/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>18038503
Inefficient allocation of resources

What If the resources need to be inefficiently allocated for the greater good? What if some of those resources must be held by the rich to build for the common good? You can argue that this is unreasonable. Then why doesn't the 1% who have the wealth hold the resources to build the roads? Why does the top 5% have exclusive rights to the water and other natural resources needed to live? Isn't it our duty to solve these problems? The argument is a reasonable one. If we do not take these very reasonable arguments into account, then we might have a system that's systematically biased towards the rich and advantaged, instead of the common good.

>>18038503
It's bad because communists throw capitalists off of helicopters.

SAGE

because goy, don't you want your individual freedom to shove a dragon dildo up your anus. well you won't get that under communism.

you can't change the outcome of your life, it's dictated to you by an authority.
You cannot accumulate wealth

>>18038503
its bad because it requires pure intelligence in all individuals and that is not the case in the world

What if a worse system is inherently better? At least when things go bad, people can blame the system and not themselves. That's why some people don't want a political system that penalizes people for being poor, but also rewards them for being successful.

A more accurate description would be, "If we don't take seriously how powerful and important this vote is in building public support for policies to improve the lives of the poor, the poor will take us for fools."

>>18038585
Not saying that the free market always works in every sector however communism does not make many sectors better and often times worse think mao china with government control of both agricultural and steel which led to famine and crap steel. Communist countries try and focus purely on equality of outcomes rather than opportunity

>>18038503
because humans are behind the wheel and power corrupts absolutely

>>18038503

https://jrnyquist.blog/2020/01/30/general-chis-nasty-wuhan-soup-a-recipe-for-biowar/

>>18038503
It tries to subvert economic and political systems that organically emerged from human history and ultimately commodifies power itself. A system for psychopaths.

>>18038767
that's an argument against civilization itself, not just communism.

>>18038810
pure inversion of the truth. capitalism has allowed psychopaths to thrive better than any system in human history

>what if we just make greed illegal, that will surely turn everybody into obedient worker ants!

>>18038503
Central planning of the economy cannot properly assess the entirety of the economy's needs without price signals.

The economic system and the economic needs in aggregate of the entire country are simply too complex for individual entities to engineer top-down.

The market is a form of swarm intelligence which cannot be outreasoned by a few government central planners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkPGfTEZ_r4

Marx also based his entire system off of the premise of Labor Theory of Value, which turned out to be wrong and self-contradicting.

I am not even particularly an Austrian schooler but they make extremely compelling arguments against Marxism that don't really get refuted by communists.

It literally just doesn't work. People end up starving because shit doesn't get produced.

It isn't.

Most of the people on this website do not understand what it is and refuse to accept the reality of how most communists view it these days because they have constantly berated one another with reaffirmation over their myopic ideological preview. That and the CIA; It takes a lot of will power to out yourself from the group. To accept communism is to accept social isolation. To accept communism is turning your back on everything you have been told your entire life.

Capitalist realism is much like religion except more deeply ingrained, if you can believe that.
Religion is an outgrowth the capitalist system and can be argued away while still perserving the ideological hegemony of capitalism.

To do away with the ideology itself is to do away with all that is familiar and known as truth. Only those with true mental fortitude can accept the fact that communism is, in fact, freedom.

WE ARE ALL EQUAL
I HOWEVER AM SLIGHTLY MORE EQUAL THAN YOU
YOU GIVE ME YOUR PROPERTY NOW

>>18038895
>The economic system and the economic needs in aggregate of the entire country are simply too complex for individual entities to engineer top-down.

That's only because human can't calculate such complexity, communism based on supercomputer might be a game changer, since it could theoretically overcome such flaws

>>18038873
selfish greed isn't some inherent human trait. people are taught this in capitalism because it's the only way to survive. go read an anthropology book. we can easily instill empathy and communal values in the next generation. and not just 'can', we must.

>>18038844
So capitalism is good at directing psychopaths towards making money rather than genocide?

>>18038826
agreed but its more so with communism.

>>18038901
people starved in communism because of war and economic sanctions, not because you need muh capitalism to produce food. stop being a brainlet.

>>18038971
Okay, well, call me when a supercomputer that can simulate the brains of every economic agent and the physical conditions of every possible economic factor exists, right down to the neurons of every trader on the NYSE.

Until then, I will safely disregard most human communists telling me they can plan the economy better than anyone else.

>>18039029
Why did people starve in China more than once?

>>18038873
You are greed, but it's not the same "level" of greed than those chinks who kill thousands by making gutter oil, you have other values than make you restrain your greed, even if it's a driving force

>>18039045
> tfw communism is basically as effective as an actively managed mutual fund or a hedge fund.

>>18039029
The Soviet Union intentionally starved its own citizens in order to genocide Ukranians.

Chinese Communists starved their own citizens because they did not understand agriculture and tried to centrally plan it.

>>18038971
exactly. imagine if a communist state had the power of amazon's algorithms and supply chains at its disposal. there would be no need it could not supply to everyone in the populace.

