/lit/ - Literature

>>13876009
Modern economists focus on cherry picking or just outright fabricating "problems" with Marx's labor theory of value. Their arguments either misunderstand his work or don't really engage with it at all.

The Austrian school is so far out in space they can't even engage with Marxist economics. They're thoroughly idealist.

Keynes is an attempt at mitigating the social contradictions of capital accumulation, but fails.

Modern neoliberalism attempts to privatize as much as possible to mitigate the falling rate of profit then are dumbstruck when another crisis ensues.

So no, they don't address Marx because he's right about the nature of capitalism being the private accumulation of socially created value. And that fundamental antagonistic contradiction can only be resolved through revolution

Yes, read Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism but if you are philosophically illiterate you will be pseud filtered pretty quickly. It's the best diagnosis of not only Marx's ontological presuppositions but those of his various batshit cults of followers over the years.

>The only rebuttals I see "dude read basic econimics"
>The only other rebuttals are usually done by some shitty economist
Yeah, because you're talking to literally braindead retards on the internet or "economists" whose job title was made up in the '30 by Americans misappropriating German historical schools of economics to turn it into a quantitative "science" (read: cult).

>>13876061
>that fundamental antagonistic contradiction can only be resolved through revolution

Agreed.

The problem with marxist economics is that its a bunch of nebolous concepts tied together that can not be used to make falsifiable predictions.
If you cant make falsifiable predictions its hardly scientific.
I asked the othe day according to marxist theory what is the value of an iphone.
People said well thats besides the point.
Wolff the most well known marxist economist also does not attempt to make predictions, he just claims that the answer to our woes is to turn our economy into something resembling the old yugoslavia while trying to present it as sonething new.
Which failed by the way.

>>13876009
I don't know what you want as a "rebuttal". You need to explain profit as a category and that's done differently.

>>13876061
>The Austrian school is so far out in space they can't even engage with Marxist economics.
That's wrong. The only people to actually respond to Marx were the Austrian school (i.e. Böhm-Bawerk).

>Keynes is an attempt at mitigating the social contradictions of capital accumulation, but fails.
All Keynes says is government can inject additional aggregate demand into an economy to offset any slump. Obviously that hasn't "failed" since capitalism has continued to govern the globe.

>Modern neoliberalism attempts to privatize as much as possible to mitigate the falling rate of profit then are dumbstruck when another crisis ensues.
I don't think recessions shock any one any more, it just provides an opportunity for them to forward their political objectives.

>>13876082
>If you cant make falsifiable predictions its hardly scientific.
All econ is unfalsifiable lol

>>13876082
https://www.quora.com/What-testable-predictions-does-the-Labor-Theory-of-Value-make

Problem is that a lot of people argue against Capital without interacting with the material at all. Instead, they argue against what they think it is about or what they heard about it somewhere else; usually from the people from the previous category.
I don't know of any full rebuttals of Marx's work, but it might be interesting to read some neo-Ricardians like Okishio, Sraffa and Steedman.

>>13876009
Why are Marx fags all so dull and boring

>>13876009
Yes, but you probably wouldn't understand it.

Marxism is a science so there is always room for improvement

>>13876009
20th century history

On a serious note I've read that:
The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism by Janós Kornai is an exhaustive analysis of why central planned economies don't work. After all the guy spend his whole career trying to make it work.

>>13877101
maybe, but where is the improvement?
Where are the new models?

>>13876009
>The only other rebuttals are usually done by some shitty economist who ignores the tendency of capital to become concetrated or how labour and capital interact
this is explained by Prices law, and Pareto distribution, and those things can be explained by biology, namely, sex and IQ. Marx did not know these things, so he could only guess as to the nature of economies, because he did not understand the nature of the basic building blocks of economies, the human individual. Good luck on your search, but you can not understand a system without understanding the basic building block of said system, much like physicists trying to create nuclear power without acknowledging the existence of the atom.

>>13877123
This guy for example has a really innovative view on what ideology (as a marxist term) is. I know for pleb "he's a funny old man talking about movies with slavic accent" but Sublime Object of Ideology was really interesting.

>>13876009
Here you go:

It's impossible for a state bureaucracy to know the needs of every consumer and the degree of value each consumer places on every possible purchase.

>>13876061
> The Austrian school is so far out in space they can't even engage with Marxist economics. They're thoroughly idealist.

Böhm-Bawerk? Mises?

>>13877216
>>13877173
>>13877116
This argument seemed a lot more plausible in the middle of the last century before there were multiple megacorporations running their own entire supply chain top to bottom and instead invest in directing demand.
Were way closer to a centrally planned economy today than anyone who was making that argument would have believed possible.
Not to mention the historical fact that command economies in the last century saw the fastest industrialization of any societies before or since

>>13877397
>Were way closer to a centrally planned economy today
No.

