tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post1475822421259827044..comments2024-03-28T17:08:15.784-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: Karl Popper on the Labour Theory of ValueLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-84953586633679266512016-12-26T22:04:44.136-08:002016-12-26T22:04:44.136-08:00Another thing to keep in mind: Marx's focus in...Another thing to keep in mind: Marx's focus in Capital was on critiquing the existing work in political economy. So he used *their* categories and subjected them to critique - Marx's focus wasn't on building a new political economy from scratch w/ his own categories.<br /><br />So *among* their categories - capital, land, and labor - value is clearly coming from labor (their categories assume or ignore the existence of other things, like the sun - a good theory of value, I appreciated the George Carlin reference in another one of your posts).<br /><br />So since Marx was critiquing the existing categories of political economy and analyzing what would happen in a 'pure' capitalism, it made sense Marx would say all value came from labor, but this doesn't mean Marx was literally saying "ALL value in any capitalist economy comes from human labor no matter what, forget about the sun, and forget about maintaining demand with a basic income."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-19429671075775686722016-12-11T15:35:17.603-08:002016-12-11T15:35:17.603-08:00Not sure if this point has been made yet, but in v...Not sure if this point has been made yet, but in volumes 1-3, Marx is talking about a 'pure' capitalism where there's no state and no redistribution of income.<br /><br />Marx believed you had to understand how a pure capitalism would work before understanding how actually existing capitalism worked.<br /><br />So Marx is correct is saying that there would be no profits without human labor *because there would be no basic income*.<br /><br />But this doesn't mean Marx actually believed that would ever happen.<br /><br />Finally, I'll note that it's obvious that the persistence of the 'class struggle' doesn't necessarily entail capitalists would never want a basic income that wasn't substantial - like they might be smart enough to know it would be needed to guarantee effective demand and prevent a socialist/fascist revolution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-29809742336112504852015-06-05T17:33:23.436-07:002015-06-05T17:33:23.436-07:00I must be going soft, because Bala's comment t...I must be going soft, because Bala's comment there seems well reasoned to me. Of course it does clearly involve utility being a "manifestation" of emotional rewards felt by the person trading. Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-81533077354851731952015-06-05T14:42:53.219-07:002015-06-05T14:42:53.219-07:00Ken B:
How it is measured?
"Hey, person wh...<i>Ken B: <br /><br />How it is measured?</i><br /><br />"Hey, person who's never done anything to me who I nevertheless treat with utter contempt, explain this thing you've explained like 200 times. I know you've already spelled out units, indicated where the relevant data can be found, and even provided an explicit algebraic equation to solve for an individual commodity's value, but ehhhhh... still seems kinda vague to me. Heh."<br /><br />Sorry, Ken, either own up and apologize for your behavior towards me, or get lost. I don't make time for bullies. <br /><br />If that's really the kind of person you are, then I won't lose sleep over whether or not you find anything I say plausible or comprehensible.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-29360812373161120542015-06-05T04:54:56.872-07:002015-06-05T04:54:56.872-07:00"Even in your example, prices would have to b...<i>"Even in your example, prices would have to be low for people on low incomes to afford them, so the rate of profit would be pretty low"</i><br /><br />In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, it would not follow that they would be very low.<br /><br />On energy, I think you miss the point that non-human labour factor inputs would still exist, even for renewable energy.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-5208162162056282812015-06-05T04:22:09.102-07:002015-06-05T04:22:09.102-07:00Not convinced of TSSI, but I don't think this ...Not convinced of TSSI, but I don't think this point is a strong one for critics since automation tends to lower prices. <br /><br />So these people in the developing world would not have access to machines? Surely that isn't a world where virtually everything is done by machines, and these people would presumably work for wages in order to pay for their goods? Even in your example, prices would have to be low for people on low incomes to afford them, so the rate of profit would be pretty low. But if machines were everywhere then everything could be done virtually costlessly, even in the developing world (which obviously would no longer be developing).<br /><br />As to your second point, are you suggesting non-renewable resource owners could still accrue rents? The cost of renewable energy has been falling massively as it's become more widespread and technology has advanced, so I'd guess the source of scarce inputs would have to be non-renewables. Would labour be expended in the extraction of these? If everything were done by machines then even oil would be extracted automatically and I'd be happy to bet the price would fall. Also, since renewable energy is sold on the same market, the 'socially necessary' labour time to produce energy would fall. In non-marxist terms, the availability of substitutes would reduce overall profits in the industry.<br /><br />Unlearningeconhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687413107325575532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-41283408951554041282015-06-05T00:14:37.433-07:002015-06-05T00:14:37.433-07:00Ken B!