>>18038503
It disrupts price signaling. Prices provide valuable information about goods that allow us to adapt our production and consumption to be compatible.

>>18038916
>>18038916
>Most of the people on this website do not understand what it is and refuse to accept the reality of how most communists view it these days because they have constantly berated one another with reaffirmation over their myopic ideological preview.
The absolute irony of a marxist posting this.

I understand Marx perfectly and reject his ideas.

>>18039097
this is another critique that may have been valid in 1950, but not now.

>>18039083
Pure hubris. Amazon has a marketplace and price signalling information.

>>18039121
So why is Russia no longer communist? What even is China now and why did it change?

>>18038977
Yeah sure, it's just never worked and no communist nation has ever managed to compete against capitalist ones because, uh, reasons.

>>18039121
When and why did price signaling stop mattering.

>>18039116
So go ahead an give me a your definition of what it is then. Because I almost garunitee it is 100% different than how me and my contemporaries define it. We can bicker all day about long dead soviet states, but, there is no way you can tell me that opening up of production to autonomous and collective action and democratic measure is not more free than autocratic control of economic production and work places generally.

To say so is just being a brainlet. You are everything wrong with people in this community. I think it's time for an ideological shift again, here.

>>18038503
It's not "bad" just like feudalism isn't bad. Communism is just another stage of human society. You have to look at it from a materialist view rather than an idealist view.

>>18038916
> Religion is an outgrowth the capitalist system
Stopped reading there. Capitalism is only half a millennium old.

>>18039204
>What Marx and Lenin described isn't real communism!
>me and my revisionist contemporaries are real communism!
This is why nobody takes you fucks seriously. When pressed to defend the ideas of Marxist-Leninism, you state "w-well my specific ultra uncommon brand of communism has never been tried" while defending the very premises that make Marxism a failed, contradictory system based on faulty 19th century economics (LTV)

>You are everything wrong with people in this community. I think it's time for an ideological shift again, here.
Yeah too bad this isn't your bunkerchan safe space and you can't censor people who disagree with you.

>>18038971
>communism based on supercomputer
>set reduction of human suffering variable to optimize
>computer kills all humans to reduce human suffering to zero

>>18039242
>everybody's chill
lmao

More like Party Members vs Everybody else.

>>18039242
> just another stage of human society
What is the historical or anthropological basis for this claim?

>we have to make a stateless society by first making the state as huge as possible and giving the state control over every aspect of life
Do communists really believe this?

>>18039080
>The Soviet Union intentionally starved its own citizens in order to genocide Ukranians.
There was no genocide brainlet. Kulaks resisted collectivization and decided to burn the food in protest. This wasn't such a bright idea in hindsight because it means you can't eat. Greed got the better of them. It didn't help that there was also a drought.

>>18039271
>NOOOO YOU CANT JUST GROW AND ADAPT YOUR COMMUNIST BELIEFS. YOU HAVE TO DO EXACTLY WHAT MARX SAID DESPITE HIM LIVING OVER 100 YEARS AGO IN AN AGE BEFORE COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERNET

>>18039242
Your pic was made by a fucking troglodyte

>>18039314
>Kulaks resisted collectivization
aka they didn't want to give the state their food

you're a disgusting human being defending the intentional starving of people by their government.

>>18039314
>This is what apologists actually believe

>>18039329
So why take Marx seriously at all if you can just pick and choose which ideas you want to take seriously? Why take your ideology seriously at all?

>>18039271
>>18039271
So what did marx and lenin discribe? See you keep trying to drag the conversation back into your nonsenical understanding of the term and even strawman me; You are free to define communism as whatever you want, but, the reality of the situation is marx actually had very little to say on the subject.

We can, however, extrapolate that communism is what capitalism lacks; Communism Lacks private control of production, a market economy, and autocratic control of the work place. It lacks wages and surplus value extraction. You are free to contiune to argue that a state monoply on production is communism but the fact of the matter is no one, not Marx or Lenin agree that is the case.

No go ahead and cherry pick out of the communist manifesto Marx's ten planks; the planks were about how he foresaw a future in which society would be crafted around a world not totally under the dominion of communism as was defined above. Marx also would recant later in life, after the french revolution and the establishment of the Paris commune that the paris commune more adequately reflected his ideas of any "transitory period" between communism and capitalism.

It's so annoying to have to constantly argue against brainlets who just want to cherry pick everything rather than form a rational coherent thought; to argue the same tierd points over and over again. Think for yourself for gods sake.

>>18039396
The ideology itself is based on change and development. That's where the whole notion of Marxism stims from: Hegelian dialectics.

>>18039422
>surplus value extraction.
No such thing. Made-up Marxist concept based on the faulty labor theory of value.

Marx did not understand time preference.

>>18039422
>It's so annoying to have to constantly argue against brainlets who just want to cherry pick everything rather than form a rational coherent thought;
Yeah, it must be really irritating when people get hung up on the details and actual facts instead of accepting your /leftypol/ propagandizing of a pseudo-scientific ideology wholesale without thought.

