2993

2994

Well I am enjoying it and learning a lot. re: the Communist economics discussion.

2995

I’m not confusing them. I’ve explained the relationship, as understood by every mainstream economist in the world, in quiet a detailed manner.

Sure. That’s why their owners paid money for them, just like they did with other livestock.

This is nonsensical.
Without the government managing the economy, you know what you get? You get capitalism. In order to stop that, you need to have a massive authoritarian state.

Regarding the “derailing” if there fox news thread, here, breaking news, Fox news is still fucking garbage propaganda.

2996

fox still has not been laid low by scandals to its fat founder and bill o’reilly. how can we get rid of it?

2997

Boycott companies that advertise on Fox.

That’s literally the only way.
Edit: i just flipped it on and it looks like… Preparation H, and Lexus.

2998

Not every slave was paid for. Some were born and died with the same owner and therefore were never bought or sold. Did their work have any value?

And yes, this is an uncomfortable question but it gets right to the heart of Marxism. Because Marx would say that their work may not have had a price but of course it had value, and since slaves weren’t paid that means they were exploited. And to varying degrees, this exact thing has occurred over and over again throughout history.

Even today. For instance, some guy works 40 hours a week on an assembly line. Right next to him is a woman who is also working 40 hours a week. Are they getting paid the same? No? Well, one of them is getting exploited. Spoiler: it’s the woman.

Possibly! Marx was more optimistic. The theory runs more or less like this: every economic system that exploits the proletariat will eventually be overthrown by the proletariat and replaced by something else. Communism is the only system that can’t exploit the proletariat. Hence, it will be the last economic system.

And yes, there are a few huge assumptions, at least from my POV. Like you suggested, we might get flawed system after flawed system until the heat death of the universe, and never reach communism. Or maybe Marxist communism will itself be overthrown. Or maybe the proletariat will eventually lose their will to revolt. But none of these objections have anything to do with the LTV, which mainly is used to explain why workers have always felt, deep down, that they are being exploited.

2999

Economists* haven’t used the term “value” in economic theory since gas lights went out of fashion. Instead post-Victorian economists concentrate on prices, since those are observable and free of all the nebulous baggage attached to the word “value.”

If you tell a modern economist, “economists know the price of everything, and the value of nothing” they will readily agree, whether or not they understand the Oscar Wilde reference. If you ask a modern economist about the labor theory of value, he will most likely look at you blankly, because he won’t know what it is. (If he took a history of thought class in grad school, or a bunch of non-econ liberal arts as an undergrad, he’ll know but try to politely change the subject, the same way chemists do when asked about alchemy, or physicists when asked about the ether.)

*By which I mean non-Marxist economists, who comprise the majority of Western professional economists. There are of course still Marxist economists as well, just as there are people who wear waistcoats or pince-nez.

3000

Those are fair points. Modern economics has tried to remake itself as a hard science. Or at least less squishy than the old schools, which were distinctly more philosophical or historical in approach. That doesn’t mean the old schools were wrong, per se, just no longer relevant.

I think another good analogy is how modern psychiatry views Freud. Was he wrong? Not necessarily, but most psychiatrists are no longer interested in his approach. They have shiny new toys to play with, like MRI scanners.

3001

Oh, c’mon - use the proper one:

3002

So, two products for assholes?

(rimshot)

3003

That was beautiful

3004

Do you think that this is somehow a novel and interesting aspect of the discussion?
Slaves were PROPERTY. Just like livestock. The relationship is exactly the same. There’s nothing special about it in the way you are suggesting, because you’re missing the fact that they weren’t people in the economic system. They weren’t participants. They were merely objects, like a cow, or a horse. There’s nothing special there.

No, it doesn’t get at the heart of Marxism at all, because Marx is dealing with the labor of PEOPLE, not livestock. And ultimately, this does not expose anything interesting about the problem at all.

Exactly. For all neo-classical economic theories, value effectively IS price. There is a nebulous notion of value that exists in a purely subjective sense within each of our heads, but its effectively meaningless, as it’s completely untethered from the real world.

The only thing that matters is the agreed upon value between two actors when they exchange goods/services, and that value is represented as price. The nebulous notion of subjective value that exists in our heads informs the price we pay/charge, but it’s subjective… it’s not an inherent quality of the commodity, as Marx suggests.

Eh, I think every economist is going to know about the LTV through his undergraduate work, as it’s useful for the purpose of explaining the history of the modern understanding of value. It’s generally used as a historical footnote, in the context of “this is what some folks used to think, but they were wrong, and here is why, which is why we now know value is the same as price.”

The LTV is kind of like older, geocentric models of the solar system, or Aristotle’s theories about elemental composition. It’s an old idea that men had, when their understanding of economics was more primitive.

3005

In that case, I am making my contribution. You’re welcome.

3006

how do you be this brazenly unethical? for both the guy and faux news.

3007

That reminds me of a joke!

What’s the difference between a porcupine and a Lexus/Beamer/Whatever Fancy Pants Car?

Punchline

With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside!

3008

Fox and Mulvaney both know that their supporters are stupid, naive, or evil enough that this won’t matter at all.

3009

Their supporters believe that everyone is corrupt and grafty, so it’s ok because it is their team this time.

3010
3011

First of all, slaves are people, not livestock. I assume this is obvious to all. Perhaps they were treated as poorly as livestock. But this does not make them livestock.

For one thing, people, unlike livestock, are capable of independently judging their own value. That’s not the only difference between the two, but it’s the one Marx will focus on.

From a capitalist perspective, if someone sets a price on your labor, that’s the end of the story. But historically, it isn’t. Time and time again, people have rejected price tags as a measure of value.

I mean, it’s literally happening right now. Women are paid less than men. Do women accept that they are worth less than men? No, for the most part they don’t. But if they have a different idea of what they are worth, that idea must come from somewhere. And the LTV suggests where they got this idea. I work 40 hours doing X, you work 40 hours doing X, so our work is actually worth the same. Regardless of what we were paid.

Why go to the effort of coming up with an alternate definition of “value”? Not to set prices. Rather, to explain why there is an armed mob outside your window screaming for your blood. Maybe the market will bear whatever salary you chose to offer women or slaves, but don’t be surprised when that market suddenly gets burned to the ground. And at that point, nobody will care about any justification you may offer that is based on supply and demand, or the will of God, or the natural superiority of white males.

When that day comes, your economic system is over. And as far as Marx is concerned, it’s a matter of when, not if.

Your fundamental assumption is that people will be satisfied with the capitalist definition of value, because it is the basis for an orderly economic system. Whereas Marx assumes that people will reject it because it feels unfair, even if rejecting it results in economic chaos.

3012

Yup. If every accusation of corruption labeled at Trump, Pruitt, Mulvaney, Jared and the rest of them is proved true, the Trumpistas will still not be shaken in their belief that Killary was worse. I mean, her Benghazi emails to the Clinton Foundation were strictly pay-for-play.