tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post1397459368372544559..comments2024-03-28T17:08:15.784-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: Debunking Marxism 101Lord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-36468093121460829492015-05-06T06:32:46.830-07:002015-05-06T06:32:46.830-07:00Yes, words have particular meanings in particular ...Yes, words have particular meanings in particular fields. If you had looked no further than item "1." in the document I linked, you'd have gotten my point: Some people use "commodity" to mean "a good"; however, in Marx (and classical political economy generally), a commodity is something that a) satisfies a need and b) is produced <i>specifically to be sold</i>. And since the value relation in Marx is specific to the commodity form (remember, his analysis is from the perspective of capital), a non-commodity cannot have value in this sense. <br /><br />If you produce a use-value to satisfy a need of yourself or a family member or the like, then it doesn't matter how much labor went into it; it's not a commodity and therefore it does not have value. <br /><br />This is all definitional, yes. It's how these categories interact and what they ultimately yield that is of empirical interest. If I had my druthers we'd have moved past all this tedious clarifying by now and on to the actual processes and relations, but some people simply refuse to grasp even the most basic aspects of the analysis.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-90159400703753118132015-05-06T06:21:46.104-07:002015-05-06T06:21:46.104-07:00In the first m is a funcyion. I did say so. I conc...<i>In the first m is a funcyion. I did say so. I conclude you lack the mathematical chops to discuss issues in those terms, so let it pass.</i><br /><br />Aggressive much? <br /><br />You wrote an unclear post where you appeared to be subtracting a function sans argument from an integer. The thing to do, when someone asks you to clarify, is to answer with grace and humility; we're all supposed to be working in the service of truth, not ideology, and all parties should welcome the chance to be understood, no? Instead, you've tipped your hand and revealed that you're coming into this hostile and swinging. Why on earth would I bother talking to you, now? <br /><br />I think maybe an apology is in order.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-47250963430193948332015-05-05T17:51:47.029-07:002015-05-05T17:51:47.029-07:00Have not studied Marx enough to say anything worth...Have not studied Marx enough to say anything worth reading. But I have read a little of the mighty thinker of whom he was a pupil. Here is a little known quote from him - or advice from Polonius? - that some here might like - or not. <br /><br />"Once a man has reached the point where he no longer knows things better than others - that is, when it is a matter of total indifference to him that others have done things badly and he is only interested in what they have done right - then peace and affirmation have entered his mind."Calgacushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06031818010224747000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-46198069843095936512015-05-05T15:33:09.764-07:002015-05-05T15:33:09.764-07:00Wait, wait. LK accuses you of just making definiti...Wait, wait. LK accuses you of just making definitions and dealing only in analytical statements based on them, not on statements with empirical content, or that tie to the real world. And you respond to a simple example of about cookies by citing a 40 page vocabulary, and denying cookies are a commodity with value!<br />Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-38141840833712987512015-05-05T15:27:16.209-07:002015-05-05T15:27:16.209-07:00Hedlund
In the first m is a funcyion. I did say s...Hedlund<br /><br />In the first m is a funcyion. I did say so. I conclude you lack the mathematical chops to discuss issues in those terms, so let it pass.<br /><br />My example with LK is a simple reductio of your position. If you SAY he and I rent our labor then you recognize surplus value. So I changed the WORDS but not the results. And yet suddenly you cannot handle it. Likewise if LK agrees to SAY he is my slave and I agree to transfer to him later an amount identical to his wage you say no value created! Youjust denied transfers or slaves can produce value. But the end result is unchanged. You are left with, as LK notes, just definitions not claims with empirical content. Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-60354083336950556852015-05-05T11:10:32.695-07:002015-05-05T11:10:32.695-07:00"But you can use animals' labour to "..."But you can use animals' labour to "to transform, change nature in a purposeful, intentional way." You can use it to create commodities with a monetary profit as well. What you say doesn't refute my argument."