>>18039313
Yes, it unironically is part of Marxist theory, a step in the ultimate "plan" of full collectivization. In order to have no need for government and everyone be treated equal, first you need a privileged class (and although they hate that word, they are "selfless" enough to be that class) to guide the proles to such a success that eventually that class will not be necessary and everyone will be fully equal in a utopia without government. But that requires an authoritarian ruling by the privileged few who know what's best for the proles (Obviously! They are too stupid otherwise!) and then willingly and graciously they will give up that power when it is no longer needed.

Hint: it's always needed and never goes away.

Karl marx got debunked by another dinasaur boomer a long time ago.

>>18039329
Way to miss the point.

A lot of discussion pre internet still applies. Old ideas at the very least through time, newer ideas are more likely to be fads.

If you constantly change the basis of your arguments for the purpose of debate it demonstrates weak principles.

>>18038503
Human beings are not equal and the only way to make them such is to pull the best down to the level of the lowest pigs.
It has little to do with economics and everything to do with an aspiration to comfort and mediocrity.

FUCK CAPITALISTS!

>>18039377
>>18039395
Kek

>>18039443
So if surplus value extraction doesn't exist how is it the case that some one who works producing something can never make enough to buy back what he has produced:
In Das Capital. Marx describes exchanges in a market as taking place upon two equal measures. In order for an exchange to happen to things must be equal: 100 Bags of Rice for 100 Bushels of Wheat, 1 tooth brush for 2 batteries; The must be of equivalent value to be exchanged.
They can have different use values, but, in order for any exchange on the market to take place these exchange values must be equivalent.
So, if we are to assume under a capitalist mode of production that Market exchanges between employer and employee are to take place under capitalism we must assume they are of equivalent value.
But wait, if I work at a bike shop producing bikes then why is it the case that I can never buy the bikes back? If my exchange for my labor and the compensation for money are of equivalent value then I should be able to pay my wages to buy a bike from the bike owner I produced them for, but, that is not possible. Why is that? The reason is is because I get a kick down for my labor and the owner pockets the difference with out doing any labor of his own. It is just economic slight of hand; the same as slavery or serfdom just hidden behind smoke and mirrors.
Or, to put it more plainly, a worker produces the value of X^2 yet only receives X for his labor. The remainder must go somewhere and that place is the pocket of the employer.

This relationship leads to all kinds of fuckery in the economy as, to anyone with a brain, an in-equivalence of value would. To deny the existence of surplus labor just shows you actually don't really understand much about economics or politics of business. Take any finance oriented class in college today; hell, take econ 101 and you will learn this simple fact.

>>18039468
What facts? They do not pertain to the discussion about an economy of democracy and an economy of autocracy.

>>18039590
>So if surplus value extraction doesn't exist how is it the case that some one who works producing something can never make enough to buy back what he has produced:
ignores capital as an input to production, good job retard.

>>18039590
>Take any finance oriented class in college today; hell, take econ 101 and you will learn this simple fact.
LOL what shit school did you go to?

>>18039590
>The must be of equivalent value to be exchanged.
This is hilariously wrong.

If two things were of "equivalent value" in their exchange in the eyes of the traders, exchange would never take place. If I trade my toothbrush for 2 batteries, obviously I value 2 batteries more than the toothbrush.

>>18039632
And where do you think capital comes from? Do you think it just falls out of the sky? All, and I mean, all economic relations are predicated upon this simple metric.
You can run all the way down to the first man whole was paid to mine copper ore out of the ground with his bare hands and the result is still the same. It took the same process to accumulate capital in the first place. You just don't see it because commodity production is hidden behind a thin veneer of alienation.

>>18038503
Because people are shit and communism only works when people aren't shit, and that will never happen, so it simply will never be viable. It's extremely idealistic. Capitalism with restraints is the best model, as it's the most balanced in the real world we live in. It's not perfect, but nothing ever will be. Unrestrained capitalism is shit as well.

>>18039674
Reread what I said: You are discribing two different things; Exchange value and Use value.
Again, you can desire something for its utility but no one is going to give it too you with out something equivalent; Rice, Screwdrivers....money?
Whatever, exchanges must be equivalent or they don't happen. Unless I am missing the part where X Barrels of oil are worth less than X Bushels of wheat?n Austrians omit much of this in their understanding of economics and that is where they falter.

>>18039314
>I am a better farmer than most
>I have yielded extra crops due to my superior skill and hard work
>I would happily sell any extra crops that I have made to people who would buy
>a bunch of faggot Jewish intellectuals convince other farmers and workers of significantly lesser skill that I somehow am hoarding the fruit of my labor (something they espouse as noble but never engage in themselves) for selfish reasons and not the fact that I can use the extra crops I yielded above subsistence levels can be used to acquire more wealth for myself and my family
>get crops stolen, then me and my entire family dragged out and shot for daring to try and better our situation instead of sharing with easily manipulated and riled-up idiots
>100 years later, have the same idiots still so enthralled by the Jewish intellectual propaganda that they convince themselves that it was I that deserved such a fate and because I was so selfish I burned my labor rather than give it up at gunpoint

You're genuinely retarded.

