/lit/ - Literature

Mein Kampf

>>21399131

>>21399131
Just read Marx. Pages upon pages of pure capitalist analysis and criticism with no advocation of communism. That comes later in the manifesto.

>>21399131
The only other option is to revert to a form of society that has structures of power that are above capital and not defined by materialism or utilitarian benefits. Monarchy, in other words.
Regardless, I'd like to know some books like OP.

>>21399144
Or... no society at all.

>>21399147
That would be ideal but it would last one generation at most.

>>21399131
The Libertarian Manifesto.

>>21399131
There was a book I got recommended one time that I sadly don't remember the name of. It was a right-wing socialist criticizing Marx and Das Kapital...if that rings bells for anybody, please drop the name.

America's Protectionist Takeoff 1815-1914 by Michael Hudson

>>21399194
>right wing socialist
Nazbol?

>>21399207
Maybe? Right-wing socialism isn't necessarily nazbol.

carlyle
>>21399141
this

>>21399131
You do realize all the various isms are fronts for our Jewish overlords from royal bloodlines? Easier to offload blame onto some special philosophical phenomenon by burying your actions under mountains of obscure verbiage. Every single ism draws you in with emotionally charged social criticism paired with many truisms, then proceeds to deflect your attention to nature, metaphysics, psychology, etc. Easiest way to prove this would be to trace the money and trace the bloodlines of everyone in power (even those in the shadows). Be we aren't allowed to do that, are we?

The industrial society and its future

>>21399131
>Books that critique capitalism, that don’t advocate for communism?
Marx _Capital_ ed. Engels. 3 vols.

>>21399131
Read “When Bataille Attacked the Metaphysical Principle of Economy”. Baudrillard talks about Bataille’s aristocratic (Mon-Marxist) critique of capitalism. The Marxist principle of use-value is effectively a servile position (to be useful is to serve a master), whereas the aristocratic critique is sovereign because it sees sacrificial or wasteful expenditure as an end in itself. Marxism, in its exaltation of utility, renders itself an impotent, petit-bourgeois critique of capital In service of “the good” in society, which is still a form of servitude or bondage to something outside of itself.

>>21399194
Spenglers Prussian Socialism

>>21399777
You're not as smart as you think.

>>21399777
>Easier to offload blame onto some special philosophical phenomenon by burying your actions under mountains of obscure verbiage
Easier to reductively offload blame onto a single demographic than acknowledge the inherent complexity of the world in which no individual agent or group has total control. Also, meds

>>21399131
Weber, Zuboff and Baudrillard.

Future classic.
Listened to an audio book few months back and still cannot stop thinking about it.
Thanks anon who recommended it here.

>>21399131
Read Keynes. Despite him being a capitalist, he is basically the capitalist alternative to hyper neo liberal thought like ayn rand cucks

All politics posters should be shot

>>21399131
if you mean explicitly advocate, then a lot of Marx or stuff like https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/books/competition-capitalists.. if you mean implicitly, then no such thing exists
>>21399141
he advocates for communism implicitly on every page, but if we're only talking about explicit advocacy then you're right
>>21399144
this option doesn't exist outside fantasy novels
>>21400026
Keynes affirms capitalism, not critiques it

Technological Slavery and Anti-Tech Revolution

>>21399139
>>21399985
>based beyond compare

>>21399985
>The Marxist principle of use-value is effectively a servile position (to be useful is to serve a master),
there's no "Marxist principle of use-value". there's only the observation that humans produce things that are useful for them, which is as obvious as "the sky is blue".
>whereas the aristocratic critique is sovereign because it sees sacrificial or wasteful expenditure as an end in itself
if something is produced in order to be sacrificed or ostentatiously wasted, then it still has use-value exactly in that. so this doesn't escape the "principle of use-value" in the slightest.
>Marxism, in its exaltation of utility
there's no special exaltation of utility in Marxism. it's trivially and inescapably true that people tend to produce things that are useful to them, things that they need. and whether they need a particular thing to eat it or to sacrifice it is immaterial. it's always a matter of utility
>a form of servitude or bondage to something outside of itself.
communism overcomes servitude to uncontrolled social conditions by bringing the production of the species, and therefore its own social organization, under its own rational control. this is the only sense in which escaping servitude to something external is possible. any other conception is pure fantasy.

>>21399131
Kerry Bolton's writings
Lasch, Revolt
The first chapter of the Communist Manifesto
Barren Metal: A History of Capitalism as the Conflict between Labor and Usury (haven't read it)

>>21399131
Capitalism is a strawman ideology made by Communists to present aspects of human nature as a social construct. The belief that Capitalism as a stage of human development is based on the unfounded belief of Primitive Communism.

>>21400618
>there's only the observation that humans produce things that are useful for them
Humans produce plenty things that are entirely useless too, so as an observation it is entirely moot. Marxism overcomes the exaltation of exchange value, but inevitably replaces it with use value- ie towards “the good” of society/social relations, the things that are useful for “them” (as you put it). Utility is servile down to the very the grammatical structure of your statement. It is always in servitude by virtue of being useful, or rather, of being used.

>if something is produced in order to be sacrificed or ostentatiously wasted, then it still has use-value exactly in that
A contradiction in terms. Something is not produced TO be wasted, since “waste” can be defined as the squandering of potential uses, and a thing can have many different uses (or no uses at all). Something with no uses is therefore wasteful in the very act of producing it. In this performative gesture it sidesteps the impasse of use-value by consummating its own uselessness in the very act of its production.

>communism overcomes servitude to uncontrolled social conditions by bringing the production of the species, and therefore its own social organization, under its own rational control
That’s starting to sound more like fascism than communism. Everything in service of one great flow- the ripples of social organisation. Are you sure you’re on the right (sic. left) side of the political compass?

