/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11431130]

Did this NEET have any redeeming features? I mean, don't economists still use his analysis of the nature of capital and labour?

[Anonymous No.11431143]

no because he was too stupid to realize the "surplus value" derived from capital was the return on risk, he was not a smart man

[Anonymous No.11431170]

>implying only commies read marx and he was not right about mostly everything

[Anonymous No.11431179]

>>11431143
Is this true? Honestly wondering.

[Anonymous No.11431343]

>>11431143
>"surplus value" derived from capital was the return on risk
oh boy

[Anonymous No.11431370]

>>11431143
You clearly didn't understand shit. He argued that the surplus value was infinite, while the amount of risk wasn't. For example, if I create a business with $100, I have a 80% risk of loosing it. But lets say I am successful, then I'll get back my $100 + a compensation for the risk I took, let's say $80, in the first year. The second year I will be gaining even more surplus. The same is true for the second year. This could go on for centuries, and there would be an infinite recompensation for a limited amount of risk.

So, after earning what they deserved, capitalists would keep unfairly earning money for an unlimited amount of time, money that is not theirs, as they already earned what they deserved. This is why he reffered to capitalists as parasites.

[Anonymous No.11431395]

>>11431370
and ironically he had an existence predicated on the fact he was a parasite

[Anonymous No.11431400]

>>11431130
>NEET
But that's wrong. Marx actually had several jobs, primarily in journalism (he edited several radical newspapers in Germany and wrote a series of articles about the US Civil War for the New York Daily Tribune), but also made some money from his political writings. His health (he had carbuncles), status as an émigré, and his radical politics prevented him from holding down a normal job, and he did consequently rely to a large extent on the generosity of his friend Friedrich Engels, who returned to work for the firm of Ermen and Engels (co-founded by his father) in order to support him.

[Anonymous No.11431415]

>>11431370
the ongoing return is from the ongoing risk and capital depreciation, instead of fixing broken machine on the tesla line, musk should just fire everyone and sell it off for scrap, but instead he keeps operations going and keep making money

where did all these retards coming from? are we being raiding by some teen socialists forums?

[Anonymous No.11431416]

>>11431143
Who risks his life and health more, a financier or a coalminer?

[Anonymous No.11431431]

>>11431143
Lmao. Imagine sharing a website with brainlets like this.

[Anonymous No.11431434]

>>11431130
no, economists don’t take him seriously
>>11431400
>journalism
we’re talking about real jobs, sweetie

[Anonymous No.11431437]

>>11431415
you just immediately know someone is a brainlet redditor when they bring up el*n m*sk. it's nice to be able to completely disregard a post right from the beginning.

[Anonymous No.11431443]

>>11431415
lit is a fuckshow. As for OP no, Marxism is dead in economics. Marx is no slouch but hes not particularly useful in 2018, he is however highly relevant to understand the history of the revolutionary left. But politically, even the revolutionary left has long shifted its emphasis from Marx

[Anonymous No.11431445]

>>11431434
>economists

>we’re talking about real jobs

[Anonymous No.11431444]

>>11431434
Keynesian economists are akin to phrenologists.
>we’re talking about real jobs
Being an “economist” is not a job.

[Anonymous No.11431449]

>>11431416
if the coal miner doesn't like mining coal is he free to find other employment

[Anonymous No.11431451]

He was very creative in coming up for reasons why he shouldn’t have to work for a living

[Anonymous No.11431455]

>>11431437
well pick any capitalist you want then faggot, would u prefer henry ford?

[Anonymous No.11431464]

>>11431395
>and ironically he had an existence predicated on the fact he was a parasite
Was married to a daughter of a minister and lived in a mansion with butlers.

[Anonymous No.11431470]

>>11431449
“Dude how can you even do work you don’t enjoy, just find some other source of income lmao”

[Anonymous No.11431482]

>>11431443
Lol. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America, the only country that matters. Centrism is dead in America, and you will see even further polarization between groups in the 2020 election. Resolving the internal contradictions of capitalism requires total economic reform, not a half assed Trump style protectionist “trade war” and kicking the can down the road another 10 years.