>>13877116
>an exhaustive analysis of why central planned economies don't work
You mean Soviet style command economies to be more precise not all theoretical models.

>>13877173
>Prices law, and Pareto distribution
None of this says anything about the prospective future aggregate rate of return on fixed-capital investment.

>>13877216
I tend to agree with that but with AI I think it becomes more possible than we think. But then again AI tends to be over hyoed.

>>13876009
>Is there a comprehensive rebuttal of this?
Baudrillard BTFOed marxist economics, read pic related

>>13877506
Any ideology can work with mind control. What's your point?

>>13877404
Delusional retard

>>13876082

>>13877648
central planning requires enforced buying, we are not forced by law, regulation, or lack of goods/services, to exclusively buy from a single source. Unless you have some other observations on the free market societies of the west, then.....

>>13877397
>This argument seemed a lot more plausible in the middle of the last century before there were multiple megacorporations running their own entire supply chain top to bottom and instead invest in directing demand.

Top kek.
1st,: If you knew anything about history you would know that those types corporations have existed since the 16th century. East india company is a prime example.

2nd: Those corporations are full of inefficient bureaucracy which is really only kept at reasonable levels by the fact that they have to compete on a (in theory) open market. This of course doesn't apply to monopolies. Ask anyone working at such a corporation if they would like to have to deal with the same procurement processes in their private lives that they do at work.

>>13877427
>You mean Soviet style command economies to be more precise not all theoretical models.
A valid point however Soviet style command economies are to date the only type of planned economy that has been tried on a national scale, thus it is the only empiricism that exists on a macro scale.

>>13877427
>None of this says anything about the prospective future aggregate rate of return on fixed-capital investment
what do you mean by this? Is this something only a selected group of elite thinkers of the party, insulated from their own poor thinking, can figure out for the rest of the masses?

>>13876075
You seem to have given this much more consideration than most people. What's your opinion on austrian school? At least it is philosophically grounded and not cargo-cult science like the mainstream.

>>13877849
I'm not who you're responding to but when it comes to allocation of goods more resources are being allocated in firms internally and not on open markets today than 100 years ago surely.

>>13877862
>A valid point however Soviet style command economies are to date the only type of planned economy that has been tried on a national scale, thus it is the only empiricism that exists on a macro scale.
Sure but all you realize is political bureaucracies are inefficient, not a stunning conclusion no?

>>13877873
>Is this something only a selected group of elite thinkers of the party, insulated from their own poor thinking, can figure out for the rest of the masses?
No it's an empirical question every investor needs to think about. Will you get a bigger return investing in building a steel mill or just buying bitcoins? If capitalism can't promote real investment it's in trouble and may be outdated.

>>13877948
>Sure but all you realize is political bureaucracies are inefficient, not a stunning conclusion no?
Yes and centralization/planning = bureaucracy. The most basic problem with planned economy is the fact that it has to be planned.

>>13878036
Every economy is planned. Under capitalism investment decisions are made by private individuals and institutions (practically gamblers) based on expected future returns (which may or may not turn out to be the case)... also involving a lot of private bureaucracy. You don't have a bunch of shortages or anything but there's plenty to complain about today.

Soviet economies were subordinated to politico-military imperatives so they never even bothered to make significant investments in consumer goods, not to mention all the bad incentives that existed to lie about figures and make bad decisions.

Planning has to occur it's just how and who does it and for what purpose. If you want little bureaucracy you don't want to look at either model really.

we did a few weeks on marx in my uni econ class but the professor said marx theory was the least interesting of liberal, realist, etc. because it's not falsifiable. i took that to mean marxism isn't based on feelings or ideas because marx seems pretty grounded in materialism

>>13877814
It takes more labour to acquire a diamond than it takes to acquire water. easy peasy

>>13878159
>because it's not falsifiable
How do you falsify a supply/demand curve?

>>13877814
There's no "paradox" if you understand the theory of rent.

>>13878159
>it's not falsifiable
his theory of value is falsifiable

>>13879538
karl marx didn't come up with the labor theory of value.
Adam smith did, then ricardo followed, then karl marx, then economists went like oh shit and threw it out the window.

>>13876150
This CK guy apparently never heard of Smith, Ricardo or even Malthus, since all his "novel facts" were adressed by economists before Marx and after, except for the tendency of profit to fall which isn't strongly empirically supported.

Also makes weird claims about neoclassic theory like that industry it would never replace machinery with labor: it would do whatever was most cost-effective at that stage, including using cheap labor where it is abundant.

>>13877948
>Will you get a bigger return investing in building a steel mill or just buying bitcoins?
There were worse bubbles before (dutch tulips, south sea company, dot-com, etc) and the world kept developing. As long as investors on the aggregate keep getting punished with losses and rewarded with gains, the system is working - pink crying wojaks are a sign that capital is being moved away from hands that are worse at managing it.