>>21400718
>Capitalism is a strawman ideology made by Communists
it's not an but the economic form in which current society is organized. production being dominated by enterprises that are someone's property, paying people money in exchange for the use of their labour-power in a combined labour process aimed at producing and selling the product with an increment over the cost, is not an ideology but a fact from which other facts about how the society functions follow
>The belief that Capitalism as a stage of human development is based on the unfounded belief of Primitive Communism
it's based on the historical fact that before the spread of capitalism, production was dominated by other forms, which is undeniable
>>21400722
>Humans produce plenty things that are entirely useless too
they don't. humans are not beavers, they can find very elaborate and/or weird uses for many things. but you're free to provide examples of those useless things
>Marxism overcomes the exaltation of exchange value, but inevitably replaces it with use value
it doesn't replace it. use value is already there without Marxism: exchange value only exists in a commodity, and a commodity is necessarily a unity of exchange-value and use-value.
>Utility is servile down to the very the grammatical structure of your statement. It is always in servitude by virtue of being useful, or rather, of being used
there's zero problem with objects, products of labour, serving people's needs, so no problem with utility in itself. the problem is with its inversion, with people serving the object, the product of labour, when this product has the form of capital. but this is precisely what's abolished by communism
>Something is not produced TO be wasted, since “waste” can be defined as the squandering of potential uses
if its produced explicitly with the intention not to be used, then it's produced with the intention to be wasted, and the waste becomes its use. "use" and "waste" aren't absolutes. a thing can be at the same time in motion with respect to one point and at rest with respect to another. similarly, a thing can be at the same time not-used in the sense of wasted, and used in the sense of being purposefully wasted by humans to satisfy some peculiar need of theirs
>In this performative gesture it sidesteps the impasse of use-value
no, its use-value is in being produced and wasted. if it were no more useful to people if they produced and then wasted it vs if they didn't, then they wouldn't bother doing it in the first place.
>That’s starting to sound more like fascism than communism
because it's what fascism imagines itself to be doing. but in reality it gains no real control, the production is still for capital, but some of its undesirable effects are attenuated for a few years, which might be easily confused with actually gaining control. but fascism can only do this by strengthening capital, so that after a short period people are even more strongly reminded that they aren't in control

>>21399131
Capital as Power

>>21400935
>you're free to provide examples of those useless things
See pic related

>use value is already there without Marxism
Correct, but the point is that Marxism exalts it in its servitude to social relations. It is not a question of what exists but what is being exalted.

>the problem is with its inversion, with people serving the object, the product of labour, when this product has the form of capital. but this is precisely what's abolished by communism
under communism people are already serving the object of social relations in their totality. It doesn’t need to take the form of capital. The totality of social relations is already the product of our labour. It is not a subject, we are not serving ourselves as ends in ourselves, we are subjects in servitude to the object that is the totality of social relations.

>if its produced explicitly with the intention not to be used
There is a difference between something being produced with the intention of not being used, and producing something useless. And nothing is produced with the intention of not being used, but there is plenty that is produced which is useless.

>if it were no more useful to people if they produced and then wasted it vs if they didn't, then they wouldn't bother doing it in the first place.
Precisely, see above. Production for the sake of waste doesn’t happen, but wasteful production happens all the time.

>>21399131
Progress and Poverty by Henry George.

>>21400722
Re-read the first three chapters of volume 1:

use-value doesn't exist outside of capital
use-value is the appearance of utility, not its substance (ie: it looks like the X-Box is good, not the X-Box is good)

Jesus christ people, read.

>>21399131
Basically the strongest possible middle-class, leaning into decentralizing technologies and independence

>>21400022
Did not read it nor did you understand it

>>21399144
>Monarchy
>structures of power that are above capital and not defined by materialism or utilitarian benefits
O am I laffin...

>>21400241
>Keynes affirms capitalism, not critiques it
You forgot that the moment any sort of external regulation or non-market agent intervention happens it's not longer True Proper Capitalism.

>>21401057
>See pic related
It feels nice to buy it and then to use it. That's utility.

>>21401596
You forgot that the moment any sort of millions of people starving to death happens it's not longer Real Communism.

>>21401577
>Basically the strongest possible middle-class
I can't help but wonder - what happens to a successful, prosperous member of a strong, protected middle class over time?

>>21399131
Stupid frogposter

>>21401557
>Re-read the first three chapters of volume 1
Of which book? Das kapital? Most of my ideas here are being drawn from Bataille and Baudrillard, who naturally have a different ideas as to whether use-value exists outside of capital (As do I).

>>21401607
>and then to use it
But what is it used for? Consooming in that way is no different to non-reproductive eroticism.

>>21401657
I love it when people borrow stable terms and redefine them. I'm not sure if Bataille would consider it a compliment or an insult for you to accuse them of post-structuralism, but that's what you've done.

Fucking whigs.

>>21401662
>But what is it used for
Satisfaction of consumer's needs?

>Consooming in that way is no different to non-reproductive eroticism.
That would be just semantics around the concept of "utility", but it's worth noting that neither in Marx nor in any preceding or consecutive works on economic theory is "utility" described or meant to be a measure of any sort of objective, healthy, productive sort of "usefulness". So that's a spook that you came up with on your own.

>>21401672
God forbid the meanings of words change over time. It’s almost like language is descriptive rather than prescriptive. Besides, you’re mad at what I’ve said, but nothing I’ve said is really my own, I’m just repurposing Baudrillard’s ideas about Bataille’s aristocratic critique of capital (who was known for being pretty reckless with other people’s ideas). If you’ve got a problem, go take it up with him.

>>21401672
>I love it when people borrow stable terms and redefine them
NTA, but you gotta be new to the game if you expect anyone ever to respect the Orthodox Marxist terminology and paradigm. Even other Marxists don't give a shit and redefine away, and the Orthodoxes themselves are literal fucking cultists.