[Anonymous No.11431483]

>>11431130
The only problem with Marx is that people tried to use his critiques and admitted predictions as a blueprint.

[Anonymous No.11431487]

>>11431443
>Marxism is dead in economics.

Marxism was never supposed to be part of economics, it was supposed to be a critical examination of terms which economics takes for granted.

[Anonymous No.11431492]

>>11431444
>>11431445
it is unsurprising to me that people with such poor reading comprehension think there is value in marx

[Anonymous No.11431497]

>>11431482
Sanders is just a typical social-democrat, he is obviously not some kind of revolutionary Marxist

[Anonymous No.11431524]

>>11431482
What does this have to do with Marx? You can critique the current economic structure without Marx. Is Piketty a Marxist? Are milquetoast socdems like Sanders?

I didn't say radical leftism was dead, au contraire its as strong as its ever been, but its smart enough not to lean on Marx

[Anonymous No.11431545]

>>11431487
Fair enough, but economics as a discipline in 2018 looks nothing like Adam Smith, so the critique has less meaning. Though see Piketty for the mainstream update, I don't endorse it because it has way too many problems, but whatever legit anticapitalism looks like in 2018 it'll be in that neighbourhood

[Anonymous No.11431588]

>>11431492
You have never read Marx, that much is plain as day. What is the difference between constant capital and variable capital?
>>11431497
Hardly typical in America, where every candidate falls square in the center of the blue quadrant.

[Anonymous No.11431620]

>>11431415
The ongoing risk grows smaller and smaller as the business grows, but the return only grows bigger, how is that fair?

And before you say fairness is not important, remember that an unfair state creates friction and hate between classes, making it harder for a society to prosper.

[Anonymous No.11431641]

>>11431620
that first sentence is such a masterpiece of wrong

[Anonymous No.11431650]

>>11431620
and fuck the second one isnt better

[Anonymous No.11431986]

>>11431370
>He argued that the surplus value was infinite
Infinity doesn't exist outside of theoretical math

[Anonymous No.11432007]

>>11431986
It literally pops up in every single theoretical physics endeavour.

[Anonymous No.11432011]

>>11431620
what do u mean the risk gets smaller? i unloaded all my tesla stock at like 280 cuz the risk was getting too fuckin hot for me to handle, i didnt want to risk my gains any further, i shoulda just held it but i got psyched out by short seller propoganda

[Anonymous No.11432278]

Someone please explain to me Marx moral views. He ever wrote why exploitation and oppression of the proletariat was wrong? Why the lower classes should revolt and strive for a revolution that would bring later communism?

Not baiting. He's just a weird author with weird views.

[Anonymous No.11432414]

>>11432011
>my role as a speculator of stocks is the same as a full blown capitalist with regards to risk

[Anonymous No.11432525]

>>11432278
Well the young Marxs moral notions were just an extension of Feuerbachian humanism i.e. read his early writings shitting on Mill which makes it clear
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/
>Mill very well expresses the essence of the matter in the form of a concept by characterising money as the medium of exchange. The essence of money is not, in the first place, that property is alienated in it, but that the mediating activity or movement, the human, social act by which man's products mutually complement one another, is estranged from man and becomes the attribute of money, a material thing outside man. Since man alienates this mediating activity itself, he is active here only as a man who has lost himself and is dehumanised; the relation itself between things, man's operation with them, becomes the operation of an entity outside man and above man. Owing to this alien mediator – instead of man himself being the mediator for man – man regards his will, his activity and his relation to other men as a power independent of him and them. His slavery, therefore, reaches its peak. It is clear that this mediator now becomes a real God, for the mediator is the real power over what it mediates to me. Its cult becomes an end in itself. Objects separated from this mediator have lost their value. Hence the objects only have value insofar as they represent the mediator, whereas originally it seemed that the mediator had value only insofar as it represented them. This reversal of the original relationship is inevitable. This mediator is therefore the lost, estranged essence of private property, private property which has become alienated, external to itself, just as it is the alienated species-activity of man, the externalised mediation between man's production and man's production. All the qualities which arise in the course of this activity are, therefore, transferred to this mediator. Hence man becomes the poorer as man, i.e., separated from this mediator, the richer this mediator becomes.
>Christ represents originally: 1) men before God; 2) God for men; 3) men to man.
>Similarly, money represents originally, in accordance with the idea of money: 1) private property for private property; 2) society for private property; 3) private property for society.
>But Christ is alienated God and alienated man. God has value only insofar as he represents Christ, and man has value only insofar as he represents Christ. It is the same with money.