>>13879705
eventually global population will start to halt and decline and all unexploitable impoverished labour markets will dry up

>>13878168
>It takes more labour to acquire a diamond than it takes to acquire water.
De Beers knows better. It still pays for the labor of diamond miners, but it doesn't make more money by selling more diamonds. It promotes diamond scarcity instead because if diamonds were cheap - as they would be, according to marginal utility theory, if the supply increased relative to demand - people wouldn't value diamonds as much.

A lot of labor just serves to make sure most of those diamonds aren't being mined by some other org that would sell them at lower prices. The value isn't in the labor or the diamonds themselves; if all diamond reserves were put on the market, they'd probably be priced lower than other gems like rubies and saphires which are rarer in Earth's crust and thus take more time and energy to find yet are currently cheaper than diamonds because of cultural values (diamonds have more prestige) and monopolistic practice (for diamonds, not the other gems which are cheaper).

>>13879757
So they'll become consumers themselves rather than cheap labor for consumers on the other side of the world.

And new investment opportunities arise from new technologies. Cash that is one industry today will be in a different one tomorrow; such high liquidity characterizes our finnance and bleeding-edge tech economy.

Also, "decline"? If the future is old folks slowly dying under supervision of government employees instead of watching over their grandchildren and holding their children's hands as they say goodbye, it's not a future I want to be part of.

>>13879799
you're looking towards a pure pseudo-economy, "new technology" isn't worth anything if it doesn't have any prospective yield and just represents a cost

>>13876009
What is there to rebut? This wasn't based on economic science, there are no references to actual research, it's just some story by a random European Jew that's taken seriously only because it gives hope like the Bible. Have you ever tried to rebut an essay? Well, one worth rebutting has proof to the words. There is no proof in le meme capital.

>>13879942
"Capital" gives you "hope"? It was the most scientific book on economy of its time. "Capital" is not a longer version of the Manifesto. Does your mom know you're using this site? Maybe go back to 12 rules of being an idiot.

>Is there a comprehensive rebuttal of this?

I dunno LOL

sage

>>13876009
>Is there a comprehensive rebuttal of this?
the real world

>>13879942
>this wasn't based on economic science

Kek, imagine actually believing this

i don't know anything about economics so i've gotta ask,

how much has marx contributed to modern economics?

>>13881497
b bro have you ever heard of ben shaprio bro owned bro

>>13881552
the word capitalism was barely used before Marx, so quite a lot

>>13877397
This will trigger central planners and libertarian types alike, but every time we bust a corporation into 20 pieces or so, miraculously, innovation happens at an expotential rate, stocks go up, small businesses thrive and prices drop. Basically once you get a big enough market share, it's easy to collude with other companies to reduce competition. It has nothing to do with efficiency. If America busted Monsanto, cable providers, the big banks, big tech, big pharma, big retail, big airline, the hospital sector, basically anything where there's a few companies controlling like 70%+ of the market share, which is like every sector, our economy would instantly boom.
Would it concentrate again quickly? Yes. But the point remains that these centralized bodies are actually inefficient.
This is also ignoring the point that these companies came about via the evolutionary process of the market. Survival of the fittest but with profit determining fitness. You can study these corporations all you want but that doesn't guarantee that when you try to mentally divide it out you can bring together the pieces in the from of government institutions. It's like saying you can study a human, the result of an evolutionary process, meaning you should be able to assemble a human out of the raw chemicals that compose them. We're having a hard time doing that, you know.
You're also ignoring that even though corporations are top down, hierarchical entities, they work a lot more like a federation with the parts competing against each other than a central bureaucracy. Every store or plant has its own managers. If a manager under performs compared to other managers they will be kicked out of their role. The signal of who's out doing the others in the stores they run is the profit. If a manager does bad, drops in profit will signal that to the board of directors.

>>13881581
What about none of the above.
We hand over the corporations to the workers and have them run it democratically.

>>13881552
He was the first to outline the boom bust nature of capitalism. Also made major contribbutions to how value is determined. And was one of the first to truly analyse capitalism and understand its inner workings.

>>13876061

> And that fundamental antagonistic contradiction can only be resolved through revolution

Total projection, Whites/East Asians are natural capitalists— we’ve evolved toward elite rule and *privacy* and that’s how we like it. It has never *been* a problem for us and there are no large scale contradictions remaining, only small ones (eg. the personal desire to be wealthy vs the reality of inferior genetics)

The only revolutions against capital (the future and a wholly superior way of life that will bring about the age of homo superior and homo deus) have been lead by races who can’t hack capital (Slavs, “latinx”, Africans) and briefly the Chinese who were beset by raw entropy, and had to develop their natural elite who now rule, against over lower racial elements that M*o represented.

Capitalism is the future and will create the singularity, the inferior races meanwhile can enjoy their apocalyptic fantasies and “collectivism” in simulations we create or whatever, for we are nothing if not magnanimous.

>>13881806
Go to facebook there's more people to troll there