's why it doesn't work.
The more machines you have the less the products they output are worth. lets say you completely automated production with machines that require no upkeep and no raw materials. You can then create infinite products worth essentially nothing on a market.
>The more machines you have the less the products they output are worth. lets say you completely automated production with machines that require no upkeep and no raw materials. You can then create infinite products worth essentially nothing on a market.
So obviously the solution is to accept a Jewish ideology ans turn over your lives and freedoms to the Jews.
>The more machines you have the less the products they output are worth
thats just straight up not true tho. It doesn't matter if a man makes a car or a robot makes the same car. They are equal in value. The labor theory of value is bullshit because it says that if no labor is involved in production that the item produced has no value when it clearly does.
Air is very useful. Yet it takes no labor to create. Unless it started taking labor to create it has no value. Same thing would happen if you automated everything. All commodities would be so easy to get they would have no value.
>Air is very useful.
Unlike Jews and Communism.
>All commodities would be so easy to get they would have no value
>implying inputs are infinite
are all commies this stupid?
The full automation I was describing is theoretical. Of course you would still have to use labor to get raw materials in the real world so everything would still have value. But if you automate the production of a commodity you have decreased the amount of value each commodity has. Or course machines can add value to a commodity (C+V+S) but not any more than the labor it took to create them.
So do you have me blocked or are you just too cowardly to address the fact that Communism is Jewish?
>Or course machines can add value to a commodity (C+V+S) but not any more than the labor it took to create them.
literally why though? Cause papa marx said so? A fully automated production process can produce things of value given that resources are finite. Value is created by scarcity and demand not cause some dude did a thing. According to the labor theory of value if i spend 100 hours building a gigantic statue made of human shit its worth more than a statue I worked on for 10 hours made of solid gold.
Scarcity can only be undestood through labor. We have basically infinite resource in the universe it just takes a whole lot of labor to get anything outside earth. A fully automated production line with scarcity would still have some value because labor is still required to mantain the machines but the commoditys it outputs have much less value than before.
I'm essentially saying: If you make it easier to get something it becomes less valueble.
Marx assumes monetary value is an empirical, calculatable measurement, instead of an imaginary value reached by the negotiations of producers and consumers.
Pretending imaginary things are real is suicidally stupid, and every implementation of Marxist doctrine proves it.
Yeah, that's what I thought...all you judeo communists are the same.
Claiming to have no problem with the Jews but at the same time ignoring the fact that communism is Jewish
>If you make it easier to get something it becomes less valuable.
no shit, but why the fixation with labor?
If labor and capital are interchangeable, and they are in the modern world. Than why won't you admit that capital can create value independently from labor?
Value is an abstraction but its a real abstraction. Its a socially constructed idee like royalty. Even though you can't cut open a king and find "royalty" you don't doubt that he is a king.
Because in order to get something you have to use labor.
>Because in order to get something you have to use labor.
no you actually don't, thats where marxism collapses. If capital can create value or add value than capitalism is justified.
If I automate something and use more capital it becomes less valueble.
No, value is not an abstraction. It is imaginary. It can be created from nothing, reduced to nothing, and changes as frequently as people change their minds, with no tie to any laws of physics or mathematics.
A differential equation is an abstraction. Monetary value is not.
We are talking about different things. Value as personal preference is imaginary. I'm not talking about personal preference or desire. Read my OP.
Why bother critiquing the capitalist theories of a man who's ideas lead to the abject destruction of human life and spirit on a scale and level of brutality never before seen in history? I'm honestly asking - what do you hope to gain from this discussion? Just intellectual stimulation?
>Say you have 2 factories one makes jelly beans and one makes base balls. A surge in demand for jelly beans will cause base ball manufactures to move capital and reapportion labor to the jelly bean industry thus meeting the demand and causing price to fall back down to value.
Essentially:
>I will make a really example without any qualifiers, that can be proven wrong so easily if people start adding qualifiers to it!