It's pretty obvious after Marx read Max Stirner he had a mental breakdown, dropped any pretence of morality in his work and embrace a form of anti-Humanist pure structuralist analysis. There's no moral imperative for abolishing capitalism in his latter works but it's structurally necessitated by the imminent laws of social development, capitalism can only develop the productive forces to a certain point before it becomes a barrier to future progress.

[Anonymous No.11432531]

>don't economists still use his analysis of the nature of capital and labour?
Yeah like the Enlightenment uses Duns Scotus.

[Anonymous No.11433444]

>>11432525
That was pretty interesting, but things like this really activate my autism.

> There's no moral imperative for abolishing capitalism in his latter works but it's structurally necessitated by the imminent laws of social development, capitalism can only develop the productive forces to a certain point before it becomes a barrier to future progress.

Why do the progress of society was of any concern for marx (or any one preocupied with it really)? Maybe my soul is just so impregnated by religion that i can't conceive other reasons that should make people act or think. It's driving me mad.

[Anonymous No.11433448]

>>11432414

how is it different? elon musk's wealth is all in tesla stock, he doesn't get paid rn

[Anonymous No.11433453]

>>11433444
because he was a hegelian moron who had some fanciful view of history as process

[Anonymous No.11433464]

>>11432525
Gibberish.

[Anonymous No.11433466]

>>11433444
>Why do the progress of society was of any concern for marx
Do you seriously not know the impact of industrial revolution on human life? Marx was writing just "out" of the aufklarung, humanity was experience unparalelled levels of wealth production, and yet people were becoming more miserable and destitute. If the enlightenment was a coke trip, marxism was the end of the night where you feel like shit and just want to sleep, while post modernity is the brutal hangover when you wake up smeared in your own shit and incapable of eating anything.

[Anonymous No.11433476]

>>11433466
and the late anthropocene is when you get your place together, clean up, and guillotine the rich

[Anonymous No.11433560]

>>11433448
>how is it different
musk has the bitcoin mining server farm and you only have the bitcoin.

[Anonymous No.11433564]

>>11431415
>are we being raiding by some teen socialists forums?
t. electionfag

[Anonymous No.11433579]

>>11433560
do you not understand how corporations work? the shares are part ownership of the physical capital, he owns the majority of shares, so we say he "owns the company" since he can control the direction of the company, but it's not like he can just take home some robot that makes teslas and put it in his house

[Anonymous No.11433586]

>>11433579
he controls the value of the company. you do not.

[Anonymous No.11433587]

>>11431370
>surplus value was infinite

doesn't that preclude scarcity?

[Anonymous No.11433599]

>>11433586
that's because he has the most "skin in the game" so he gets to control the company, that's how public companies whose founders maintain majority stakes work, duh

[Anonymous No.11433640]

wait, I am a brainlet
Is he saying having a buisness is wrong because, if everything goes well, it will continue to give the owner money indefinitely?

[Anonymous No.11433677]

>>11433640
yes marx really is that stupid

[Anonymous No.11433703]

>>11433640
Yes, you are a brainlet for thinking back-and-forth shilling is and should be the extent of the world.

[Anonymous No.11433720]

>>11433703
...you lost me.

[Anonymous No.11433760]

>>11431370
>>11431620
>This could go on for centuries, and there would be an infinite recompensation for a limited amount of risk.
>The ongoing risk grows smaller and smaller as the business grows, but the return only grows bigger, how is that fair?
Markets are roughly in equilibrium. There is a linear relationship between risk and return. If an asset is giving returns greater than what it should given its level of risk, then it is underpriced and investors will buy, causing the price to rise. Mispricings do not last long.

[Anonymous No.11433855]

>>11433760
Jesus Christ. I mean, you're either willfully misrepresenting things or fail to see the basic problem with capital.

