/lit/ - Literature

>>13207511
No.

yes and no

Yes.

maybe.

Nah, Marx wrote it as a pot boiler so he didn't have to keep bugging Engels to sleep on his couch.

Yes.

/lit/ at its finest

>>13207511
Which ones? Post some of the claims contained therein for us to discuss.

>>13207511
Labour theory of value is right atel least

>>13208563
This is /lit/, do you think he’s actually read the book?

>>13208577
Maybe we can trick him into it

>>13208574
Lol what? If I labour for hours making a customised fleshlight that no one wants to buy, what is the value of it?

>>13208574
HAHAHAAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAH

adorable :3

>>13208786
Are you stupid? You wanted to make it, and you toiled on it for X hours, so you obviously think it was worth that value in labour.

Perhaps you’ll have your answer upon reading it. Believe your own eyes and not some anonymous troll who doesn’t read.

>>13208810
You haven’t read it either, correct? :3

Some one give me the quick run down on this text so that I can confirm or deny the validity of the arguments made within it for OP.

>>13208786
Bro, each volume is dedicated to a different point in the movement of Capital.
Vol 1. Production of Value
Vol 2. Realization of Value (this is the part you’re talking about)
Vol 3. Distribution

Commodities have inherent use-values that are independent of the labour put into them, that much is true. But price (or money-value) depends on the relationship of the commodity with all other commodities expressed in the equation of that commodity with the socially established equative form of value (money). It is this kind of value that is distacted according to the amount if congealed labour in it.

But you’re right to a degree, one of the buggest critiques of Marx is that he didnt take sociological reasoning into account. There are many cases in where the price of something is dictated by social habit or norms instead of just the labour.

>>13208839
wym

>>13208786
>>13208795
t. capitalists who dont know that democratic capitalism ala adam smith was founded on the labor theory of value and all capitalist economic theory since then (with some exceptions like Hayek) has been an extended cope burning its own roots to try and avoid how its own contradictions lead to socialism

>>13208870
>lead to socialism
when does this set in

>>13208786
This is why you should read Adam Smith before reading Marx

>>13208882
Which part?

>>13208810
That trip is not of the original. What happened to real (tranny) butterfly?

>>13208786
Nothing, because it has no use-value. Marx says that in the first two pages of the first volume of Capital.

>>13208882
not necessarily a socialist society but it produces contradictions that lead to collapse and then alternative of some kind

>>13208890
The part where history has some sort of telos and capitalism inexorably leads to socialism.

>>13208901
Ahh, so you are saying "nothing lasts forever." That's a relief.

>>13208803
I do think so, and I've been enjoying using it. But I was kinda hoping on trading for food as well, seeing as I dont own land


>>13208839
Supply side is labour, present and past (in the construction of my fleshlight-making machine).

But demand is sociological, no? The value of my machine could be totally different if there was gonna be a hardcore Christian uprising tomorrow. Same for all the labour I put into my gas-guzzling car fab when the next EV breakthrough hits

>>13208886
>>13208870

>The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
Supply
>What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people.
Demand

For the thing in the present moment. There is no intrinsic value of labour, aside from the usefulness of the thing produced under supply and demand

>>13208907
There are many types or levels of capitalism, right?
There are also many differing types or levels of socialism. See France for an example, see Venezuela. Do you, anon, actually see them? One is allowed to or allowing themselves to protest in the streets for more socialists reforms, he other has boatloads of oil and the capitalist machine wants it all

I don't know about all of them because I have only read fragments of it, but the fourth chapter where he explains M-C-M' is certainly correct.

The LTV seems to explain more things about the dynamics of labour markets than the STV, which deals mostly with prices and supply and demand, as if labour power is a commodity no different than skateboards and tomatoes.
I mean, why do neoliberals want us to work 40 hours and more when we could easily organize society around a 15 hour workweek with automation like Keynes predicted? Why is there a minimum price for buying labour power enforced by governments all around the world? Why unions are much more (unironically) problematic than other lobbies? I don't think a purely subjectivist theory of value from Austria or Chicago can explain this.
Then there is the whole failing rate of profit debate. I'm too unqualified to talk about this desu.