If this is the height of Marxist thinking, it's no wonder why it's such horseshit.
A society that cannot critique itself is a dangerous society to live in.
>If I automate something and use more capital it becomes less valueble
not nessicarally, you forget about demand. Demand for a good can increase faster than cost of production decreases. making the good more valuable.
Capital can produce value without labor.
Then I'll critique your response for not answering my question. What do you hope to gain from this conversation?
First OP im going to do Adhoms here just from the fact that this is purely big brained nibba shit. As a manual laborer who has owned and been owned by the m.o.p. i can say that Marx simply did not have life experience as a laborer to actually know about valuing labor or work. He was a NEET who would rethought things had he been a small proprietor himself
Look, I'll admit "Das Kapital" has some good points. Ok. But you are trying to defend the weakest and most vague chapter in that book. Marx really fucked it up there. According to Marx, a product is more valuable the more labor you put into it. Which is false.
PDVSA in Venezuela increased the number of their staff by 40% when Chavez took power. The cost of producing oil in that country increased tremendously and coincidentally, the oil price just went up and up during that period. Nobody said a peep.
By 2014, if I'm not mistaken, the oil prices worldwide had fallen by 60% and all the "extra" labor hired (for political reasons) during the good old days was a burden for the Venezuelan economy, it didn't make their oil more valuable.
I know is not right to mix theoretical socialism with real socialism, but I think I made my point.
Now go neck yourself.
>Capital can produce value without labor.
It can also artificially create demand which imo is a negative aspect of global capitalism. Or consumer capitalism, whatever. See, fidget spinners. I dont see consumers as rational actors like some capitalists do though i am a firm believer in market theory of value not marxist bullshit
I did. You, like Marx, are trying to pretend value is an empirical physical quantity associated with labor-transformed materials, just like mass and volume are. And I'm telling you it is not, and you are getting butthurt about it.
I would think the reapportioning of capital when demand surges is sort of common sense though.
Price =/= value.
basically I'm trying to see if anyone has a critique that I don't have a responce to.
Socially necessary average labor time. Just because you spend 100000 hours making 1 pen doesn't mean the pen is worth more than any other pen.
>Price =/= value.
don't go full retard lad, price and value are the same thing as long as price is not interfered with by the state
You are making a claim that what marx calls value doesn't exist. Prove it.
>Marx says the value of a commodity is the average amount of socially necessary labor time required to reproduce it.
But that's fucking retarded.
>Price =/= value.
That is exactly what price is this is why Marxists are so removed from reality because you fail to see this simple truth
Why?
If I can duplicate your labor why should I pay you?
We are using different terms. When I say value I don't mean what you mean by value.
So an intellectual pursuit then, to test your assumptions and to ultimately determine via anonymous shitpost responses if your outlook on life and ideologies are sound.
Tell me, what is the objective value of this conversation to you?
Exactly this.
Only after you prove God doesn't exist.
Non-falsifiability is not proof of existence.
You wouldnt, but good luck getting good at literally every skill ever made you dont have enough lifetimes for it
You're (((value))) is an abstraction without any purpose. Price is real and necessary.
Ok. I'll give some evidence.
users.wfu.edu
The example is doing a poor job of saying, "capitalists will do this with their capital" and instead pigeon holes them into saying, "capitalists will do this one thing every time". Again, a lack of qualifiers makes it a poor example.
Assuming the jellybean operators, for a lack of better term, understand their market, they may possibly just increasing production via that one plant through more hours worked there total, instead of changing their second factory. Or perhaps open up a new factory, or lease a building and move equipment into it, or perhaps retrofit their second factory partially. Why would they otherwise take themselves out of the second unrelated market like that? It's such a juvenile understanding of capitalism.
>elusive semantics rather than a good faith debate
So this is the power of Marxism
I don't see the relevance of the question, but if you could duplicate my labor then you shouldn't pay me for it.