<br /><br />Yes you can, just as you can use machines, but it doesn't change the fact that to do this you also need social, live human labor, at lease to some extent. Have you read Marx at all? There is a book you might find interesting - Nicholas Howard "Marx's theory of money", there is an interesting chapter on post keynesians. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-91767480398290441942015-05-05T09:52:53.465-07:002015-05-05T09:52:53.465-07:00You apparently also missed the part in there where...You apparently also missed the part in there where I say "that is not the theory; just a definition within it." All theories must define their terms. That doesn't make the whole theory tautological, any more than defining "force" as "an interaction that tends to change the motion of an object" makes physics purely analytical. You ought to know this.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-49258011858531713182015-05-05T09:45:06.188-07:002015-05-05T09:45:06.188-07:00I missed your comment above:
" I have alread...I missed your comment above:<br /><br /><i>" I have already told you to treat SNLT = value as a definition, but that is not the theory; just a definition within it. (I should reiterate: When Kliman said it could be regarded as an empirical claim, he was actually introducing another proposition about the behavior of "value" -- which, IMO, was not very clearly stated, so let's just leave that out for now.)"</i><br /><br />You're basically admitting to me here that the LTV -- for you -- is just an analytic definition. In that case, you're back to square 1:<br /><br />http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-two-epistemological-ways-to.htmlLord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-67416791570239509842015-05-05T09:14:07.463-07:002015-05-05T09:14:07.463-07:00You are now forced to argue that anyone who does l...<i>You are now forced to argue that anyone who does labour for a wage can create a labour value, even a slave. Therefore the actual free status of a worker is not a crucial distinction.</i><br /><br />There is not some sort of magic "not a slave" card we each carry that enables us to produce value for capital. We relate to one another in countless ways (E.g., a son, a husband, an employee, a teacher, a friend, etc.). In some cases, a person relates to another person as a slave, but as you've pointed out that does not preclude them being permitted to relate to someone else as a wage-laborer. The latter relationship is what reproduces capitalism, enables capitalist accumulation, etc.<br /><br /><i>(2) on animals, here all you seem to be saying is that because wage labour elsewhere allegedly produces a labour value and surplus value, this mysteriously gives the same goods when produced by animals and slaves a labour value and surplus value too that allows monetary profit. It is an absurd and empirically untrue view.</i><br /><br />I've never claimed anything to be "mysterious." Those mysteries are all in your head. It's actually very straightforward: Capitalism works a particular way, involving a wage relation. If you remove the wage relation, it's no longer capitalism. Full stop.<br /><br />What is this "LTV," anyway? I am careful never to use the phrase, and you yourself have pointed out that it's a poor name. So let's ditch it please? Thanks.<br /><br /><i>[Marx's value theory] in any form is unsupported by the empirical evidence</i><br /><br />Another flat-out lie, cool, you'd been needing another one of those. Just because you don't read the literature I share with you (some of which has been explicitly empirical!) doesn't mean it doesn't exist, Lord Ostrich.<br /><br />Why do I even bother? I can deal with smugness, and I can deal with ideologues, but a smug dogmatic liar is really taxing.<br /><br /><i>Any work -- whether of free workers, slaves, animals or natural power -- could transform factor inputs into a commodity sold for profit when demand exists for it.</i><br /><br />If you had taken the time to <i><b>understand before you criticize</b></i> (after more than a month, I am beginning to suspect you to be constitutionally incapable of it), you would recognize that this is not even a criticism! Commodity production predates capitalism, and not all commodity production is even capitalist production, whereas this theory is particular to the latter. It's literally the first entry in <a href="http://links.org.au/files/Marxist%20Economics.pdf" rel="nofollow">this</a>, which I've recommended to you and several other people now.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty" rel="nofollow">Please read this, and try to internalize it.</a>Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-75251626295097782572015-05-05T08:40:33.381-07:002015-05-05T08:40:33.381-07:00(1) "The simple fact of being a slave does no...(1) <i>"The simple fact of being a slave does not mean you are barred from producing value for capital; merely that your work in your capacity as a slave does not;"</i><br /><br />So now you have admitted that the fact that a person is a slave does not necessarily preclude them from creating labour value. This is a significant admission. <br /><br />You are now forced to argue that anyone who does labour for a wage can create a labour value, even a slave. Therefore the actual free status of a worker is not a crucial distinction.