I tried reading it from the beginning once again recently, but he autistically goes on and on about how X pieces of clothes = Y burgers in the first chapter and that was boring, so I'm slowly working my way through the 1844 manuscripts instead, which are a bit edgier, but Marx included fun banter in Capital too.
>We may here remark, that the language of commodities has, besides Hebrew, many other more or less correct dialects.
>Never has any school played more tricks with the word science, than that of Proudhon. As Mephisto says: "Where thoughts are absent, Words are brought in as convenient replacements".
>[Linen's] existence as value is manifested in its equality with the coat, just as the sheep-like nature of the Christian is shown in his resemblance to the Lamb of God.

>>13208953
what do you think of UBI? Tbh I think its the best deal you can get out of capitalism

>>13208953
But if capitalism must, by virtue of conflicts intrinsic to its structure, collapse and lead to socialism, why is capitalism winning so hard? Shouldn't the material infrastructure of our economies be withering away the bourgeoisie? Isn't it also possible that 'socialist reforms' are just convenient amelioratives to pacify the drinking classes, leaving the overall structure unchanged in any significant manner? After a hundred or so years of such reforms, capitalism and the bourgeois class seems more entrenched than ever, and market logic and commodification seem to have plumbed ever more deeply into human minds and relations.

That is an interesting reading of the yellow vests, by the way. I might even call it naive.

>>13208574
>>13208786
>>13208803
Marx's "value" is a term of art dealing with "socially necessary labour". It doesn't mean "value" in a generic sense and you can't read Capital like it does.

Think of it like a physics/engineering term. Same way "power" or "current" mean something in an electronics context that has nothing to do with those terms in other contexts.

Marx compares "value", "use-value", and "exchange-value". Your custom dildo-bike has use-value (to you) but no exchange-value and no value since it wasn't socially necessary labour going into it. There's no one capitalizing on it so it's irrelevant to Marx's discussion.

>>13208981
The best deal is a reduction of work hours. Take the Jehupill.

>>13208803
>You wanted to make it, and you toiled on it for X hours, so you obviously think it was worth that value in labour.
This is not what Marx means by "value".

>>13208981
Not even close. Worker-ownership would be the best deal out of capitalism, since it actually redistributes power. If you only redistribute cash, the power discrepancy still exist.

But even worker-ownership under a capitalist model is still capitalism and still riddled with failure.

>>13209001
>'socialist reforms'
No such thing, this is just socdem shit. An important running thread through Marx and Lenin is exactly what you're saying, that these reforms don't work and merely prop up capitalism. No way in hell is France anything close to socialist.

>>13209007
What does 'socially necessary' mean?

>>13209032
read
>>13207511

>>13208839
>implying price and value are interchangeable

>>13209051
Fuck.

>>13209007
determining what is socially necessary, what is unproductive/productive labour, is the job of the capitalist parasites/speculators.

How was I supposed to know there is no exchange-value in my fleshlight?

Seems to me we either need the market (supply and demand) or a centrally planned economy

>>13208839
>distacted
>buggest

Amazing. While I’m working at my JOB, all the Marxists post incessantly in this thread.

How would you explain this phenomenon?

The LTV is mathematically flawed. It derives itself into a proportional dillemma of an equation with multiple to infinite solutions.

It sure is flawed because it doesn’t take into account marginal economics, but the above reasoning is the purest mathematical reasoning I can give: if you need me to explain I will, but the sheer fact of the LTV not including marginality should be enough to deter even the dumbest economist. :3

>>13209055
They’re not... but price is the final manifestation of the value of a commodity as expressed within the Total or Expanded form of value.

>>13209070
Exactly. Marx is talking macroscopically. He's not talking about you, personally. He's talking about the entire economy and the decisions that go into organizing it.

>>13209074
>>13209074
>erives itself into a proportional dillemma of an equation with multiple to infinite solutions.
wym

>>13209074
And yet I'm at my JOB, and you're posting in this thread. Curious!

>>13209091
That any equation with two variables is essentially a petite principii: in philosophical terms, it’s ‘begging the question’.

If we were talking for one good (or all), the wages are essentially determined by a population set, these wages being determined by the supply and demand of the labor (which it seems the Marxists also don’t understand). As a result, with population, you can determine wages using a Malthusian-like methodology utilized by Léon Walras. Failing that, the prices of the components of the good being what they are, the interest of the capital and land rented (the rent aspect of the good sold) actually determine the price and the price determines the rent.