[Anonymous No.11433880]

>>11433855
>infinite recompensation for a limited amount of risk
>risk grows smaller and smaller as the business grows, but the return only grows bigger
Yeah, bro, I'm the one wilfully misrepresenting things.

[Anonymous No.11433909]

>>11433880
>infinite recompensation for a limited amount of risk

It's 'infinite' in the sense that there is nothing preventing the growth exponentially accumulating an arbitrary part of the economy (including the possibility of money itself extending far beyond the goods it's supposed to represent) and hence a given person gaining influence far out of proportion of their work, possibly due to multi-generational accumulation.

>risk grows smaller and smaller as the business grows
The point is the proportionality of the risk, someone with way more capital might not get more much return per the value of the investment, but the simple fact that they have more means that they can earn more in total, which accumulates faster, and can risk far more while still having a larger pool of stable investments to fall back on that are capable of supporting their welfare even if everything else blows over.

[Anonymous No.11433975]

>>11431130
This neet (who worked all his life) contributed more to the human race than your cuck brain can comprehend.

[Anonymous No.11434012]

>>11431434
>real jobs
>economist
wow

[Anonymous No.11434019]

>>11433909
>infinite recompensation for a limited amount of risk
>It's 'infinite' in the sense...
So it's infinite in the sense it's not actually infinite? And you say I'm misrepresenting things. Nothing of what you said indicates a disconnect between risk and return.

>The ongoing risk grows smaller and smaller as the business grows, but the return only grows bigger, how is that fair?
>which accumulates faster
No it doesn't.
Again, nothing of what you said indicates a disconnect between risk and return.

[Anonymous No.11434026]

Any system that allows the trade of goods and services will produce these imbalances.
And you can't have a functional economy without those.

[Anonymous No.11434032]

>>11434019
>>which accumulates faster
>No it doesn't.

The growth of investment returns is exponential (due to this growth being being proportional to the amount of capital) and that is a huge part of the issue. Presumably you accept at least this?

A billionaire risking hundreds of millions is ultimately risking very little in terms of what his lifestyle would have to loose if his investments fail to return compared to someone with far less money who might have only his personal small business being the bulk of his capital.

[Anonymous No.11434037]

>>11434032
You're mixing absolute and relative measurings though.

[Anonymous No.11434041]

>>11434032
it's actually harder to beat the market the more capital you have, a small investor can buy $500,000 worth of some small startup and if it goes 10x he got a big ass return, but if you are managing billions of dollars, a $500,000 investment even returning 10x doesnt move the overall needle for you, but if you invest more you just end up owning the whole company, so basically all you can do is buy other people's companies, or invest in companies with insane market caps, which are usually well past any kind of fast growth phase, basically the more capital you have the more you just converge with the general market returns, which everyone has access to

[Anonymous No.11434043]

>>11434032
>The growth of investment returns is exponential (due to this growth being being proportional to the amount of capital) and that is a huge part of the issue. Presumably you accept at least this?
Yes, I get that it is exponential.
You said:
>but the simple fact that they have more means that they can earn more in total, which accumulates faster,
It doesn't accumulate faster. It may be worth more in absolute value, but it grows at the same rate, e.g. 10% pa.
>A billionaire risking hundreds of millions ...
Those are not really comparable. The billionaire could have the majority of his wealth in the equity of his business, and the small business owner might have only a small portion of his wealth in his business or a portfolio.

[Anonymous No.11434211]

>>11431130
One can easily discard many right wing "economist" on similar measures.

Always attack the argument and not the man

[Anonymous No.11434232]

>>11434211
but Friedman is the only one of those people who isn’t just as much of a brainlet pseud as Marx (not coincidentally he’s also the one with the weakest ad hominem)

[Anonymous No.11434252]

>>11434037
>>11434041
>>11434043
>mixing absolute
>worth more in absolute value
>doesn't move the overall needle for you

When did I say shit about relative, proportional value and why are you judging things like this? The absolute accumulation of value is what matters for the individual investor and their family, and that you don't see proportional accumulation and how growth accelerates it as exactly the issue here is telling.

[Anonymous No.11434296]

>>11432007
Theoretical physics is theoretical math. You can't say that in front of a mathematician without them autistic screeching but it's true.
It is not necessarily true however that theoretical math is theoretical physics. Just to clarify.

