2973

I still use “retarded”… it’s the same as saying “idiotic”. Idiot was once a term that was used to refer to mentally handicapped people.

I don’t think I say “that’s gay” though.

2974

To be clear there was that too used generically like that, but kids also actually accused people of being gay in the 90s with the intention to use the most hurtful insult they could summon.

2975

In the 70’s as kids we used to play a game called smear the queer (sometimes called kill the pill). ONe kid with the ball on a field, and everyone else trying to tackle/tag him/her.

2976

Likewise. I’ve learned of one dude that came out later in life, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to in high school.

And the whole “that’s gay” thing was very common, though no one really thought of it in a homosexual manner. I’m fairly sure it was just a evolution of the word “queer” as in “strange” over time. “That’s some queer shit,” = “that’s really weird.” And of course gay = queer so at some point people just swapped the words.

2977

Marx didn’t invent the labor theory of value. He borrowed it from Ricardo, the guy who also came up with the underpinnings of free trade.

Marx used the LTV to argue that workers are exploited, but it’s otherwise not essential to any implementation of communism. And it’s not a particularly crazy idea, since people do tend to value things more based on how much effort they put into making them. All else equal, which would you rather lose: a sandwich that took you five minutes to make or a Thanksgiving turkey that took you five hours?

I think people occasionally confuse value with price and think Marx was trying to explain how to micromanage prices, but Marx was not interested at all in that sort of thing. He was strictly focused on the big picture, particularly on explaining how people have been getting screwed since the dawn of history. Communism was basically just a thought experiment to him, pondering where it all might end one day.

2978

Hannity gets in deeper:

2979

2980

I know this.
But it does not in fact work. It is flawed in the most fundamental level, in that it doesn’t actually give you a functional way to assign value to anything. It’s literally useless.

Some major component of communism is its functionality as an economic system, and an economic system which is based upon an entirely flawed notion of value is not going to work.

No, it’s an ENTIRELY crazy idea. It does not work, at all.
If I’m good at making shoes, and you’re shitty at making shoes, and it takes you more labor to produce them… are your shoes worth more? No, they are not. Because actual value is derived from the agreed upon exchange of goods between two people.

You could spend hundreds and hundreds of hours laboring to make some totally useless piece of shit, and it’s not going to be worth anything.

A painting by picasso is worth millions, while a painting by me is worth nothing, even if I spent exactly as much time and materials to produce it.

And yes, I’ve read Marx’s stuff, so I am fully aware of his entirely inadequate attempts to explain these painfully obvious problems away. (except for the value of artistic works, which Marx literally just handwaves away by saying, “We’re concerned with science, not silly things like art.”) I’m familiar with all of his convoluted nonsense about trying to take average labor values for the entire industry, blah blah blah. It doesn’t work. It devolves into an infinitely recursive process, trying to derive value of any complex product by deriving the value of its component parts and labor, which need to have THEIR value derived by the same mechanism, going on forever.

Honestly, this is not worth arguing, because if you believe that the LTV has merit, then you are wrong. The explanations of why the LTV is flawed are exhaustive. The argument has already been had, and it’s over. It’s a solved problem. Marx was incorrect. The end.

That’s because value IS price, at least within the context of an economic system. There is no inherent value in ANYTHING. Value is not intrinsic to any object, it’s entirely a construct of the market. It is derived purely from our perceptions as buyers and sellers. Everyone has their own perception of economic value, and price essentially equates to the equilibrium point of value for all the individuals in the market. It’s essentially the emergent notion of value, derived by the hive mind.

You have your own, individual, perception of value for every object. Every time you buy something, you are saying, “I believe this object to be worth more than the price I am paying.” and the seller is saying, “I believe this object is worth less than the price I am selling it for.” But neither one of us is “right”. There is no “real” value inherent in the object.

The only meaningful notion of value, within an economic system of trade, is the market derived price.

When you build a massive structure upon a flawed and unstable foundation, that structure isn’t sound, even if it might look impressive at first glance.

2981

Are you aware that the labor theory of value underlies all of capitalism? It’s fundamental to Adam Smith’s work. Also big for Lincoln’s economic theory, too, just as an aside. He adverts to it in his own writings.

Now mind you I think it’s more and more obsolete today. Given all this automation as well as the ability to do things like ultra-energy-intensive agriculture and desalinization, I think the underlying basis of value is now energy.