Therefore you cannot say the price is solely determined by the three factors of Wage, Labor, and Capital. You cannot even say that the price is ‘set’ by these factors at all, rather the price is determined by supply and demand, which is composed of those elements, so loosely cooresponds to it, but can widely vary. :3

>>13209074
Please explain with marginalism why most governments in the world enforce a minimum price for unskilled labour power (i.e. set a minimum wage), but don't do the same with pasta, houses and cars.

>>13209157
Democracy. :3

No need for marginalism.

>>13209074
marxist here posting about LTV on my breaks. for how much right wingers bitch about identity politics u sure use it as a crutch

>>13209169
I hope you get a better job, man. I really think a problem in America is relying too much on people who make them ‘feel better’ and not enough on the people who actually matter.

Those who read, understand, and comprehend literature deserve much better work than others. Although in your post you have demonstrated none of these attributes, I still think it might be a case of an anti-intellectual culture rubbing off on you. :3

>>13208981
It’s a Trojan horse. New Deal/soc-dem reformism does not work. It works only as a sedative. Allowing the corrosive system to eat away till our extinction

>>13209001
>why is capitalism winning
Because of loyalist cucks like yourself, defeatist cucks, and authoritarian socialists fucking everything up.
>Isn't it also possible that 'socialist reforms' are just convenient amelioratives to pacify
Agreed. See above. Some Yellow Vests want more soc-dem, some want stronger stuff

>>13209193
Holy fuck this is embarrassing Butterfly, stop it with the revolutionary talk.

It’s time to think about how we can make the world a better place without deterministically controlling everyone. As Von Neumann himself said: Communism is a one-person game. And that is fucking horrifying. :3

:3 poster on fire today

>>13209163
But isn't the market best left unchecked as an arbiter of prices? If so, why did workers choose to campaign for minimum wage? It doesn't make sense if you assume that free markets are the most efficient way of allocating resources.

>>13209217
Because supposedly the workers did not think the way that an anti-government libertarian would. They wanted what was in their immediate self-interest, and a nationwide, or regional, minimum wage is frequently an immediate fix to an otherwise larger issue. It’s why some small tech towns have much larger min wages set because their cost of living is so much higher. Imagine that but on a macro scale and now you essentially see why people campaigned for a min wage.

My task was not to explain whether I agree or disagree with it, that issue has many sides. My task was to state the cause: and the cause is groupthink within democratic institutions. This can be salutary if done every now and then, carried to a logical extreme like UBI can make it disastrous, ruins the faith of the currency, encourages lying and deception, and promotes vices.

>>13209217
Workers want money, not "market efficiency"

Market efficiency is circumventing the minimum wage by inventing the gig economy / contract work

>>13209182
i have a good job for now, i can probably do it for another decade. i get paid okay, like my coworkers, and take pride in my work. i am not an anti-intellectual or against academia or study. i just genuinely believe in most of the fundamentals of marxist and socialist theory.

>>13209256
Well I’m glad you’re happy then. That’s really all that matters. Your continued lack of punctuation and capitalization may be proving my previous statement correct, of course. :3

>>13209193
Socialism is authoritarian by definition. This is a good thing if you're limiting the freedom of capitalists to harm other people.
If you're trying to get rid of all "power discrepancies" >>13209018 good luck

>>13209255
So if most workers aren't satisfied with resource allocation as it is, and workers make the vast majority of participants in the job market, maybe the market isn't efficient then? Or maybe there is something special about labour power as a commodity, compared to most other commodities?

>>13209237
>[Groupthink within democratic institutions] can be salutary if done every now and then, carried to a logical extreme like UBI can make it disastrous, ruins the faith of the currency, encourages lying and deception, and promotes vices.
I don't care about such moralist thinking desu. I'm a economic agent who have to work to earn a living, probably just like you, and I feel like I'm getting screwed by the market.
Given that employers love to squeeze every bit of our valuable time on this planet by making us working overtime for the lowest prices possible, I don't think economic schools in agreement with the political ideology that is called in America "libertarianism" can provide a good answer to my problem.
I don't think economic theories focusing on why the price of water is lower than diamonds can explain why the price of unskilled labour power from 1970 to 2018 as only been multiplied by 5, while the prices on the stock market (Dow Jones, S&P 500, Wilshire 5000) has been multiplied by 30, but I would be happy to be proven wrong.