I don't have to, as long as someone makes a cheaper alternative I'm good.
It explains price though. Just not directly.
A better way of saying it would be "supply rises to demand and price falls back to value" the example was just one of the ways it could happen.
Its like trying to critique darwin but using the layman Definition for fitness.
I'll admit I'm half hoping to convince people and half shitposting.
And I'm telling you the example was a shitty one. It doesn't matter what it ultimately means if the example does nothing to further the point you're trying to make. Again, the lack of qualifiers makes it poor, and overall shows a juvenile understanding of capitalism.
Thats market theory, congratulations, bountiful food and healthy economy is coming your way
I'll admit, you're failing at both.
Marx is wrong because a sanitised, edible tied takes a lot of labor, processing and resources to produce.
A wooden pencil is a relatively less expensive product to make, but will always have more demand and will have more value despite the lower investment in labor.
OK so what purpose does marx's value actually serve if the value of something is detached from that actually price of a thing? We already have a pretty reliable and useful metric for measuring value in price. Why would using marx's method result in a better outcome? And why does using his metric always lead to the creating of black markets that operate on price?
>Edible turd
>I have noticed that almost all of the debate about Sup Forums on other boards is about whether Sup Forumsism would work or not. But that's only a small part of Sup Forums’s theory. This thread is now a nigger hate thread.
>the means of production
lol, you people live in 1850 you dumb fucks. kill yourself commie /r/socialism cunt
Some marxists disagree. But I would say it determines equalibrium prices.
No one wants the turd. It has no use value. Its thus worthless. The market won't let you make something that no one wants for long which is the reason no one sells mudpies or edible turds.
>Some marxists disagree. But I would say it determines equilibrium prices.
markets determine prices, not some abstract concept of value based solely on how much labor is required. Shit failed hard when the soviets and chinese tried planed economy. It always leads to a black market forming.
I can't use art. It has no use value. It's thus worthless.
>data has shown that prices correlate heavily with labor time
Labor is only one input of many.
No. The value that the laborer produces is divorced from the value that the laborer recieves, which is also divorced from what the laborer needs for training and maintenance.
Marx's theory predates the concept of the welfare state.
There are so many problems with these statements starting with the concept of value that it's barely worth addressing.
But perhaps a better way to look at it are cases where that actually exists, or nearly exists.
>Scarcity can only be undestood through labor.
No.
>I'm essentially saying: If you make it easier to get something it becomes less valueble.
If this is something marx says, he's demonstratably wrong. Supply and demand curves don't always work that way, particularly for services. Simple example, Telephone service. Telephones became more valuable the higher the adoption rate. Same with facebook. Restricting facebook to one user doesn't make it more valuable.
You don't think the means of production exist in 2017?
How do you think cars are built? With expensive machines, or out of thin air? Retard.
This ultimately shows how simplistic and a lack of foresight socialists have.
>Everything gets everything!
Then suddenly
>How come we can't get more stuff, where did all the free stuff go?
So capitalism works.
Western society has plenty flaws paradoxes and hypocrisy, but the overall value has provided for more people than other society when considering both the participants value received and atrocities of the participants against other societies. In totality.
Criticism without considering the multilateral ramifications ate a fool's postulation.
value only exists in capitalism.
Check my evidence in the third post.
It has a use in looking pretty and people want it.
>Labor is only one input of many.
all of which can be reduced to labor
>No. The value that the laborer produces is divorced from the value that the laborer recieves, which is also divorced from what the laborer needs for training and maintenance.
seems like a claim without evidence. I'm saying the "minimum wage" you can pay a person is what they need to live and mantain his skills
>But perhaps a better way to look at it are cases where that actually exists, or nearly exists.
Good idea. Software can be copied near infinitely if we subtract state interferance in the form of copyright then people won't actually pay for software.
>If this is something marx says, he's demonstratably wrong. Supply and demand curves don't always work that way, particularly for services. Simple example, Telephone service. Telephones became more valuable the higher the adoption rate. Same with facebook. Restricting facebook to one user doesn't make it more valuable.