But labor is still a big deal. As should be obvious when you look at the effects of globalization. Why is there so little industry in the US and Europe? Because labor costs are much lower elsewhere. Whereas capital costs remain pretty much the same.

2982

No, it doesn’t.

The LTV is an earlier, flawed concept from classical economics. That’s not how things actually work. All economists now know this.

Seriously, these ideas of “Hey, this old dude wrote about this stuff once, and then he wrote other stuff, so this must be critical to modern economic theory!” is nonsense.

2983

But it’s not based on it, any more than capitalism is based on a libertarian theory of natural rights. You can use one to justify the other, from a moral standpoint. But it’s not going to live or die based on whether it’s morally justified. You can reject the LtV independently of communism, just like you can reject libertarianism independently of capitalism.

No, they are not. Because the labor that is used to value a shoe is the average for all shoemakers. Your example is directly addressed by Marx.

Aw cmon, I typed all that for nothing then.

Only if that economic system is capitalism.

But Marx wasn’t just interested in capitalism. Like I said, he was interested in looking at economics from a historical perspective, and for that he wanted some consistent definitions.

What’s the value of a basket of apples in a barter economy that has no money at all? What is the value of that basket in a feudal economy, where serfs are not paid for working the land?

There are no prices to guide you, but Marx wanted to argue that there is a consistent thread of economic injustice throughout history. You can’t just start history with Adam Smith if you want to make such a grand argument.

Marx certainly recognized that some things derive value from how they are exchanged, and he even referred to that as the “exchange value”. It might be our favorite way to consider value today, but it’s not the only way.

2984

These ideas arose in the 19th century and were current into the 20th. This was the heyday of capitalism, which is no longer a vital force in world economics, as capital itself is clearly of decreasing value in a world where financial instruments make more money than real production. What do you prefer? Exchange value? Some kind of magical intrinsic value?

2985

Man, the LTV as discussed by Smith and Ricardo were just early ideas. They were stepping stones to modern understanding of value. But they were wrong.

Hell, both of them straight up say this in their writings eventually, because they recognize that it doesn’t work to explain various things.

The LTV is a system which supposes intrinsic value. That’s why it’s wrong. Things don’t have intrinsic value within an economic system.

Individuals have their own, totally subjective, perceptions of value for any commodity or service. The only real value that exists outside of our heads, is the price that arises from exchange.

Again, what I’m saying here is not some kind of ground breaking stuff. This is what literally every economist in the entire world who isn’t a crackpot thinks. Everyone knows that the LTV is wrong.

2986

No, Marx’s entire system is based upon this idea that you can assign value through some equation. He not only uses it to justify why you should impose his system, but he uses it as a mechanism by which the system functions.

Once that is tossed out, the government can’t set prices, or manage the economy. You end up relying upon a market to do it… and you can’t have a market, while simultaneously preventing the evil capitalists from accumulating wealth.

2987

In the 19th and into the 20th Century, the laborers were citizens of the same countries of the capitalists. Today the capitalists have discovered outsourcing. There’s a reason China is by huge margins undergoing massive, massive contruction projects on in conveivable scales while the US can’t even afford to fix its roads - and the corporations whose manufacturing is based in China has accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars in excess capital that they literally have nothing to spend it on.

Capitalism is of decreasing value, it’s that the true cost of labor is now hidden from view.

2988

This is true. You can’t have Marxism without LTV. You can certainly have evolved forms of communism without it, however, just as you can have our so-called “capitalism” which no longer cares at all for capital.

2989

You guys are derailing the Muslim thread!

2990

Well, Marx can’t justify communism without the LTV, because he sees communism as the only system that escapes the cycle of exploitation that he wants to describe with the LTV. So I guess in that sense, you don’t have “Marxism” either, since Marxism is mostly about describing this cycle. But all that is separate from communism, which after all existed before Marx.

It’s kind of like asking whether you can have American democracy without the Declaration of Independence. No, because the latter justified and naturally led to the former. And yes, because you can arrive at democracy by other means. And no, because if that happened, then maybe it wouldn’t be known as “American”.

Again, you are confusing value with price. Capitalism provides a nice relationship between the two, but it’s not perfect.

In the Antebellum South, slaves were not paid for their work. Did their work have value?

There are no prices in Marxist communism. Nor does the government manage an economy.

2991

HEY HOW ABOUT THAT FOX NEWS?

2992

Fox News is communist.