>>21401704
There's another option apart from being new to the game.

>>21401709
You think he would actually do that? Just open this thread and deliberately pretend to be retarded?

>>21401694
>Satisfaction of consumer's needs?
Circular reasoning

>in Marx nor in any preceding or consecutive works on economic theory is "utility" described or meant to be a measure of any sort of objective, healthy, productive sort of "usefulness"
No, but it is present in the literal, dictionary definition of “utility”, abstracted away from any imposition of Marxist theory. That’s what happens when you use these specialised adaptions of terms that have very straightforward meanings elsewhere, you overcomplicate things to the point of incoherence. You might not understand utility in terms of usefulness, but everyone else does.

>>21399141
Yeah but he advocates it later defeating the purpose. It's not what OP asked for

>>21400048
I'd like to see you try faggot

>>21401716
Or, you know, holding categories against correlates in past and current societies? You know? The Engelsian thing?

le baste shed man's manifesto

>>21399131
>Books that critique capitalism, that don’t advocate for communism
Just say you are too dumb to read marx

>>21401723
>Circular reasoning
Yeah, we know. Come back when you have a better concept for market behavior modelling, might score a Stephen Ross Prize on the way.

>No, but it is present in the literal, dictionary definition of “utility”
Merriam-Webster:
>utility
>noun
>yü-ˈti-lə-tē

>1: fitness for some purpose or worth to some end
Not seeing that here.

>abstracted away from any imposition of Marxist theory
Marx did not come up with this. That was Bentham, and then Mill, Smith, and later Ricardo - which is where Marx picked that up. So, uh, that would be imposition of Capitalist theory overcomplicating things to the point of incoherence, where Capitalists can't understand utility in terms of usefulness, but everyone else does.

You should read a book or something, man.

Capitalism is great, why bother critiquing it. Instead, you should just try to understand it

>>21401761
>you should just try to understand it
Marx did and look where it got him.

>>21401757
So meanwhile I refer to Marx who summarised the bourgeois political economists when it came to utility; and this shit cunt is going to Webster. Not even OUP, but Webster, for a term of art.

GJBG

>>21401757
>purpose or worth to some end
>worth to some end
Right there in front of you dude.

>Marx did not come up with this
No, but it’s HIS use of the term we’re talking about. Just because he borrowed it from other people doesn’t mean he’s going to apply it in the exact same way, therefore it’s his usage of the term we’re focusing on here. Stop diverting and then posturing like I don’t know what I’m talking about

>>21401761
sometimes you need to critique something to understand it better.

>>21401748
this

>>21401961
Too based for this 93IQ thread

>>21401841
How can you assess the validity of the critique if you don't understand the primary subject matter?

>>21402168
True you need to somewhat understand it first. But you can also work the other way; have some intuition that something is wrong, create a critique as a hypothesis, then study the topic to test if your accusations are fair, or misguided. I admit it might be difficult since the less you know about a topic, the less you know where to look to find answers. So I guess this assumes some basic familiarity with the topic, in the case of capitalism you'd have to know a little about the mainstream and alternative economic schools and theories. Or you could try to use your hypothesis to make predictions, and if it can't then there's probably something wrong with it.

>>21399131
Theory of the Leisure Class (really, Veblen is probably the best non-Marxist critic of capitalism so you might as well read most of his work).

>>21402232
Veblen is a historical materialist though, so that'll make some of the idiots around here vomit.

(Kołakowski is methodologically historically materialist, even though he's ideologically a pan-slavic essentialist).

>>21402257
At a certain point, it's hard to imagine any substantive critique of an economic system that isn't ultimately materialist, so I take your point but I also struggle to think of other recommendations without just abandoning a real critique of the system and instead critiquing its impacts or really importance to begin with. Maybe Calhoun could fit, but he's not really a critic and I suspect you end up with the same issues you would with Veblen.

QURAN.COM
>https://quran.com/17?startingVerse=29

>>21399139
kek

>>21399166
you are correct
especially the red letter

>>21402280
The only answer to oikos-privileged systems analysis on the basis of reported reality (ie: historical materialism) is ontology. And we know ontology leaves you wearing funny coloured pants.

Prussianism and Socialism by Oswald Spengler. Not necessarily a 'critique,' as in an attack, but critique like an inquiry into the cultural backgrounds of what we think of as capitalism today.

>>21401557
>Re-read 100+ pages of dense, dialectical analysis

Quote the fucking passages, nigger. It's your argument.

>>21401657
>>21401672
Listen. The fundamental issue in this conversation is that Bataille’s theory isn’t exclusive to production and objects, but energy itself at an extremely broad sense. For this reason, an act such as non-reproductive sex can be considered a squandering of energy that is ultimately useless.
>But isn’t the use of such an act to gain pleasure?
Already the language gets weird because utility isn’t easily placed into the context of non-reproductive sex. However on this website people probably would ascribe some utility—the social capital that allows one to exit inceldom. Truth is, many things escape purely rational use. Pleasure as a goal is by no means utility, it is a squandering. The theory of rational economic choice, popular at Bataille’s time, would never be able to get us to the existence of drugs. The point if his accursed share is to incorporate this inevitable behavior of humans, where they consume without expecting reciprocation, into a wider system. It isn’t to say such acts are pointless to begin with, making a question like
>but drugs are used to get high and gain pleasure, so isn’t that their utility?
Irrelevant. We chalk up such luxury, which he successfully theorizes and baudrillard continues upon, to pleasure. But it is an epiphenomena that ultimately still needs explanation. The explanation is precisely that the excess of energy produced by the sun (and the irreducible remainder for Baudrillard) ultimately must be expended and cannot always be reinvested back into growth. This area of expenditure is exactly what defines a culture: the non-productive (consumption) they carry out.