>>18039713
>Again, you can desire something for its utility
Kek, a Marxist admitting that subjective utility preference exists.

That's a new one. Looks like you've just discovered marginalism and why nobody takes Labor Theory of Value seriously!

What a incoherent ideology Marxism is.

Because the evil gommies took my grandfathers slave plantation away from him >:(

>>18039755
Lmao, listen to the ideology at play here.

>muh hard work
>Superior skill
>Muh better than most
>Muh jews
>Muh ownership

Kulaks deserved worse.

>>18039787
Defending the murder of people who don't like your ideology isn't likely to yield any converts.

>>18038564
How is that different from today without invoking bullshit socially contingent nonsense?

>>18039787
Things will be different next time.

>>18039785
Marx never denies subjectivity of value, fool.
It's almost like none of you actually have read anything about him and just believe memes you constantly reiterate back and forth to one another. What marx did say was that all value, as we understand it, is derived from the production of useful commodities through the transformative power of labor. That is pretty much being validated in the global melt down of the economy right now.

>>18039813
>Marx never denies subjectivity of value, fool.
So value doesn't come from labor after all? and value instead comes from subjective preference and market supply and demand? Glad you admit it.

>>18038895
You do know there are different flavors of communism that don’t involve central planning, or did they not teach you anything while you were being indoctrinated?

>>18039801
>Defending the people who starved millions to death because muh property

Your ideology is just idiotic.

>>18039813
>It's almost like none of you actually have read anything about him and just believe memes you constantly reiterate back and forth to one another.
no way. you think?

>>18039823
> there are different flavors of communism
you on the bottom left

>>18038901
Kinda like how people starve under capitalism, amirite??

>>18039810
What next time? In order for us to be on the same page you all need to admit we are talking about two different things and that will never happen because you are all morons.

>>18039199
What about communal store houses waaaayyyy back in the day, dumbfuck?

>>18039821
Learn to read, people. Learn to read.
Cherry picking does not make you smart it just makes you a dumb dumb.

if we had communism in the US I would have a mansion and a lamborghini and all the stuff I want and so would everyone we would all have mansions and no problems and we wouldn't have to work it would all be free

>>18039439
Define Hegelian dialectics and please elaborate how Marxism could even stem from them.

Protip: you can’t

>>18039173
Muh nationalism. Same thing with Yugoslavia

If communism happened we could finally kill all the sparrows so they stop eating our grain

>>18039889
lel

yeah so what if I have a nice apartment and a personal vehicle that allows me to travel literally anywhere and running water and air conditioning and an unlimited supply of food and thousands of dollars worth of gadgets and toys that keep me entertained and all I had to do to earn it was work the fryer at McDonald's

under communism I'd have way more than that. DESTROY THE SYSTEM NOW

>>18038564
So just like capitalism.

>>18039837
I get it. You can’t read. Picture funny harhar.

>>18039919
BAZONGA!

>>18038503
Much ink has been spilt in responding to the recent New York Times article extolling Marx’s economic, philosophical and historical contributions (Jason Barker: "Marx was Right"). In critically analyzing this article, several authors have, quite rightly, pointed to the practical impossibility of implementing outright socialism due to the problem of economic calculation, and to the enormous death and destruction that all attempts to implement Marx’s ideas have wrought.

Nevertheless, a very important point made by the author of the NYT article, Jason Barker, has not received the attention it deserves. Specifically, there has, as yet, been no detailed response to Barker’s claim that “Marx’s basic thesis — that capitalism is driven by a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit — is correct” (emphasis added).

This article seeks to address this point, and does so by providing a summary of Böhm-Bawerk’s scintillating criticism of the entire economic edifice of Marx, advanced more than a century ago in his Karl Marx and the Close of his System (Böhm-Bawerk 2007).2 As explained in more detail below, Böhm-Bawerk attacks the three main pillars of Marx’s economic system: the labor theory of value, Marx’s law of value and his theory of surplus value as the source of the capitalist’s profits. At the end of his onslaught none of these pillars is left standing, and the entire edifice comes crashing down. Böhm-Bawerk’s critique remains, to this day, one of the most powerful criticisms of the argument that the source of the capitalist’s profits lies in the exploitation of workers.

>>18038916

>communism is better cuz its super edgy goys
Truly, the irony must be completely lost on you. You are the exact stereotype of a *communist* that everyone mocks.

>>18039942
>>18039942
Marx on the Labor Theory of Value

At the very outset, in the opening chapter of the first volume of Capital, Marx restricts his analysis to the world of commodities, a subset of goods in general. “The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails,” he observes, “appears as an immense collection of commodities.” It thus follows that an economic analysis of capitalist society must begin “with the analysis of the commodity” (Marx 1990: 125).