[Anonymous No.11434786]

>>11434252
>When did I say shit about relative, proportional value
You said:
>growth exponentially accumulating an arbitrary part of the economy
Which would only happen if they were earning a higher relative return on investment.
>why are you judging things like this?
Because that is what is important.
>The absolute accumulation of value is what matters for the individual investor and their family,
ROI is a far more important metric to businesses and investors than absolute accumulation.
>you don't see proportional accumulation and how growth accelerates it as exactly the issue here
It would be an issue if they were receiving abnormal returns, which is what you seemingly implied, but they aren't.
If everyone can earn the same return on their investment regardless of size, then what's the problem?

[Anonymous No.11435147]

>>11434786
>Then what's the problem?
People with more money can make more money and that is not fair!

[Anonymous No.11435321]

>>11431620
>The ongoing risk grows smaller and smaller as the business grows
Wrong, the larger the corporations the more fragile they become you stupid fucking nigger.

[Anonymous No.11435345]

>>11431434
This is why women shouldn't be allowed to discuss politics, or economics

[Anonymous No.11435636]

>>11434041
The percentage of your return in relation to your existing capital isn't relevant since it's worth the same to both you and others. $500,000 is $500,000 both in your pocket and when re-invested, regardless of whether you have $1,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 left, but the risk is smaller for the latter since he can shrug a potential loss off, while the former can't, so the latter can get away with continously inefficiently wasting more of the economy's total capital, leading to less benefit for society compared to a more meritocratic capital investment scheme where the those with aptitude and the inept both succeed or fail on equal grounds.

[Anonymous No.11435645]

>>11435345
women love marx, incel

[Anonymous No.11435661]

>>11435645
>ideology that tells you a utopia is coming where nobody will have more than you and you will be provided for no matter what
Yeah im shocked this would appeal to women

[Anonymous No.11435707]

>>11434296
>I’m not a physicist or a mathematician but let me tell you why they’re the same

[Anonymous No.11435724]

Daily reminder that capitalism has always produced higher standards of living and greater personal freedom then nations which have planned economies, even among underdeveloped natuons

[Anonymous No.11435729]

>>11435661
>where nobody will have more than you
This is untrue. Encouraging individuals to disproportionately benefit society by providing them additional benefits (beyond the standard of living provided to everyone, such as by providing a nicer car, a nicer house, a longer vacation etc.) in return is good, but giving these people the power to continously enrich themselves at the cost of society is not good, and that's what capitalism does.

[Anonymous No.11435732]

>>11431143
>The seething leftypol posters
Loving. Every. Laugh.

[Anonymous No.11435738]

>>11433587
Yes, in communism there is no such as scarcity on the way to the workers paradise

[Anonymous No.11435739]

>>11431130
He had bitchin' facial hair and BTFO of Stirner once and for all.

[Anonymous No.11435743]

>>11433975
Damn. Just think of all the murder that wouldn't have happened what a shame

[Anonymous No.11435920]

>>11435743
I do love a good murder.

[Anonymous No.11435931]

>>11431179
think about it. If you spend X amount of money to create a product and get it out there, there is no guarantee it will make money. The surplus value isn't a reward because you spent X but because you were willing to lose X and possibly more.

[Anonymous No.11435946]

Economics isn't political, mouth-breathers.

>>11431130
Capital is not a political text. The juvenile social commentary of early Marx pales in comparison to his well-thought-out refinement of Ricardo.

>>11431143
??? what point are you even trying to make

>>11431400
>Marx actually had several jobs, primarily in journalism
wtf i hate marx now

>>11431415
depreciation schedules are known and a part of fixed costs. it's not risk.

>>11431620
>how is that fair?
who cares. your post is gay.

>>11431487
if you've ever read smith or ricardo what marx says is.... barely different.

>>11431545
>economics as a discipline in 2018 looks nothing like Adam Smith
it actually looks a lot like adam smith lol

>>11432414
brainlet post

>>11431370
>surplus value
let's say i buy a machine that allows my workers to be twice as productive without requiring them to obtain any new skills. i'm not going to pay them double.