Those are exception in which the commodity is social interaction.
I have to go. I might be back later.
Okay great, so art has a use! So, the longer someone spent making it means it has a greater value right? I'll find it prettier?
we live in a time when people literally can make most things in their garage based on how cheap and easy most machines and computers are. you people are dumb fucking commies who think we're still in some dumbfuck russian factory from 1872.
Fucking hell, the very basics of Marxism is so dumb. Value is not based on labor. A buyer has no concept of how much labor goes into a car or an iPhone or a book. The only thing that matters is the price they are willing to pay and the price the seller is willing to accept. The only place labor comes into the equation is in the cost of the product. If the total cost of the product (that is labor, design, raw materials, opportunity costs etc) is more than the price the buyer is willing to pay the product won't get made. This prevents surpluses which were endemic to the USSR (as well as shortages, which are caused by the undervaluation of a product).
>value only exists in capitalism
>Things don't have value under socialism. Thats just straight up wrong user, is that why socialist are always starving, because they stopped valuing food?
Why wont you address the point about black markets forming in all socialist states?
It turns out things actually do have value even if the state wants to go full retard and pretend they magically don't.
I love how he suddenly has to go after failing to prop up a single argument.
Lurkers take note, this is the visage of a Communist.
>I have noticed that almost all of the debate about Marx on this board is about whether socialism would work or not
Dude, don't even try. 95% of this board are depressed alcoholics, who seek purpose in life and they found it in serving the "race", because they associate communists with "lefties" and multiculturalists they will fight people like you
They don't care that multiculturalists are White and that even if they had their White countries, they still could be mercilessly exploited and disparaged by their fellow rich Whites
They don't give a fuck about what Marx has said as long as you're a commie leftie
t. formerly exploited puppet state of foreign communists
I'm just telling the truth. Many such cases!
>I would think the reapportioning of capital when demand surges is sort of common sense though.
Why use common sense when there's plenty of emperical evidence to prove one way or another?
>seems like a claim without evidence.
A simple counterexample: Walmart welfare workers. Think of it this way: The level of welfare is determined by political forces, not convertable to labor in a meaningful way.
>Good idea. Software can be copied near infinitely if we subtract state interferance in the form of copyright then people won't actually pay for software.
This is incorrect. Patreon is the simplest example.
So far, all I'm learning is that marxists are even more retared than I thought. This theory of labor and value is the economic equivalent of flat earthers.
Workers never supported capitalism, marx sought to CONTROL THE WORKERS!
DEATH TO MARXISM!
>the first question Marx asks in capital is how can 2 items which have nothing in common and were made with different types of labor and serve totally different purposes be traded
It's definitely preferable to have leftists commit to the reality of universals, instead of going down the self-destructive path of postmodernism and anarchist thought. However, it is not the case that the only thing goods have in common is "human labor in the abstract", a notion that by itself is nearly meaningless due to the modifications necessary to use it. And these are only made to obfuscate the fact that whatever can be deemed "labor" is highly specific to a particular good. If that were not the case, there is no reason you can't create any other "input in the abstract" that needs to be combined with labor to actually make something, as, obviously, labor is useless by itself. Moreover, there is no reason for Marxists to ignore "use value" as what all goods have in common, especially since all the philosophical problems this carries are not worse than those posed by using labor. Indeed, goods are defined as such by their ability to satisfy needs, meaning that they are defined as such by having "use value", making using the latter as the source of "exchange value" more plausible. From what I see from Marxists, labor is only used as to force the notion of "exploitation" into economic theory, which is a purely ideological motivation. Using it adds nothing, and is even more limited, when compared, for instance, with the traditional microeconomic approach.
>Marx says the value of a commodity is the average amount of socially necessary labor time required to reproduce it.
Value is subjective, so Marx is dead wrong here.