man, I just finished reading chapter 1, only to realize that Birdman, to answer my question of what his "amoral, analytic critique of capitalism" was, had actually linked to me the entire, voluminous work of Kapital


can you not express it succinctly in your own words?

"here, read three 800-plus page volumes and then let me know if you have any questions" is not really a way to have a discussion


scanning through the names of the chapters, none of them strike me as critique...

birdman, have you read the entire thing yourself?

I believe you have misunderstood the discussion here. All commodities have both a use-value and an exchange-value. But they are distinctly different things. This does not me they cannot influence each other (indeed, the two are dialectically related). Use-value is not "totally irrelevant" from exchange-value. This mistake is borne out in the flawed mud-pie argument which posits a commodity that has no use to anyone but still has an exchange-value--such a commodity would not exist (for very long at least). So use-value is not irrelevant.

The key in understanding why exchange-value must be based on labor is when one realizes that

1) use-values can only be compared qualitatively

2) exchange-values are quantitative

3) the only thing that commodities have in common from which to compare their "exchangeability" is the abstract labor it took to produce them. This is the intrinsic value of the commodity.

This post is an inversion of what Marx is saying. Your mistake is to assert that the populace is "fractured" by nature while the capitalist mode of production creates a means for this fractured-by-nature populace to form a community. In fact the reverse is happening. The populace would not be fractured were it not for capitalism (you imply it would be with the use of the word "otherwise).

Indeed, what Marx is saying is that capitalism has created a fractured society, that might "otherwise" form a community, that ONLY allowed to interact by means of the market.

You did not ask a question, you baldy claimed you were unaware of the existence of any amoral critique of capitalism. I was attempting you broaden your horizons.

Explain what it is you are wanting me to express "succinctly".

saying "error 404" and then some glib remark about no such critique existing is though? I was not telling you to read it (though please do if you feel so inclined). I merely wanted to at least disabuse you of the idea that NO critique of capitalism existed, since that is apparently what you thought.

No, definitely not. One day I may read the whole thing through covers to covers.

If it is not a critique what do you imagine it to be?

I think there is something to the argument that abstract labor is the foundation of Money, the universal exchange equivalent, in that money has no use-value other than in its exchange (powdered drugs not withstanding), and so it is purely a representation of labor-time/-effort.


However, commodities have more in common than "abstract labor" - they share use value across users. How is it wrong to say that one may quantify use-value through the vehicle of exchange?

"How much X do you need in order to be okay losing this thing?" That's the thing's quantified use value. And the answer is not in the question "how hard will it be to make more X?" The answer is in "how much do I want X?"


Marx seems to say that a commodity's exchange value is predetermined by its objective labor requirement. I think instead its exchange value is an emergent quality of its intersubjective desirability.

have I turned him on his head?

How are the peoples of China and France going to interact if not in the exchange of domestic goods? They can't have a conversation, speaking different languages, and even if they could - why would they bother? It seems pretty obvious that multiculturalism is historically rooted in trade.

I suggested that alienation would be the practice of a socialist state, and then that socialism therefor does not solve the moral issue of alienation presented by capitalism.

You responded that socialism is compelled, not merely by morality, but in light of certain amoral contradictions within capitalism.

I asked you, in an admittedly glib manner, to describe some.

You responded by linking a lengthy treatise that you yourself had not read through (and then still later you say you weren't even telling me to read) and then later refused to provide your own summations or restatements of what was asked of you beforehand - examples of amoral critiques of capitalism (for Science).


this is why we can't have nice things

UK politics update:

I think this distinction is a decent example of the Enlightenment bit I was describing earlier.

The possibility of an objective, rational basis for a universally application system - that was the project of the Enlightenment. The mathematicization of Everything; Pythagorean, Apollonian delight.

I need more of a kokiri-style blow by blow

If you are saying this is an argument Marx makes, its not. If it was just an aside, then ok.

You cannot compare use-values quantitatively. You can only compare them qualitatively. So for commodities to contain an exchange-value they must have something quantitatively in common. This is obviously the socially necessary abstract labor used to create them.

Wanting something does not create value. If you think about this for even a few seconds it should be clear how silly that notion is. I really really really want a Ferrari. Have I created any value? Obviously not. Someone would have to go make the Ferrari for their to be value.

No, Marx did not say this. He said that a commodity's exchange value must be based off some quantifiable intrinsic value within the commodity, and this intrinsic value is the socially necessary abstract labor required to create the commodity.

I am confused by how exactly you could actually measure value then? You can't quantify how much someone wants something, can you?

if by "quantify", you mean simply "put a number on", then sure

my feelings on chocolate ice cream are a 7/10, whereas on vanilla I'm only 4/10


an object has no intrinsic value, ever. it is valued by an subject. different subjects will place different values on a given object. you can't just point to the amount of labor required to produce the object in order to get to what that object is worth to any of the subjects.


maybe it would be helpful to distinguish demand-side valuation from supply-side valuation

on the supply side, the amount of labor required to produce the object may be the primary driver in determining its value to the producer

but on the demand side, the value of the object is totally irrelevant to the difficulty producing it; it is the usefulness of the object that makes this determination


the basic supply-and-demand curves illustrate this point very well

I feel like we're talking in circles, now. I am saying that you can compare use-values quantitatively; look at the exchange value - it is a window to the use values.

Offer me a cow for my sheep. I don't think in my mind "how hard is it to raise a cow"; I think "how much do I want a(nother) cow? do I want it more than a(nother) sheep?"


you are essentially insisting that only like terms can be added (or more appropriately, compared) - because that's how math works

but why are you so certain that desire is reduceable to mathematics?


and the First Mover is obviously God; Marx has invented a "necessary" solution to a problem that doesn't exist to begin with!

Somebody making the Ferrari does not make it valuable to me.

I have established the value of the Ferrari by fiat; if somebody labors to extend, metaphysically, that value, into material, they have not created value, and they have not thereby set for me what my value of that Ferrari is.

meanwhile, it looks like Trump may finally get his missile parade

vaba


also

might be a nice little factoid to share next time somebody talks about "supporting our military"...

Ianaw's posts should be hosted by pornhub

I'm tempted to ask which section you think they belong in

Wherever they'd stick "19th century philosopher taken rough[HD]"

Amateurs amirite?

Basically it's like this: The prime minister is like a farmer, leading a cow (her party) around the farmyard, trying to get it into the back of the truck, but it keeps refusing. So she keeps leading it by the nose around the yard, trying to distract it in the hope that it will absent mindedly walk up the ramp into the truck. But it keeps refusing, so she keeps walking it round, showing it the water tank, and a bit of hay, and something else. And every once in a while the cow shows interest in breaking through the gate and running off into the middle of a busy road.

That's brexit in a nutshell.

Does the labor theory of value hold that the more I exercise the more valuable human being I am? What about the more effort parents put into raising children?

Basically everyone agrees on subjective valuation on some level right? Although it's basically useless for economic theory and quite a boring answer.