For Bataille, the profanation of the sacred is closing off the usual routes through which we squander this excess. The result is destruction: it must be expended and if not done so properly things get violent.

>>21401730
No it doesn’t.

>>21402544
>The theory of rational economic choice, popular at Bataille’s time, would never be able to get us to the existence of drugs.
It can and does, which is why it's still used today in conjunction with behavioral economics.
>Truth is, many things escape purely rational use.
Utility in economics (rational choice theory) is very simple, it is very broadly satisfaction, pleasure or benefit gained from the consumption of a product which is subject to the perception and choice of the purchaser.
>Pleasure as a goal is by no means utility, it is a squandering.
It absolutely is utility, whether or not it's a "squandering" depends entirely upon your broader value system (subjective). It can possess utility and be a squandering simultaneously, of course.
>But it is an epiphenomena that ultimately still needs explanation.
This is very wrong, a cursory reading of Aristotle or any classical philosopher would demonstrate why. There has to be a terminus for any action, which is why the action is done. All actions are done for pleasure ("pleasure" of course can vary very widely, from intellectual pleasure to sensual), which makes it exactly that which is not an epiphenomenon, but the phenomenon which grounds all other choices leading up to the final desire in the practical syllogism. A consequence is that what you're calling expenditure can (in the case of virtue) be growth at the same time.
>The explanation is precisely that the excess of energy produced by the sun (and the irreducible remainder for Baudrillard) ultimately must be expended and cannot always be reinvested back into growth.
This is pseudoscientific gibberish. It may even be correct, but it doesn't mean anything substantial.

>>21399985
I do very much enjoy what I've read from Baudrillard so I may do this.

>>21402591
I know that this might be a bit off-topic (no idea who this Bataille person is), but I would like to push back against your defense of rational choice theory.

The core problem with it isn't that it's absolutely false. Rather, it doesn't actually provide very much insight into the nature of political economy. One of the fundamental Marxist gestures is the rejection of the illusion that the value of a commodity can be comprehend in terms of pure hazard, as the contingent interplay of subjects that creates the dynamics of supply and demand. Mainstream economics may be able to formulate patterns about the world, but it is nonetheless locked into the logic of commodity fetishism, unable to recognize labor as the true source of wealth, and then to explain political economy on that basis.

Ultimately, your arguments amount to an assertion that we experience life as individuals and that ethics implies enjoyment, but for our purposes, that is where it stops.

>>21402489
>Quote the fucking passages, nigger. It's your argument.
FAIR ENOUGH CUNT
>>Marx Capital 1:1
>A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants
>Every useful thing…is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use
>The utility [ie: use-y-ness] of a thing makes it a use value.
A distinction is drawn between uses and being a use-value. Usefulness makes something a use-value, but does not exhaust what a use-value is.
>Use values become a reality only by use or consumption
Prior to use, "use-value" is a suspended un-real quality, for example, when a commodity is sold.
>Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, use values, but not commodities.
Ie: the produce remains unconsumed with the promise of use, but not the actuality thereof. Wasteage as an example.

Marx is constantly slippery on time, but this is the essential answer to "what about bad corn being sold?" Then that's fraud: the sale is the promise of use, not the use; reproducing a labourer requires so many litres of undrank bought milk gone off per year etc.

>>21400010
Yes this is the correct rebuttal I wanted to hear to this dumbfuck but that I was too dumb to articulate myself. Thank you for your service

>>21402635
>recognize labor as the true source of wealth
Because it is not the true source of wealth - any goods to exist and any economy pre-supposes labour.

>>21402699
>any goods to exist and any economy pre-supposes labour

Which is a point in my favor.

>>21402703
No, it's not. Marxists and mainstream economists just speak past each other. Labour has no intrinsic value existing above supply and demand.

>>21402748
Labour's value is determined by the mass of commodities that constitute its wage; the tolerability of a purported mass of quantities being determined by labour market withdrawal and the use of "butt-out" by workers on employers.

Ie: by supply and demand.

>>21402748
>>21402766
The broader point that these arguments are missing is that labor is always necessary for humanity to enter into any sort of metabolism with its environment, and it is ultimately the only way value can be created. The price form of exchange value internalizes the social necessity of exchange, and does indeed have a life of its own (supply and demand for instance can be used to formulate patterns in the labor market). But labor is what gives rise to the real abstraction from the use-value of commodities, thereby making the universal exchangeability of the money form possible.

>>21402781
>labour is necessary
You're projecting onto gatherer society mate. Labour is not essential for the human in Marx. Human activity is essential to the human, but labour is not. Not all appropriations are labour.

>>21402635
>Rather, it doesn't actually provide very much insight into the nature of political economy
Have you ever stopped to consider that it maybe does not have a nature? That the nature of political economy is as elusive as the nature of a computer? (it is imputing a kind of entelechy to something which has none). In my opinion this is exactly the reason why economics will never come further than rational choice theory, and similarly broad, open-ended theories (which nevertheless do have some small descriptive value, and greater value depending on the exact application). The field is entirely descriptive and empirical, and is therefore stuck at a certain distance from broader reality, due to its own scope, just like most modern scientific delimitations of reality.
>Mainstream economics may be able to formulate patterns about the world, but it is nonetheless locked into the logic of commodity fetishism, unable to recognize labor as the true source of wealth,
That's because there does not seem to be a true source of wealth, just as there is no true purpose of a computer. On the other hand, IF there is a true source of wealth, it is impossible to concretely point to where that is due to the inherent complexity of the economy, which is driven by human wants and needs, and which sublimates in the most diverse forms, including "commodity fetishism" as just one form. There are of course sources of wealth, labor included. Marxism could benefit immensely from engaging with older philosophers like Aristotle, instead of writing all philosophy off as Hegelian idealism and historicism (which I'll admit is justified to an extent). There are some areas of study which require a large degree of humility before entering into them, economics being one of them, which provides you with a mirage of a well structured castle, only to give you the resultant reality that it is a formless puddle of water.