Check out how Bala is now attacking Bob Mu...Ken B!<br /><br />Check out how Bala is now attacking Bob Murphy in the comments section at Free Advice. It is priceless!!:<br /><br />http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2015/06/potpourri-282.html#comment-1500203Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-5024637318576342632015-06-04T13:53:26.133-07:002015-06-04T13:53:26.133-07:00very protean, your "labor value". How it...very protean, your "labor value". How it is measured? Not in units produced, because the slaves would produce value. Not in any measurable transformation of the world, because then machines could produce value. Units of consent? Hours? Units of "social relation"? Why not in "hedlunds", a new unobservable? Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-24014049123058300872015-06-04T10:59:14.142-07:002015-06-04T10:59:14.142-07:00You're low, Ken.You're low, Ken.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-55303867669127790182015-06-04T10:57:49.805-07:002015-06-04T10:57:49.805-07:00Yes, we get it; you two don't think value is a...Yes, we get it; you two don't think value is a social relation. That's fine. You're entitled to your own theory. But if you want to judge Marx's, you've got to grapple with it on its own terms, and in its terms, the system examined is capitalism, value is a social relation, and the labor to which Marx refers is party to the relations of production that characterize capitalism. <br /><br />Disagree as you please, but if you refuse to start from the same foundation, you can't mount an immanent critique, which is the only kind that can disqualify a theory from the possibility of being true. And I want y'all to be able to follow your dreams and refute Marx. Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-91919918096434766942015-06-04T10:40:41.302-07:002015-06-04T10:40:41.302-07:00Ken B,
Spot on. Piero Sraffa made essentially the...Ken B,<br /><br />Spot on. Piero Sraffa made essentially the same point:<br /><br />http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/03/piero-sraffas-damning-verdict-on-labour.htmlLord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-16606649670948362522015-06-04T10:38:47.818-07:002015-06-04T10:38:47.818-07:00I don't think so: (1) it would mean massive de...I don't think so: (1) it would mean massive demand for commodities from people on very low incomes from the developing world; and (2) there would still be scarce factor input and energy prices that would mean prices would hardly fall to nearly to zero.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-37393193298832457042015-06-04T10:31:24.917-07:002015-06-04T10:31:24.917-07:00Seems pretty likely to me that in a world where ma...Seems pretty likely to me that in a world where machines did virtually everything, the value (price) of everything, along with profits, would fall nearly to zero.Unlearningeconhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687413107325575532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-73980486768401890652015-06-03T19:51:41.909-07:002015-06-03T19:51:41.909-07:00"Machines are always stupid."
So, will m..."Machines are always stupid."<br />So, will marxist theory be refuted by AI? You do know that machines to do calculus are 50 years old, and the best chess players in history are machines, right? Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-85318437948160431262015-06-03T19:44:01.500-07:002015-06-03T19:44:01.500-07:00Nonsense. Popper identifies the moral issue and th...Nonsense. Popper identifies the moral issue and then notes that the LTOV still posits an essence imparted by purchased human labor, as opposed to bovine, mechanical, or slave labor. As if my plowed field is different if the plow was pulled by a hired man, an owned man, or an ox. This is as mystical as Rothbard. Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-48799970060960597042015-06-03T19:38:53.158-07:002015-06-03T19:38:53.158-07:00I mentioned this theory once before. MF used to be...I mentioned this theory once before. MF used to be a Marxist so is conversant with the jargon. Doesn't Hedlund remind you of MF? With the same solid grasp of empricism and logic? Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08207803092348071005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-62255255570226385752015-06-02T23:54:47.273-07:002015-06-02T23:54:47.273-07:00"you're using static logic to address a t...<i>"you're using static logic to address a temporal contradiction. Think dialectically for once, and examine causes and effects, powers and tendencies, and the way they interact. Introduce TIME into your weird, static considerations! etc."</i><br /><br />This is gibberish. You've confirmed you do not understand the laws of thought.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-57912895763336817752015-06-02T18:10:41.866-07:002015-06-02T18:10:41.866-07:00Karl Popper is completely irrelevant, it will be f...Karl Popper is completely irrelevant, it will be forgotten soon.<br />MaikoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-72690523469698548732015-06-02T18:06:46.298-07:002015-06-02T18:06:46.298-07:00It is doubtful that machines can do that on their ...It is doubtful that machines can do that on their own, as computers machines are always stupid.