What, then, are the salient characteristics of a commodity? A commodity must, to begin with, be useful. It must satisfy some “human needs,” either directly as “an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production (Marx 1990: 125)” Moreover, it must be produced for exchange on the market. An individual who produces goods to satisfy his (or her) own wants “creates use-values, but not commodities.” To produce commodities he must “not only produce use-values, but use-values for others, social use-values (Marx 1990: 131).”

These two characteristics of a commodity form the foundation of Marx’s theory of value. The use value of a commodity rests on and is completely determined by its usefulness, on the fact that is can be brought into a causal connection with the satisfaction of wants. Value, in this sense, refers to the importance that a commodity has for the well-being or satisfaction of an individual.

But when a commodity enters the nexus of interpersonal exchange it also gains exchange value. Now, according to Marx, “exchange value appears first of all as the quantitative relation, the proportion, in which use-values of one kind exchange for use-values of another kind” (Marx 1990: 126). An act of exchange, in other words, is always characterized by the transfer of two commodities that possess use.

>>18038503
>>18039963
Nevertheless, the exchange value of a commodity is not determined by its value in use. In fact, its precise extent or magnitude bears no systematic relationship with the importance that a commodity has for the well-being of an individual. Disconnected from the subjective wants, desires and perceptions of acting individuals, it is instead an objective property of a commodity. And like other objective properties such as height, weight, etc. it is “intrinsic” to a commodity, “inherent in it,” and is “inseparably connected with it” (Marx 1990: 126).

How does Marx arrive at this conclusion? His analysis rests on an observation made many centuries ago by Aristotle. “There can be no exchange,” the Greek philosopher claimed, “without equality, and no equality without commensurability” (quoted in Marx 1990: 151). Every act of exchange, in other words, involves an equality of value; the units of the two commodities being exchanged possess equal exchange value. And, if this is the case, there must be some “common element” of “identical magnitude” that exists in the “two different things” being exchanged that determines this equal exchange value (Marx 1990: 127).

The puzzle of what governs exchange value will thus be solved if one can identify what this “common element” of “identical magnitude” is. And this is precisely what Marx sets out to do. He does this, not by trying to advance a positive argument for why a certain element or factor is the one that he is looking for. Instead, he attempts to find the common element by winnowing out all the factors that cannot be the one that he is after, leaving him with his Holy Grail in the end.

>>18039116
define the dual nature of commodities or leave

>>18039960
the only edgelords i see here are lolbertarian fuckwits who think "kill the poor" is some kind of political ideology

>>18038503
>>18039982
He begins by throwing use value out the window. The use values of the commodities being exchanged, Marx claims, rest on their qualitative features, their “geometrical, physical, chemical or other natural” properties (Marx 1990: 127). Now, since these properties and the use values that they impart serve to distinguish and differentiate the two commodities being exchanged, they cannot be the “common element” of “identical magnitude” that is being sought.

Having dispensed with use values and the various qualitative properties of the two commodities that underlie it, Marx quickly arrives at his destination. “If…we disregard the use-value of commodities,” he claims, “only one property remains, that of being products of labor (Marx 1990: 128).”

To be specific, however, it is not the “concrete forms of labor” that make up this common element, for they were also excommunicated when use values were sent into exile. From the perspective of exchange value and the common element that determines it, the various distinguishing and distinctive features of the commodities being exchanged disappear from the scene; all their “sensuous characteristics are extinguished.” And since there is “no longer a table, a house, a piece of yarn or any other useful thing,” there is also no longer the “labor of the joiner, the mason or the spinner, or any other particular kind of productive labor (Marx 1990: 128).”

All that remains, then, is “human labor in the abstract;” “homogenous human labor” that is “expended without regard to the form of its expenditure (Marx 1990: 128).” Here lies Marx’s Holy Grail. It is the quantity of abstract, homogenous human labor, “measured by its duration…on the particular scale of hours, days, etc. (Marx 1990: 129)” that is the “common element” of “identical magnitude” that determines the exchange values of the commodities that are being exchanged.

>>18039878
Hegelian dialectics is a theoretical framework that describes the progression of history through contradictory forces creating tension and an inevitable resolution.

So, take the great depression: It had a failing economic system (much like we find today) and the resulting disposition of the working class members of society, so, in order to over come this tension it had to transform how it functioned and that transformation was keynesian economics.

Hegel was just spooked by idealism, Marx too that and applied it to the material world.

Pro tip: You are an idiot.

>>18039199
>Yeah sure, it's just never worked and no communist nation has ever managed to compete against capitalist ones because, uh, reasons.
>What is the Cold War
The absolute state

>>18038503
>>18040004
Marx’s Law of Value

The main implication of this theory of exchange value for prices realized on various markets is the following: every realized price reflects the inter-personal transfer of units of two commodities that embody equal magnitudes of homogenous human labor.