>>13209446
It’s because production within this country is somewhat stagnant, vices and non-productive activities were really popular recently, and the general morals of the people weren’t in great standing.
When you spend money on productive goods and services, it adds circulatory capital, once this circulatory capital is invested, it’s taken away from the circulatory capital and the velocity of money decreases. What we know from Keynes (somewhat flawed) system, is one correct observation: that through investment and consumption, we receive ‘economic’ progress.

In reality, under-consumption models like Marx were ready for when this process of war, destruction, and profit hit a downward slope. But so were the rational thinkers. And although your real wages have take a hit, you can always hope for better situations in the future, as the war mongering generations die off or retire and population decreases so you can have a set wage rate that is a little higher.

The idea is that Marxists are wrong about workers though: that workers, although the vector of price is a little closer to their maximum utility index and farther away from the workers/consumers, do NOT become the peons and slaves of capitalists, and that their pay, like any other good or interest, becomes determined by a negotiation process involving themselves as well, collectively and individually. :3

>>13208934
How do you explain prices at a supply/demand equilibrium?

>>13209571
The combined weighted integral values of all utility values offered versus the combined weighted integral values of all utility values demanded, excepting any parties whose integral utility values (or ability to recognize key utility values) are much lower than the other parties in the exchange. :3

>>13209608
You know this isn't a refutation of labor theory, right?

>>13209083
If you advocating for a planned economy, fair enough you can say so.
If you want the market to determine what is "socially necessary" isn't that the same thing as supply and demand? What is the point of LTV then?

>>13209642
The real question is why we should uphold labor theory in light of the transformation problem, arriving at wrong answers for joint production, inability to reduce different types of labor to a unit of abstract homogeneous labor time, and labor having to be "socially necessary" to impart value onto a commodity essentially being equivalent to a subjective theory of value, and being overwhelmingly rejected by practicing economists. This is basically the epicycles of economics.

>Muh minimum wage
The minimum wage was fought for by Progressive activists, most of whom would be considered "elites", who saw it as a way to prevent immigration by undesirables (Yugoslavs, Russians, Chinese, Mexicans) who would undermine the living standards of Anglo-Teutonic stock by selling their labor below its value, lol

>>13209726
If your main issue with labor theory is that it is ostensibly a form of arbitration, or a "subjective theory of value" (whatever that means), I've got some bad news about every other theory of value for you.

>>13209805
No, I see the addition of a labor-value to commodities independent of the price as essentially pointless.

>>13209805

>There is no necessary and direct connection between the value of a good and whether, or in what quantities, labor and other goods of higher order were applied to its production. A non-economic good (a quantity of timber in a virgin forest, for example) does not attain value for men since large quantities of labor or other economic goods were not applied to its production. Whether a diamond was found accidentally or was obtained from a diamond pit with the employment of a thousand days of labor is completely irrelevant for its value. In general, no one in practical life asks for the history of the origin of a good in estimating its value, but considers solely the services that the good will render him and which he would have to forgo if he did not have it at his command...The quantities of labor or of other means of production applied to its production cannot, therefore, be the determining factor in the value of a good. Comparison of the value of a good with the value of the means of production employed in its production does, of course, show whether and to what extent its production, an act of past human activity, was appropriate or economic. But the quantities of goods employed in the production of a good have neither a necessary nor a directly determining influence on its value.

>>13209898
Marxism defines value to take units of hours of socially useful labor, the question is how to get prices from labor hours.

>>13209484
>vices and non-productive activities were really popular recently
Such things have always been popular. Alcoholism and prostitution have existed since the Babylonian times. Abrahamic morals are a bad framework to use when discussing political economy.

>through investment and consumption, we receive ‘economic’ progress.
Well yeah, I mean, you are basically describing what Marx called "the circular movement of capital" here I believe.

>under-consumption models like Marx
I must admit I'm not familiar with all the different crisis models, and it's true that Marx & Engels were at times subscribing to underconsumptionism in their writings (or more accurately, saw overproduction as the root causes of some crises), but some contemporary Marxists have discussed this much better than I could:
https://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/the-problem-marx-didnt-leave-us-a-completed-crisis-theory/

>workers are not exploited, it is only a question of bargaining!
>surplus value doesn't exist
Meh. Where does growth comes from then?