<br /><br />However that is not the big point, the big one is of political order, for KM that is possible but not so easily in capitalism since capitalism and capitalists would not allow it..<br />The exchange value must be realized, but how people out of working would get any money?<br />KM would say maybe look at Malthus and do as he would do, lol.<br />MaikoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-88756829346793248712015-06-02T15:02:25.242-07:002015-06-02T15:02:25.242-07:00That would be similar to slave economy. I don'...That would be similar to slave economy. I don't think that there would a need for profit in that kind of developed society, but let's assume that there is. Creative labor of robots would be "exploited" (LOL) in that case. Surplus value would be the difference between costs of variable capital (costs of maintaining the robots) and their actual, creative labor. BTW. Marx predicted that fixed capital, machines and technologies will be more and more significant - " [It is,] hence, the tendency of capital to give production a scientific character; direct labour [is] reduced to a mere moment of this process. As with the transformation of value into capital, so does it appear in the further development of capital, that it presupposes a certain given historical development of the productive forces on one side -- science too [is] among these productive forces -- and, on the other, drives and forces them further onwards."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-82945135636787549602015-06-02T14:11:23.789-07:002015-06-02T14:11:23.789-07:00Yes, it does: as slave labour. The accounts of sla...<i>Yes, it does: as slave labour. The accounts of slave owners showed the business expenses of owning and maintaining slaves.</i><br /><br />They were treated as <i>capital</i>, and I am the only one who has actually provided evidence (in this case an NBER paper), you pathological liar.<br /><br />You're sticking the word "labor" on it, but semantics won't mask the referent, the relation embodied.<br /><br />Funny that you should mention Rothbard. Know who else was willing to lie to win an argument? That's right...Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-49038273066437132732015-06-02T14:06:24.676-07:002015-06-02T14:06:24.676-07:00Tell me how my counterfactual violates these laws....<i>Tell me how my counterfactual violates these laws.</i><br /><br />Well apart from the fact that you want a non-capitalist capitalist economy (which is already a P&-P situation), you're using static logic to address a temporal contradiction. Think dialectically for once, and examine causes and effects, powers and tendencies, and the way they interact. Introduce TIME into your weird, static considerations! I've already pointed out all the ways that your example is untenable. And you defend this idea on, what, the law of noncontradiction? Seriously? "Space gorillas sip Earl Grey poured from Russell's Teapot" is a valid proposition by that criterion. That's not enough, not by a long shot.<br /><br />Seriously, think about how silly your supposition is. You'd sooner imagine nixing the relations of production altogether than changing them in a humane way. You're using an utterly improbable, still unexplained Rube Goldbergian superstructure to retain capitalism beyond its modal existence, in this case characterized by constant, aggressive movements to safeguard the rights of non-owners instead of just <i>removing the internal contradictions that result in those rights being threatened in the first place</i>.<br /><br />You're the sort of guy who'd see his sprinkler floods his lawn every time it goes off, and decide that instead of just replacing it with a newer model, it would make more sense to stand by with a pump near the storm grate every day. Problem is, you need to maintain a high level of vigilance, and sooner or later, being human, you'll falter and your lawn will die. It's far more sensible to just repair the problem.<br /><br />LK, serious question: Are you a member of the Cold War generation? If you are, then please just tell me. It would save a lot of frustration.<br /><br /><i>Garbage. As long as the government maintains aggregate demand and money incomes and economic growth, there is no logical or empirical reason why money profits would not continue.</i><br /><br />So, pure "vertical" money creation at full capacity utilization, JUST to inflate minuscule profits in the face of ever expanding constant capital relative to variable, and keep the owners happy? And you call it "democracy," huh?<br /><br />Probably won't work so well for the non-owners. How does that sit with you? My prediction is that you don't particularly mind, so long as there's no dirty socialists rooting about for egalitarianism. Based on the extent to which you'll entertain nonsense to avoid that, I suspect this is a scratch-a-liberal-find-a-reactionary situation.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-21563114966672395912015-06-02T13:42:42.845-07:002015-06-02T13:42:42.845-07:00"In this case, the system itself, represented...