>>21402790
>Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe it doesn't have a nature?
Meaning is not publicly available, but your point here is a bit too broad. My contention is that labor theory is descriptive and empirical; it does not import an outside meaning, but rather describes material conditions themselves. Can this be said of Marx himself, in his political theory writ large? No, past a certain point, he undoubtedly did construct an ideology that wasn't strictly empirical. But much of his work did succeed as a materialist description of political economy.
>IF there is a true source of wealth, it is impossible to concretely point to where that is due to the inherent complexity of the economy . . .
You're getting extremely speculative here. If you're willing to entertain the idea that there is a true source of wealth, why do you think it'd be unknowable? Just because the economy is complicated?

To reiterate, Marx's point isn't that we can simply stop at labor as the source of value, but that the emergence of the commodity form itself has to be understood, i.e. why value has to take the form of the commodity under the bourgeois mode of production.

>>21401799
>Right there in front of you dude.
"Satisfying one's desire" is "some end".

>No, but it’s HIS use of the term we’re talking about.
No - it's the regular meaning of the term in the XIX century and largely modern economic theory.

>Just because he borrowed it from other people doesn’t mean he’s going to apply it in the exact same way
If that's the case, then just because you borrow an expression from a dictionary doesn't mean you are going to apply it in the exact same way either.

>Stop diverting and then posturing like I don’t know what I’m talking about
Or you could, you know, just admit that you didn't actually read Marx or any of his precursors or followers, and therefore your entire perception of it as "exaltation of servile utility" is built entirely on memes - and the "diversions" you refer to are just other people pointing out your utter lack of familiarity with the subject - like the other anon immediately pointing out that there's no such thing as "Marxist principle of use-value", or me pointing out that said "servile utility" could not emerge through "imposition of Marxist theory" simply because the economic theory was already using the concept before Marx was even born.

I mean, that's an option too.

>>21400618
You use utility as a subjective and wide concept, so I don't think is has a lot to do with marx since he tried to arrive at an objective theory of value.
People don't need to believe something is useful in order to produce it, it's enough that other people find it useful.
Utility is connected to outcome, something is useful in regards to an objective and since people have different ends their subjective perception of usefulness, or simply value, of the means to attain those ends vary.

>>21399131
I don't understand the point of any of it, given the reality of peak oil. All ideologies are basically just diversions from the elephant in the room, which is widespread environmental collapse. And communists are often the worst offenders of this. You can read as much of Capital as you want, it won't change the fact that you have no solutions and will be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. And they'll of course play word games, and escape into their obscurantist lexicon, while impotently prattling on about praxiological nonsense (which is essentially just LARP) over a cup of coffee in their urban sprawl. Marxists are a joke. You don't need a book to see it.

>>21399131
Uncle Ted

>>21402879
>My contention is that labor theory is descriptive and empirical;
Well then you're clearly being very loose and carefree with the choice of words you use to describe its supposed results. You were very clearly making claims that are not empirically verifiable in the previous post. Using words such as "nature" and "true source" is not indicative of empirical or descriptive thought. It can't be denied that some aspects are descriptive naturally, but the more important aspects are of course not so.
>why do you think it'd be unknowable?
Because we do not have insight into "true causes" or "true sources" empirically. That is the basic presupposition underlying all empirical study, violating this presupposition means violating whatever scientific basis you're claiming for it. The economy is something fundamentally empirical, which we consequently cannot reason about like metaphysics. Systems theoretical descriptions of economy probably highlight this fact better than any others, in that they demonstrate that nothing is independent of anything else, so that to speak of a "true source" is just to showcase one's own ignorance regarding the basic, interdependent foundations of all that exists in this domain of study.

>>21402544
Reminds me of the quote in the preface to Thirst For Annihilation,

"To produce is to partially manage the release of energy into its loss, and nothing more.
Death, wastage, or expenditure is the only end, the only definitive terminus. ‘Utility’ cannot in reality be anything but the characterization of a function, having no sense short of an expenditure which escapes it utterly. This is ‘relative utility’. The order of Western history has as its most pertinent symptom the drift of utility away from this relative sense, towards a paradoxical absolute value. A creeping slave morality colonizes value, subordinating it to the definition ‘that which serves’. The ‘good’ becomes synonymous with utility; with means, mediation, instrumentality, and implicit dependence."

>>21401586
>O am I laffin...
That's only because you're a fool. You can't even formulate complete sentences.

>marxcucks: oy vey!

>>21402766
>>21402781
Again, it's just talking past mainstream economics. No one argues labour isn't necessary, but that there is no intrinsic value and that supply and demand is the true measure of value accounting for subjective needs in an economy.
The LTV in practice is a total disaster and not relevant to maintaining a productive economy. LTV was accepted by mainstream economists for awhile, the difference is economics evolved like a science and Marxism stayed a dogma.

>>21404114
Capital is a tool kit for workers to dismantle capitalism, not an accounting manual for nomenklatura.

Jesus fuck new bruce, do you even detest that you are forced to labour for subsistence?

>>21402879
>Labor theory is empirical
Measure it, dummy.

Spoilers: you can't.