Take, for example, the exchange of one shirt for a loaf of bread in a world of barter. Each will, then, require the same amount of labor time to produce and will thus have equal exchange value. The same holds true in a monetary economy where goods are exchanged for units of money. In this case the units of the good and the units of money will embody the same amount of labor time. This, in essence, is Marx’s “law of value,” a law that is “immanent in the exchange of commodities” (Marx 1990: 268).

There are three very important points to note regarding this law. First, the labor time embodied in a commodity includes both the direct and the indirect labor needed to produce. In the case of the loaf of bread, for example, the labor time that governs its exchange value includes not just the labor time of the baker but also of the miller who grinds the flour, the farmer who grows the wheat, etc.

Second, strictly speaking, it is not the absolute amount of homogenous human labor, or “identical human labor power” that governs the exchange value of a commodity (Marx 1990: 129). It simply cannot be the case that a commodity would be more valuable “the more unskilled and lazy the worker who produced it (Marx 1990: 129).” Similarly, the value of a pound of cotton yarn cannot be increased if the cotton used to produce it is “such rubbish as to tear at every other moment (Marx 1990: 303).”

>>18039908
You realize like 20 million people just lost their jobs right? Myself included, actually. That doesn't really matter though because most of the rest of the world doesn't have your myopic privileges.

>>18040027
Holy shit a global catastrophe just happened and there were bad consequences from it?

Communism would have prevented this

>>18040024
>>18038503
Surplus Value, Profits and the Exploitation of the Worker

Marx erects his theory of exploitation on the labor theory of exchange value and the law of value implied in it. The activities of a capitalist, Marx observes, conform to a regular pattern. Each capitalist starts with a capital sum, or a sum of money (M). He (or she) proceeds to invest this sum in various inputs used in the production process, or a bundle of non-money commodities (C). This bundle includes the labor power of workers as well as material capital goods, the latter including less durable raw materials as well as machines and tools of greater durability. These inputs are then used to produce a product, or another commodity, that is ultimately sold on the market for a larger sum of money than initially invested (M’). The M-C-M’ circuit of money and commodities summarizes the ever-repeating activities of capitalists engaged in production.

When viewed through the prism of the law of value, however, the presence of this M-C-M’ circuit presents the following puzzle: the capitalist “must buy his commodities at their value, sell them at their value, and yet at the end of the process withdraw more value from circulation than he threw into it at the beginning (Marx 1990: 269).” All the inputs purchased by the capitalist are bought at prices that reflect the socially necessary labor time embodied in them, as is the price of the product that is ultimately sold. Yet, this process results in the exchange value of the product exceeding those of the inputs used to produce it. What is the source of this “surplus value” generated by the capitalist?

>>18038925
>>18039870
>>18039908
>Primary school level understanding
Go to bed you have class tomorrow

I got sucked into reading this thread and I regret it, heed my warning fellow lurker

>>18040044
>>18038503
The first step to resolving this puzzle is to take a closer look at how the prices of the inputs reflect the socially necessary labor time embodied in them. Take, for instance, the production of cotton yarn. Let us assume that it takes a capitalist ten pounds of cotton, the use of a machine for a couple of hours, and six hours of labor-time to produce to produce ten pounds of yarn.

The cost of the ten pounds of cotton is ten gold ounces. Assuming that one gold ounce requires two hours of socially necessary labor time to produce, the ten pounds of cotton embody twenty hours of necessary labor time. Assume, moreover, that the two hours of machine-time used to spin the ten pounds of cotton into yarn is worth two gold ounces. Thus, machinery that embodies four hours of labor time is also consumed in the production process, and altogether twelve gold ounces worth of material inputs that require twenty four hours of labor time are used up in the production of the cotton yarn.

its bad because once you try to make a stable system to meet the needs of your people, America shows up and kills half your population, sells your resources to exxon or a fruit company, and replaces your leaders with a pliable sociopaths.

It’s great if you’re into mass graves

>>18040052
How much more money would I have under communism can you tell me? I don't need 200 iq to understand that. You want me to believe communism is better than capitalism then tell me how, how would it benefit me personally? How much richer would I be? Answer the fucking question.

>>18038503
>>18040063
Let’s turn our attention now to the case of the labor power used in the production of yarn. Just like every other commodity, “the value of labor power,” Marx declares, “is determined by the labor-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this specific article” (Marx 1990: 274). The worker, to work and place his labor power at the disposal of the capitalist, needs to consume some “means of subsistence,” a bundle of commodities that are “sufficient to maintain him in his normal state as a working individual” (Marx 275).

The exchange value of labor power, which is reflected in the wages that must be paid to hire it, is determined by the socially necessary labor time required to produce these means of subsistence that are necessary to produce and reproduce labor power. Assume now that the capitalist producing the cotton yarn can buy a day’s labor power for three gold ounces. It follows, since the law of value prevails, that the means of subsistence required to produce a day’s labor power, in this given instance, absorb six hours of necessary labor time.