<br /><br />(2) on animals, here all you seem to be saying is that because wage labour elsewhere allegedly produces a labour value and surplus value, this mysteriously gives the same goods when produced by animals and slaves a labour value and surplus value too that allows monetary profit. It is an absurd and empirically untrue view. <br /><br />The truth is that the LTV in any form is unsupported by the empirical evidence and doesn't explain price formation. Goods produced by slaves or animals can fetch a profit because prices aren't explained by any mythical LTV. Any work -- whether of free workers, slaves, animals or natural power -- could transform factor inputs into a commodity sold for profit when demand exists for it. You impute to human wage labour a false power that it does not have.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-91775452632866647532015-05-05T07:56:07.378-07:002015-05-05T07:56:07.378-07:00Also, I can add: if monetary profit is supposed to...<i>Also, I can add: if monetary profit is supposed to be explained by surplus labour value, then why do goods produced by slaves or animals fetch a profit, if there is -- according to you -- no labour value or surplus labour value in these commodities?</i><br /><br />The answer is systemic; for instance, in the American South, people were still producing cotton by wage labor elsewhere in the world, and therefore slave plantation owners would be effectively in possession of the equivalent of a massive technological advantage. So, the production method [labor:hand-picking] was suddenly far less efficient than [labor:whipping]+[machine:slave]. Thus, plantation owners reaped superprofits of the sort I mentioned in my last comment.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-8073270662007565582015-05-05T07:50:22.629-07:002015-05-05T07:50:22.629-07:00Each of your examples are missing the point, in di...Each of your examples are missing the point, in different ways. First of all, (1) is describing independent craft labor or perhaps a small business proprietorship (not wage labor), but even if the worker went out and worked for a wage as in (2), that work remains distinct and separate from their slavery. The simple fact of being a slave does not mean you are barred from producing value for capital; merely that your work <i>in your capacity as a slave</i> does not; in that sense, you're basically a machine. When you work nights in a different social relation, then that's altogether separate. <br /><br />It's like if I run a law practice by day and moonlight as a rodeo clown. I'm not JUST a lawyer or a clown, but I'm each at a particular time.<br /><br />As for your second (2), the reason technology is so profitable owes to the fact that its adoption is not universal. Some people still do task X by hand, but others have a machine that does X with a fraction of the labor. But whereas the market is still conditioned by output from both processes, the market price will fall somewhere in between, and the machine-user obtains superprofits, essentially flows of labor value from the less-developed producers. This is a far sight from the case where the technology were universal, and in all cases this still calls for human labor input.<br /><br />Now, if we assume for a moment that a windmill produces output from an input with NO human labor (not even collection or packaging, let's say), then all we've established is that the value of the output is equal to the value of the mill plus the inputs. If it commands a price above that value, there are systemic consequences.<br /><br />I'm curious, LK, why is attacking Marx's theory more important to you than understanding it? Did he spit in your great grandfather's eye or something? You just seem really driven.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-50255028297939683622015-05-05T07:33:47.191-07:002015-05-05T07:33:47.191-07:00But you can use animals' labour to "to tr...But you can use animals' labour to "to transform, change nature in a purposeful, intentional way." You can use it to create commodities with a monetary profit as well. What you say doesn't refute my argument.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-3051998946466940042015-05-05T07:27:47.414-07:002015-05-05T07:27:47.414-07:00There is something special in human labor. It allo...There is something special in human labor. It allows us to transform, change nature in a purposeful, intentional way. There is a difference between us and horses in that. I don't think it is mystical. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-26220134099701279652015-05-05T07:24:03.365-07:002015-05-05T07:24:03.365-07:00Also, I can add: if monetary profit is supposed to...Also, I can add: if monetary profit is supposed to be explained by surplus labour value, then why do goods produced by slaves or animals fetch a profit, if there is -- according to you -- no labour value or surplus labour value in these commodities?Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-16770783107601379762015-05-05T07:19:35.921-07:002015-05-05T07:19:35.921-07:00(1) " If you own someone else outright such t...(1) <i>" If you own someone else outright such that you can treat them as capital, then there are no "wages" of which to speak in the first place; that would be category error."</i><br /><br />Rubbish. It is possible for a slave also to rent his wage labour. We have real examples from history, e.g.: <br /><br />(1) In ancient Rome, for example, there was the practice called the <i>peculium</i> in which a slave master could sometimes allow his slave to run a business on the side and keep the profits and later even buy his freedom.<br /><br />(2) In America, slaves could sometimes work for wages: e.g., a New Orleans merchant John McDonogh gave permission for his "slaves to work for wages at night and on Sundays. In<br />1842, he allowed eighty-four of his slaves to purchase their freedom" <br />"Roman Roots of the Louisiana Law of Slavery:<br />Emancipation in American Louisiana, 1803-1857," p. 417<br />http://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5618&context=lalrev<br /><br />So did these slaves create a labour value in the commodities they created? If so, then you cannot deny that slaves can create labour value.<br /><br />(2) It is clear that animals, humans or even the power of nature (e.g, wind power driving a mill) can transform factor inputs into a final output commodity with a monetary value exceeding that of its factor inputs. If there was some way to reduce all work expended in labour to a common unit of measurement, then I see no empirical reason why animals could not create a labour value in commodities.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-54260733262140565942015-05-05T07:08:40.220-07:002015-05-05T07:08:40.220-07:00You wouldn't know if the facts fit the theory,...You wouldn't know if the facts fit the theory, because you don't know the theory — nor, I suspect, the facts.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-492873583576428352015-05-05T07:07:12.174-07:002015-05-05T07:07:12.174-07:00Oh good, another tyro wants to weigh in without un...Oh good, another tyro wants to weigh in without understanding any aspect of the material. Yawn.<br /><br />Your daughter's cookie was not a commodity. Please take a moment to <a href="http://links.org.au/files/Marxist%20Economics.pdf" rel="nofollow">familiarize yourself with the vocabulary</a> before you shove your foot in your mouth. You might choke on cookie.<br /><br />Also, I don't know how much you know about science, but domain specificity is actually really important; a theory that explains <i>everything</i> explains nothing.<br /><br />Have a good day!Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-46565496689540982472015-05-05T06:56:46.305-07:002015-05-05T06:56:46.305-07:00Do you mean that a thieving slave can add value?
...<i>Do you mean that a thieving slave can add value?</i><br /><br />No. No value is created through transfers; only production.<br /><br /><i>Your talk about placeholder terms gives the game wawy I think. You define a function m defined on the positive numbers where m(x) < x. But then later it turns out that it is x which matters. You just label x as having two parts, m and "surplus m", ie x-m.</i><br /><br />Wait, is m an integer or a function? I'm not even sure what you're saying, here. Could you rephrase?<br /><br /><i>Consider this case. I own LK and use his labor as capital. His wages accrue to me (Fun.) And at the same time I belong to LK; my wages accrue to him (Sigh.) We make the same wages. LTV says what exactly? </i><br /><br />So you own one another's labor, and you use it as private property by... renting it to other people? Or by applying it directly to inputs? Or what? If you own someone else outright such that you can treat them as capital, then there are no "wages" of which to speak in the first place; that would be category error. And mutual ownership suggests a cooperative, but you've excluded your own stake in it except insofar as remunerating the other is concerned? I'd like to help, but near as I can tell Marx's value theory would have little to say about it because it is meant to explain capitalist production specifically; what you have described sounds more like some sort of bizarrely authoritarian gift economy.<br /><br /><i>Slaves produce surplus value. Marx wrote it explicitly - "The price paid for a slave is nothing but the anticipated and capitalised surplus-value or profit to be wrung out of the slave."</i><br /><br />The key there is "wrung out." They're not wringing themselves out. The rest of the paragraph you quote specifies that further expenditures of capital are still necessary for exploitation in the specific descriptive sense examined in Capital. It compares the purchase of a slave to the purchase of land.