>>21401057
>See pic related
one function of a rubber duck is multiplying the money of the owner of the rubber duck factory
>Correct, but the point is that Marxism exalts it in its servitude to social relations
what servitude? communism is the human species taking conscious control of its social relations for the first time. this means an escape from being subservient to relations that are decided behind people's backs and instead becoming the masters of those relations.
>It is not a question of what exists but what is being exalted.
and use-value is already being exalted by virtue of constituting a necessary factor of the commodity in a society defined by generalized commodity production. it has always been and always will be exalted, because it's a timeless truth that humans only produce things whose production they find useful in some way. otherwise they wouldn't bother doing it.
>under communism people are already serving the object of social relations in their totality
no, in a communist society they consciously arrange their social relations in a way that promotes the well-being of the species. it's in capitalist society that they're prisoners of social relations determined behind their backs with the purpose of increasing the power of a foreign object, capital.
>The totality of social relations is already the product of our labour.
but they're the product of disjointed private labours directed by agents of capital with the purpose of increasing the power of capital, and consequently capital's hold on this labour even further. which means those relations are not consciously controlled by the species despite being created by its members.
>we are not serving ourselves as ends in ourselves, we are subjects in servitude to the object that is the totality of social relations
almost: it's in servitude to the object for whose sake those social relations are currently organized, i.e. capital and its accumulation.
to overcome this, the species must consciously organize those relations for its own sake, which requires the destruction of capital.
>>21401596
true, the moment the state establishes a legal order to ensure the right to private property that can then be traded on the market, then it's no longer real capitalism
>>21401761
there's barely a difference. if you actually understand it, it basically criticizes itself. and, conversely, you can't criticize it without a deep understanding of it.
>>21402787
>You're projecting onto gatherer society mate. Labour is not essential for the human in Marx.
Marx:
>Labour, then, as the creator of use-values, as useful labour, is a condition of human existence which is independent of all forms of society; it is an eternal natural necessity which mediates the metabolism between man and nature, and therefore human life itself.

>>21404155
At that point you're no longer discussing economics but political science. I'm not even anti-communist in the traditional sense but trying to interpret economics through a Marxist lens doesn't work (I have known enough people who have tried and failed)
>Jesus fuck new bruce, do you even detest that you are forced to labour for subsistence?
As if that's not the case in Communist or Socialist countries.
Also, what is new bruce? I've been away but not that long.

>>21403263
>You use utility as a subjective and wide concept, so I don't think is has a lot to do with marx since he tried to arrive at an objective theory of value.
of value, not of use-value. and I don't even use utility as a subjective concept exactly, at least in the way people tend to use the word "subjective", since it has basis in social and natural facts, not in some independent will
>People don't need to believe something is useful in order to produce it, it's enough that other people find it useful.
that's in complete agreement with what I'm saying. my point is that some people find it useful, not necessarily the immediate producer himself.
>or simply value
no, value is not the same thing as usefulness. sunrays are useful for me to be able to see shit and to get my body to make vitamin D, etc., but I'm not paying for them, they don't constitute an economic value that people exchange for other object embodying equivalent values.
>>21403273
communism is a solution for making it possible in the first place to introduce conscious planning of the activity of the human species that would take into account the environment. so I don't see exactly how it's supposed to be a diversion from the problem.
>>21404114
>The LTV in practice is a total disaster and not relevant to maintaining a productive economy.
that's like dismissing Newton's laws by saying they're not relevant to maintaining working gravity. how can you miss the point so bad

>>21401615
What about the millions starving to death right know though? Are they starving under capitalism or true capitalism?

>>21404743
>communism is a solution for making it possible in the first place to introduce conscious planning of the activity of the human species that would take into account the environment. so I don't see exactly how it's supposed to be a diversion from the problem.
It's not a solution. It doesn't matter how much you plan economic activity. The solution is the descruction of industrial society. There is no managing economic activity to account for the environment. This is exactly what I mean. You do not fundamentally grasp the seriousness of the situation. Communism has no more of an answer to peak oil than capitalism.

>>21399134
fpbp

>>21399819
This

>>21404743
>that's like dismissing Newton's laws by saying they're not relevant to maintaining working gravity. how can you miss the point so bad
No? LTV is by definition subjective. Read what I said:
>not relevant to maintaining a productive economy.
That is the over-arching goal of economics. Whenever an economic theory is advanced, the justification is ALWAYS just that. Classical, Keynesian, Chicago, Austrian, etc.

>>21404976
Marx' critique of capitalism is not an economic theory.

>>21404867
>It doesn't matter how much you plan economic activity
it obviously does, because the more you plan, the more you can consciously avoid damaging the environment by picking the methods that don't and by tying the application of any potentially damaging methods with the application of corresponding counter-measures.
>>21404976
>No?
yes, you're literally dismissing it by saying it's not relevant to maintaining a productive economy, which is analogical to dismissing Newton's laws by saying they're not relevant to maintaining gravity.
both Marx's and Newton's laws describe processes that come about without humans intentionally bringing them about. whereas you mistakenly assume that Marx's laws are something that's supposed to be consciously enacted by people. it's the complete opposite: Marx describes laws that communism abolishes
>That is the over-arching goal of economics
fair, but Marx's work is not economics, it's a critique of economics. see pic, you should be able to understand what it says it even if you don't know German

>>21405020
Marxism parades itself as one and the LTV is explicitly an economic idea.

>>21405141
>Marxism parades itself as one
Marxism parades itself as economic theory so much that its foundational work is literally subtitled "the critique of political economy"
>and the LTV is explicitly an economic idea
it's an idea relating to the economy, but it's not an idea that constitutes a part of economics. you're relying on a confusion between the two concepts

>>21405137
What you argue is bizarre. On one hand you say it's not about economics and then you advocate economic policies.
>consciously enacted
I'm specifically arguing supply and demand vs LTV, which are not consciously enacted. Policies predicated on those are, but you've said you're not arguing economics but critiquing economics. You've essentially removed any measurement of success and said that Marx was right - granting all of his assumptions and conclusions, yes, he was right. Like I said, LTV is bunk and economics has moved past it, unlike Marxism.

>>21405160
Marxism is more than a single book.
>>21405160
The branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth.

the condition of a region or group as regards material prosperity.