<i>"In this case, the system itself, represented in its accounts, does not recognize them as labor. "</i><br /><br />Yes, it does: as <i>slave</i> labour. The accounts of slave owners showed the business expenses of owning and maintaining slaves. Just like Rothbardians, Marxists do not care about empirical reality.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-40879061957060824572015-06-02T13:25:24.541-07:002015-06-02T13:25:24.541-07:00[10,000 capitalists w/ competition vs 3 oligopolis...<i>[10,000 capitalists w/ competition vs 3 oligopolists]</i><br /><br />You're talking about the rate of adoption of new technology or what? <br /><br /><i>To say these relations are *not* built into the process by which we 'produce what we consume' ignores such realities.</i><br /><br />Not at all. Adjusting the technical composition of the economy and making it more expensive to produce this or that good does not change this fundamental fact.<br /><br /><i>But, problematically, the slave walks, talks, acts and does all the things that laborers do--only they don't get paid wages. They enter into social relations. </i><br /><br />You make it sound like an internship, ffs.<br /><br />As you say, it's a different relation. When it's the structuring economic relationship, it corresponds to a different allocation of surplus than that seen under capitalism. Marx is only analyzing capitalism. When slavery is folded into a capitalist enterprise, slaves are treated in the books (the only place that counts to capital) the same way as all inputs outside the wage relation — as means of production.<br /><br /><i>More importantly, they can work slowly, inefficiently, and not very productively, or they can work quickly, efficiently and very productively. They do not have the consistency of machines.</i><br /><br />What? Machines can stutter or break down early, etc.<br /><br />The point is that the value transfer reappears exactly; if a $100 machine produces 100 or 10,000 units before breaking, then that $100 is depreciated across the total irrespective of whether that means $1 or $0.01 of it appears in each unit of output (whether as price or as writeoff). <br /><br /><i>This is not the hallmark of constant capital--these are the qualities of variable capital.</i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/v/a.htm#variable-capital" rel="nofollow">That's not the distinction, though.</a><br /><br /><i>That the capitalist may treat laboring human beings as something else during the production does not make them something else; indeed, if the heart of your analysis is to be strictly materialist, this is fairly straightforward.</i><br /><br />Dialectical materialism takes social relations into account as their own stratum, as it were. Physical conditions shape our physical existence, and social conditions atop them shape our social existence.<br /><br />In this case, the system itself, represented in its accounts, does not recognize them as labor. We can morally object to this fact, but it is a <i>fact</i> to which we object.<br /><br /><i>If you are going to respond by saying that what bars them from creating value is that they are not paid in wages, then we end up with circularity and the LTV ceases to be a 'theory of value'</i><br /><br />I make a big deal about the accounting so people know these are concrete figures, but don't mistake the map for the territory. What is a "wage"? It's something that you enter into freely, that you are then to spend on the market in an exertion of your own agency. It pays you to produce more than you consume, so that the capitalist can consume more than he produces. But at the end of the day, the laborer has X-s to spend, while the capitalist has s, to cover the output of new realized values (i.e., from living labor) totaling X. If less than X is sold, then the left-hand side of the equation is also lowered, consistent with the identity.<br /><br />A slave, in the capacity of slavery, is maintained like livestock or machinery. It would be part of that portion of capital that doesn't resolve into income in the case of new output. Instead, a field whip might get paid X-s, and the capitalist probably gets a bigger s than in a non-slaveowning enterprise. But it looks the same on the books as the case of the enterprise with more advanced machinery relative to its peers.<br /><br />If you're setting out to analyze capital on its own terms (hence the name of the book), then this is how you do it. This is Marx's method of critique; give full weight to your opponent's perspective, understand it thoroughly, and carry it out to its logical ends until contradictions emerge.<br />Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-52485745965087177492015-06-02T12:14:42.530-07:002015-06-02T12:14:42.530-07:00It is more likely that at that stage of human tech...It is more likely that at that stage of human technology and scientific development machines could be designed to themselves design and build new generations of machines to increase productivity.<br /><br />As long as governments maintain aggregate demand and money supply and owners of capital continue to desire money profits (no reason why this would change), then money profits would continue.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.com