Adding up the amount expended on all the inputs, the capitalist lays out a total of fifteen gold ounces, a sum that embodies thirty hours of socially necessary labor time. Similarly, the output of ten pounds of yarn also embodies an identical thirty hours of labor time: twenty four hours for the ten pounds of cotton and the machinery consumed, and a further six hours for the labor power employed. It follows that the ten pounds of yarn will also sell for thirty gold ounces, and there will be no profits for the capitalist to take home.

Why were no profits generated from this production process? Because there was no surplus value generated while the yarn was being produced. The exchange value of the inputs was identical to that of the output and, as a result, so was the cost and the revenue of the capitalist

No communist can ever answer how communism would actually benefit the common man over the current system, all they can do is rattle on and on with their "intellectual" drivel.

>>18040087
>>18038503
In fact, no surplus value was generated because the capitalist producing the yarn only makes the worker engage in “necessary labor” (Marx 1990: 324). Since he only makes the worker provide six hours of labor power, the number of hours worked by the laborer is equal to the socially necessary labor time that is embodied in the means of subsistence needed to sustain him for a day.

Most importantly, the worker takes home the value that he generated. He combined his labor power with material inputs that embodied twenty four hours of labor time, and added the value of his necessary labor to this. And he was paid six gold ounces for this, which is equivalent in value to the value added to the product by this necessary labor. Thus, when the capitalist fails to earn a profit, the worker is not exploited.

Let us now assume a slightly different scenario. The capitalist still hires a worker for a day, giving him three gold ounces in exchange. But now he makes him work, not for six, but for twelve hours, and combines these twelve hours with twenty pounds of cotton and four hours of machine-time to produce twenty pounds of cotton.

His outlay on inputs now is twenty seven gold ounces: twenty for the cotton, four for the machine-time and three for the day’s labor power. And the socially necessary labor time that these inputs embody is now fifty four hours in total: forty hours for the cotton, eight for the machine-time, and six for the labor power.

How many hours of necessary labor time does the product, the twenty pounds of cotton yarn, embody? Sixty hours in total: forty eight hours embodied in the material inputs, with twelve additional hours of labor power absorbed during the production process itself. These twenty pounds of cotton thus sell for thirty gold ounces, and the capitalist now earns three ounces as profit.

>>18040038
It would have, a society that isn't dependent upon profit to accumulate capital ad-infinitum wouldn't be effected by a stoppage in the economy.

>>18040102
>>18038503
The profit stems from the surplus value generated in the production process: the inputs embody fifty four hours of labor time but the product embodies sixty hours, leaving a surplus of six hours of labor time that is worked into the exchange value of the product. And let us now ask again: what is the source of this surplus value? Its roots lie in the fact that the laborer now provides more than the necessary labor. Instead, the capitalist extracts “surplus labor” from him, labor time in excess of the six hours needed to produce his means of subsistence.

Most importantly, the worker is no longer compensated for the value that he adds to the production process. He works for twelve hours, and adds twelve hours’ worth of value to the material inputs that he works with. And yet he is only paid a wage that embodies six hours of labor time. Not being paid for his surplus labor, the worker is exploited, is mulcted by the capitalist. The latter’s profits stem from this act of daylight robbery.

>>18040099
communism is free time and nothing else.
do you like being a wagie stuck in cagie?

>>18040102
>>18038503
>>18039674
>>18039713
Marx on the Labor Theory of Value: Böhm-Bawerk’s Criticism

Böhm-Bawerk begins his critique of Marx’s theoretical edifice by taking aim at the proposition that serves as its foundation: the labor theory of exchange value.

His first criticism addresses the proposition that Marx borrowed from Aristotle, that goods of equal value are traded in an act of exchange. This, to Böhm-Bawerk, “seems…to be a wrong idea,” for, he notes, where there is equality of value there is no incentive to exchange. “Where equality and exact equilibrium obtain, no change is likely to disturb the balance” (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 68). The transfer of commodities that characterizes an act of exchange, on the other hand, results from the prevalence of an inequality of value, where what is valued less is traded for what is valued more.

But even if one were to set this objection aside, and assume for the moment that exchange is characterized by an equality of values, does Marx do a good job of showing that it is the quantity of labor that is the “common element” of “identical magnitude” that determines these equal exchange values? Böhm-Bawerk answers this question in the negative, and does so for three main reasons.

First, Böhm-Bawerk notes, in his quest to find this common element Marx restricts his analysis to only “those exchangeable things which contain the property which he desires finally to sift out as the “common factor,” while leaving “all the others outside” (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 70). In fact, Marx, throughout his analysis, implicitly (and sometimes explicitly)3 assumes that a commodity must be the product of labor. This, right at the outset, implies that scarce gifts of nature cannot be commodities.

>>18040004
> Your 8 hours of labor making me tendies at mcdonalds is as valuable as 8 hours of a brain surgeon's
>Everyone is a brain surgeon now
Time for your lobotomy!