>>21405137
>it obviously does, because the more you plan, the more you can consciously avoid damaging the environment by picking the methods that don't and by tying the application of any potentially damaging methods with the application of corresponding counter-measures.
>avoid
There is no avoidance. What don't you understand? There is no accounting for the environment. We are completely dependent on fossil fuels as the basis for our entire infrastructure. It's not just energy. Communism won't just McGyver its way out of these challenges. The exhaustion of fossils fuel resources is an inevitability, it does not matter how much you plan for it.

>>21405163
>On one hand you say it's not about economics and then you advocate economic policies.
I don't advocate economic policies, I advocate abolishing economics by bringing production and distribution under the control of the species, so that it's no longer controlled by economic laws but by humanity
>I'm specifically arguing supply and demand vs LTV
those aren't in opposition. supply and demand is the medium through which LTV operates, because prices are brought to correspondence with values through supply and demand.
>You've essentially removed any measurement of success
I haven't. the measurement of success is correctly describing the object of study, such as bourgeois society
>Like I said, LTV is bunk and economics has moved past it
you said yourself that the purpose of economics is "maintaining a productive economy", which is a different purpose from uncovering the truth about this economy. and I already said that the purpose of Marx's work is the latter, not the former. so it shouldn't be surprising that economics isn't congruent with Marx's work: the two simply have different purposes.
>>21405171
>Marxism is more than a single book.
but this single book happens to be its foundational work
>>21405205
>There is no accounting for the environment.
there obviously is. you can consciously avoid damaging the environment by picking the methods that don't and by tying the application of any potentially damaging methods with the application of corresponding counter-measures
>Communism won't just McGyver its way out of these challenges
sure, what I said is that it will make the situation favorable to overcoming them in the first place by introducing conscious planning of the activity of the human species that will be able to then take into account the environment
>The exhaustion of fossils fuel resources is an inevitability, it does not matter how much you plan for it.
it does, because if you can plan your activity taking this into account, you can avoid the undesirable effects

>>21405256
>it does, because if you can plan your activity taking this into account, you can avoid the undesirable effects
So how is communism going to support a global population of likely over 10 Billion without relying on fossil fuels? How is it going to manufacture goods without relying on fossil fuels? How is it going to maintain the technology necessary in order to actually carry out said economic planning without relying on fossel fuels? I'd really like to know. As of now, you are basically just saying, "We'll uh figure it out... because we will... okay! We just will." No, in all probability you won't. Frankly I think that you don't really know anything, and think communism will be like Star Trek. It's not. There is no alternative to fossil fuels. You are a utopianist.

>>21405256
>I don't advocate economic policies, I advocate abolishing economics by bringing production and distribution under the control of the species, so that it's no longer controlled by economic laws but by humanity
You realize supply and demand are the aggregated decisions of humanity?
>those aren't in opposition. supply and demand is the medium through which LTV operates, because prices are brought to correspondence with values through supply and demand.
They are. LTV proposes an intrinsic value to labour whereas supply and demand says value is the result of human decisions and the quantity of goods.
>I haven't. the measurement of success is correctly describing the object of study, such as bourgeois society
That's a leading response and is not a measurement.
>you said yourself that the purpose of economics is "maintaining a productive economy", which is a different purpose from uncovering the truth about this economy. and I already said that the purpose of Marx's work is the latter, not the former. so it shouldn't be surprising that economics isn't congruent with Marx's work: the two simply have different purposes.
Those two work together. One is a value (maintaining production) but understanding how an economy works (uncovering the truth) is necessary for the other to work.

>>21405306
If we didnt have nuclear and hydro power this would be a perfectly good criticism.

>>21405355
Huh?

>>21399777
antisemitism is for pseuds too stupid to read elite theory and marx

>>21399144
>The only other option is to revert to a form of society that has structures of power that are above capital and not defined by materialism or utilitarian benefits. Monarchy, in other words.
Ok, lets do that then.

>>21399144
Why do you say "revert" instead of simply "change"?

>>21399134
fbpb

>>21403399
אוי ווי בהחלט הומו אחושרמוטה

>>21405306
>So how is communism going to support a global population of likely over 10 Billion without relying on fossil fuels?
in the first place I doubt anywhere close to 10 billion people would survive the worldwide final crisis of capitalism and the world revolutionary war. your problem is imaginary
>As of now, you are basically just saying, "We'll uh figure it out... because we will... okay! We just will."
I'm not, but you're saying "this will surely make society impossible... because it will... okay! it just will". all I'm saying is that the basic premise of being able to regulate the relationship between humanity and the environment is humanity taking control of its own activity. and this is all that needs to be said until you demonstrate there's some obstacle that will be impossible to overcome
>>21405355
>You realize supply and demand are the aggregated decisions of humanity
I do
>LTV proposes an intrinsic value to labour whereas supply and demand says value is the result of human decisions and the quantity of goods
no, LTV proposes social value to products of labour, and supply and demand explains how this value comes to become established and to regulate production social-wide, through actions of private sellers and buyers
>That's a leading response and is not a measurement.
there's no measurement to a scientific theory beyond it correctly or incorrectly reflecting its object
>Those two work together. One is a value (maintaining production) but understanding how an economy works (uncovering the truth) is necessary for the other to work.
it's not, in fact at a certain point they become completely opposed, because uncovering the truth about capitalist economy undermines the very ideology used by the ruling class to keep that economy in existence. that's why economics must content itself with partial knowledge and with knowledge twisted into a mistified form, and is made up mostly of 1. abstractions that specifically ignore the real content of the relations they pretend to describe, 2. theories derived from superficial correlations at the level of phenomena or from investigating made up models

>>21405768
>Humanity needs to make decisions for itself! NO NOT THAT WAY!
>LTV vs Supply and Demand
Yes, they are exclusive because each prescribes a different source of value that invalidates the other.
>here's no measurement to a scientific theory beyond it correctly or incorrectly reflecting its object
Yeah but that statement itself is meaningless, literally -
>How is it correct?
>Because its correct!
I asked how you measure it and you just replied that it's correct because you measured it.
>Those two work together. One is a value (maintaining production) but understanding how an economy works (uncovering the truth) is necessary for the other to work.
Again, you don't understand what economics is vs. what capitalism is and you keep conflating the two. Marx was an economist. See the definition.