<br /><br /><i>Animals may be treated as fixed capital, but there is no rational reason why animals cannot create a surplus value just as human beings can under Marx's LTV - unless you want to admit the LTV is just an analytic concept true only by definition and not empirically sound.</i><br /><br />I've already explained why animals are not considered, in this theory, to create value. You have not responded to my substantive remarks; instead, you merely dig your heels in and go "nuh UH!" Appealing to the authority of Sraffa is no help if he was also wrong. <br /><br />Perhaps the problem is that you're conflating value with product? It would be correct to suppose that there's no rational reason why animals cannot create surplus PRODUCT, but value is quite another matter.<br /><br />As for the rest: Can you clarify what you mean by "LTV is just an analytic concept true only by definition"? How can an entire theory be "an analytic concept"? Would that not be a definition and not a theory? I have already told you to treat SNLT = value as a definition, but that is not the theory; just a definition within it. (I should reiterate: When Kliman said it could be regarded as an empirical claim, he was actually introducing another proposition about the behavior of "value" -- which, IMO, was not very clearly stated, so let's just leave that out for now.)Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-48109099747109479122015-05-05T05:31:10.491-07:002015-05-05T05:31:10.491-07:00Animals may be treated as fixed capital, but there...Animals may be treated as fixed capital, but there is no rational reason why animals cannot create a surplus value just as human beings can under Marx's LTV - unless you want to admit the LTV is just an analytic concept true only by definition and not empirically sound.<br /><br />As Sraffa said, "There appears to be no objective difference between the labour of a wage earner and that of a slave; of a slave and of a horse; of a horse and of a machine, of a machine and of an element of nature (?this does not eat). It is a purely mystical conception that attributes to human labour a special gift of determining value."Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-42402932536314255392015-05-05T05:17:09.346-07:002015-05-05T05:17:09.346-07:00Slaves produce surplus value. Marx wrote it explic...Slaves produce surplus value. Marx wrote it explicitly - "The price paid for a slave is nothing but the anticipated and capitalised surplus-value or profit to be wrung out of the slave.". Animals are treated as fixed capital. Even in contemporary civil law animals are seen as things. You need human labor to change the nature.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-88200948444913158722015-05-05T00:24:46.154-07:002015-05-05T00:24:46.154-07:00Did Robinson Crusoe on his island perform any labo...Did Robinson Crusoe on his island perform any labor?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-40968945822119036552015-05-05T00:10:32.582-07:002015-05-05T00:10:32.582-07:00What is "labor"? The dictionary definiti...What is "labor"? The dictionary definition of this commonplace word would encompass any activity in which a living organism expends energy to achieve a particular aim. Hence ants labor, bees labor, slaves labor, people decorating their own homes labor. But in the Marxist fairyland, "labor" is bizarrely redefined to exclude these activities. Why? To make a bogus theory less implausible! If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts - we should call this Marx's first law!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-20449066185616655342015-05-04T23:54:56.674-07:002015-05-04T23:54:56.674-07:00"If an animal (or AI) were sufficiently compl..."If an animal (or AI) were sufficiently complex that it could live among humans, agree to work for a wage (instead of merely being owned by the firm), do so, then spend that wage on the market, then its labor would be productive of value in Capital's sense, since, as I said, it's based on social relations rather than biological essentialism or the like."<br /><br />Any economic theory in which only wage-remunerated labor creates value is empirically worthless. It does not reflect the reality of a world in which humans are constantly creating valuable commodities without being remunerated. My daughter baked some cookies yesterday and gave me one to eat. Yum, yum!<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-36436527474074616672015-05-04T17:28:24.227-07:002015-05-04T17:28:24.227-07:00Your talk about placeholder terms gives the game w...Your talk about placeholder terms gives the game wawy I think. You define a function m defined on the positive numbers where m(x) < x. But then later it turns out that it is x which matters. You just label x as having two parts, m and "surplus m", ie x-m. <br /><br />Consider this case. I own LK and use his labor as capital. His wages accrue to me (Fun.) And at the same time I belong to LK; my wages accrue to him (Sigh.) We make the same wages. LTV says what exactly? <br />Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.com