>>18040135
no more work? Yo, fucking based, sign me up

>>18039713
>>18040136
>>18038503
>>18040108
But goods “such as the soil, wood in trees, water power, coal beds, stone quarries, petroleum reserves, mineral waters, gold mines, etc.” are often the subjects of exchange (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 70). And they embody no labor time! How then can Marx explain the exchange value of these goods? Surely the common element that governs the exchange values of these goods cannot be the amount of labor time embodied in them.

As Böhm-Bawerk rightly, and sarcastically observes, by leaving such gifts of nature out of his analysis by assumption, Marx “acts as one who urgently desiring to bring a white ball out of an urn takes care to secure this result by putting in white balls only” (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 70).

Second, Böhm-Bawerk objects to how Marx eliminates use value as the possible common element that determines exchange value. The use values and the various properties of the commodities that give rise to these values, Marx argues, serve to differentiate and distinguish the two commodities. But, Böhm-Bawerk notes, beneath this heterogeneous exterior there lies a homogeneous substratum. For both commodities in an exchange possess use value; they both bear a causal connection to satisfaction.

And, just as in the case of labor, “one can compare values in use of different kinds according to the amount of the value in use” (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 76). Why must one focus exclusively on the qualitative aspects of use value that serve to differentiate commodities and ignore the possible quantitative aspect that renders them homogenous? Marx never even addresses this question.

/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>18040145
>>18040108
>>18038503
>>18040027
>>18040013
>>18040009
And third, and most egregiously, Marx, while noting that labor power has qualitative aspects as well as a quantitative aspect, proceeds to ignore the former while concluding that the latter is the common element that he is after. But why the different treatment of labor power and use value?

As Böhm-Bawerk asks, doesn’t Marx see that “the same evidence on which Marx formulated his verdict of exclusion against the value in use also holds good with regard to labor?” (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 76). Why, in the case of labor alone, is he willing to overlook the “concrete forms” of it, “the labor of the joiner, the mason, or the spinner” and focus instead on the “abstract human labor” that is present in all commodities (Marx 1990: 128)? To ask such questions, however, is to uncover the “dialectical hocus pocus” that is Marx’s argument in support of the labor theory of value (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 77).

>>18040052
>>18040009
>>18040013
>>18039843
>>18039839
The Composition of Capital, the Rate of Profit and Surplus Value: The Contradictions of Marx’s Law of Value

So much for Marx’s justification of the labor theory of value. Let us assume, for the moment, that it is true, and turn our attention to the law of value that is implied in it. Do prices, the exchange ratios of commodities for money, actually fluctuate around and tend towards amounts that reflect their respective exchange values as determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time embodied in them? Does the labor theory of value, via the law of value, provide an accurate explanation for the price phenomena that we see around us?

To answer these questions Böhm-Bawerk subjects Marx’s theory of surplus value and exploitation to greater critical scrutiny. Turning once more to our example of cotton yarn production, let us focus on the relationship between the surplus value and the profits that it gives rise to and the various components of the capital expended by the capitalist.

Note that during the production process the exchange value of the material inputs, the twenty pounds of cotton and the four hours of machine-time, simply passes over to the twenty pounds of cotton yarn that is produced. “The value of the means of production,” which in this case is forty eight hours of necessary labor time: forty hours for the cotton and eight for the machine-time, “is maintained” and “reappears in a different form in the value of the product, but adds no surplus value” (Böhm-Bawerk 2007: 16).

Given the unvarying exchange value of the material inputs during the production process, Marx calls the capital invested in them “constant capital” [denoted by c] (Marx 1990: 317). In our example, it amounts to twenty four gold ounces.

>>18039802
Well we currently live in a communist system, so...

>>18040052
>>18040009
>>18040013
>>18039843
>>18039839
>>18040187
>>18040164
The case of the capital invested in labor power is entirely different. This part of capital, which Marx terms “variable capital,” [denoted by v] “does undergo an alteration of value in the process of production,” reproducing both “the equivalent of its own value” as well as an “excess, a surplus-value” (Marx 1990: 317). In our example, when the capitalist extracts twelve hours of labor time from the worker, it includes both necessary labor of six hours and surplus labor of six hours, with the latter giving rise to the surplus value that is source of the capitalist’s profits. The amount of variable capital is therefore three ounces, giving rise to three ounces worth of profits.

Based on these concepts, Marx defines the “rate of surplus value,” (Marx 1990: 326) which is “the ratio of the surplus value [denoted by s] to the variable capital” (Marx 1990: 327). This ratio, which always equals the ratio of the amount of surplus labor to the amount of necessary labor, serves as a measure of the degree of exploitation suffered by the worker at the hands of the capitalist. In our example, this ratio [s/v] stands at 1, or 100%, since both the surplus value and the variable capital amount to three gold ounces.

Now, whereas the rate of surplus value does not depend on the amount of constant capital, the rate of profit earned by the capitalist is found by dividing the amount of surplus value by the sum of the constant and variable portions of the capital [s/c+v]. This rate is thus not equal to the rate of surplus value. In our example, for instance, the rate of profit is 11.1%, which is significantly lower than the rate of surplus value.