>>21405768
Also stop straw manning and changes your own words, it's extremely annoying -
>LTV proposes social value to products of labour, and supply and demand explains how this value comes to become established and to regulate production social-wide
You refer to this value as the same and then conclude that they are different - they are two mutually exclusive ways of determining value
>through actions of private sellers and buyers
No, not correct. Both public and private - stop trying to strawman my position by arguing supply and demand only applies to private transactions - something which is blatantly false.

>>21405717
Yeah this. If you're at that point in thought you're basically fucked

>>21405971
>Yes, they are exclusive because each prescribes a different source of value that invalidates the other.
no, supply and demand doesn't prescribe a source of value but describes the medium through which prices are established.
>I asked how you measure it and you just replied that it's correct because you measured it.
you measure it through studying the object, such as bourgeois society, and then comparing the results with the other set of results that you want to judge. if the two agree, this means that this other theory is correct.
>Again, you don't understand what economics is vs. what capitalism is and you keep conflating the two.
no, I'm not conflating them. economics is a distorted, ideological reflection of capitalist economy in accordance with the entire ideology of the ruling class, subsequently sold as universal and impartial science. so they're two separate things: 1. the thing itself (capitalist economy), 2. the ideological reflection of the thing and the community of ideologists and institutions creating this reflection (economics).
>Marx was an economist.
he was an economist according to bourgeois ideology which abstracts from the particular character of economics as a reflection of capitalist economy from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie and as a part of that abstraction wants to subsume everything that has ever touched the same subject matter as economics into economics.
but that abstraction is incorrect in the first place, and in reality economics is not a science divorced from a particular historical epoch and a particular class standpoint but an ideological conception proper to a definite class, the bourgeoisie. from which follows that Marx wasn't an economist.
>>21405988
>they are two mutually exclusive ways of determining value
no, LTV explains value and supply/demand is a mechanism through which value is established in accordance with what "LTV" explains.
>No, not correct. Both public and private - stop trying to strawman my position by arguing supply and demand only applies to private transactions - something which is blatantly false.
I'm using "private" in the sense that includes both public and private in your sense, namely "belonging to an entity that has the right of disposal of some property to the exclusion of other entities". this applies state owners too. so I'm not strawmanning your position. I simply don't needlessly introduce a distinction that's irrelevant here.

>>21405971
Supply and demand doesn't prescribe a source of value, it ignores it via use of a proxy. Did you even read Marginalism's basic texts?

>>21406183
>ignores it
No?
I suspect you didn't read them though...

>>21405768
>I'm not, but you're saying "this will surely make society impossible... because it will... okay! it just will". all I'm saying is that the basic premise of being able to regulate the relationship between humanity and the environment is humanity taking control of its own activity. and this is all that needs to be said until you demonstrate there's some obstacle that will be impossible to overcome
Peak oil is such an obstacle that is impossible to overcome. It is an inevitability. Capitalism is not going to be overcome.

>>21399985
Seconding Baudrillard.

>>21399131
I know some but they're in german. Do you know german, anon?

>>21406260
again, come back once you're able to demonstrate that. otherwise I don't care if it's "peak oil", a martian invasion predicted by Nostradamus or the second coming of Jesus

>>21402547
Sure, pal

>>21406232
The retreat from political economy in the late 19th century produces marginalism as a result of using capacity to purchase as a proxy for preference. This allows an attempt to calculate closing systems which treat radical repricing as a normal feature rather than a crisis. Marx's socially necessary labour power theory of a value-form.

Go back to >>>/nft/

>>21406721
Seems to be a trend of commies misreading and then critiquing their misreading.
Literally not what marginalism is.

Go back leftypol to shill your failed ideologies

>>21406721
Also pretending LTV was coined by Marx and not Ricardo and Smith...

>>21406768
Smith and Ricardo's LTVs differ significantly from Marxian LTV which is why I used adjectives.

Son, marginal price relies on proxying utility through the ability to purchase rather than desire for use. It doesn't solve value: it makes a field specifying assumption to allow for calculation.

>>21406778
Marxism uses labour hours as a proxy for value? The claim that it's objective relies entirely on the idea that labour hours indicate the value of the good or service - which is observably wrong.

>>21406843
Marx uses skill standardised socially average output actually achieved labour hours on commodities which are actually sold as a descriptor of value in one moment. He sees this as a critical moment because you can derive profit from the productivity of labour hours achieved versus the cost of labour power hours to produce (you feed a man a can of beans and yet he makes 2 cans of beans) as the origins of profit.

So no Marx doesn't use labour hours as a proxy for value because of the problem of blind freddy, skilled Karen, slacker bob, and susan being a trade unionist and demanding 1.75 cans of beans per day in food.

This is worked out at a social level through productivity leverage through average levels of mechanisation and skill: producers with productivity leverage can sell as if they produce at the standard whereas they produce much cheaper.

The analysis isn't the bean factory, but the system of bean factories.

Look at the standard measures of the worth of money over time: Marx's argument is observable. Or regulated labour systems under high militancy like the Award system of wage regulation.

If Billy Bob hires dickheads to work on out of date machines and tries to charge the standard hourly rate he will go bankrupt. Marx explicitly deals with these cases in volume 1 btw.

This is why its fucking frustrating and why we keep asking you to fucking read. Because the counter examples you provide are not examples of Marx's argument as he has already taken them into account and dealt with them by skill or machine productivity and provides the examples you hold up to attack Ricardo's labour hour proxy.

Fuck me Bruce: read the cunt.