>>13210050
>>13210050
>Such things have always been popular
Absolutely false. With the negation of religion as a driving force in people’s lives, and as they start to become more atheistic, you see more non-productive goods and services in general increase. It’s part of the reason we gravitated towards a service based economy: because in this post industrial world, the leisure class, as it slips away from existence, leaves the masses with a stinging sense of belonging to a rather marked moneyed Aristocracy. You saw this as the constitutional monarchy faded in England and gave way to democracy. Tocqueville commented on this and Rousseau knew that to get from a monarchy to a democracy an aristocracy was a transitional state.

The morals in this day and wrre decrepit, say what you will about God’s existence, he has certainly dropped the amount of vice consumption, which can be an inimical process for the economy as it inherently involves wasteful consumption.
>Well yeah, I mean, you are basically describing what Marx called "the circular movement of capital" here I believe
He was not the first person to think of the idea of circulatory productive capital being productive and investments being productive as well. You can thank JS Mill for the former and you can thank the Austrian school AND Keynesianism for the latter. Its fundamentally flawed, but it’s how a progressive economic machine used to work in that day and age. With lessening war, the manifest economic regime and institutional analysis will literally change. This is what Marx is referring to when he is talking about ‘organic social structure’.
>I must admit I'm not familiar with all the different crisis models, and it's true that Marx & Engels were at times subscribing to underconsumptionism in their writings (or more accurately, saw overproduction as the root causes of some crises), but some contemporary Marxists have discussed this much better than I could:
You could make an argument that Keynes is more of an inherently over-consumption-based economist. That his models necessitate over-consumption because (and this is literally true) under his two pronged system, investment necessitates consumption and vice versa in an unstoppable Archimedean spiral. Marx was more under-consumption based since he assumed capitalists would collectivize (not necessarily false) and the very idea that constant capital grows in proportion to variable capital means that wages in general average have to fall (because profits remain the same). So an under-consumption occurs. Kind of interesting.

The best economists are those whose systems don’t necessitate in a crisis. Hilariously, Keynes didn’t see this flaw, but Marx did. Marx designed his entire system around this flaw, and for that reason alone some thinkers eschew it.

>>13210413
>>13210050
Cont :3

>Meh. Where does growth comes from then?
The soil. The productive efficiencies of machinery or technology. Henry George actually knew this and ‘Growing’ Capital is part of how you make money, aside from ‘Adapting’ and ‘Exchanging’. For his system, the Earth was indeed an economic agent. But like Ricardo, so we’re productive efficiencies.

>>13209193
>Because of loyalist cucks like yourself
I actually loathe capitalism you stupid dyke, I just doubt that you are describing any sort of meaningful solution to it.

>working 50+ hours in a warehouse distribution center
>my wages are based on a hypothetical performance scale
>my manager's bonus depends on keeping wages as low as possible
>i do the work while my manager sits in an air conditioned office

if i'm not a communist, am i basically a cuck?

When did /lit/ become so leftist. This used to be a traditionalist board.

>muh communism

>>13210422

precisely why marx is so relevant today. no other thinker articulated an ecological criticism of capitalism as deep and as early as marx did. the question of climate change is utterly impossible for an economic system that treats the earth as simultaneously horn-of-plenty and bottomless sink.

>>13212867

Unequivocally yes.

>>13212898

despite what the pre-teen fascists want you to think, /lit/ is an eco-socialist board

>>13207511
>claims


It’s more of manifesto than anything afaik

>>13212898

>>13209842
>I see the addition of a labor-value to commodities independent of the price as essentially pointless.
Would you see labor-value as useful if workers went on strike?

>>13212976
>>13212898
>keeps posting that old shit
>assumes redditors have the stamina to do anything for more than five minutes, let alone over two years
>forgetting that /lit/ literally gave birth to fuckin' /leftypol/ five years ago
lol, newfag

>>13207515
Well, threads over folks.

>>13207511
Almost every point made in this book is correct, but the conclusions are wrong. That's the reason why communism and socialism is such a shithole ideology.
Communism doesn't work for one simple reason (pic related):

>>13214712
Who says you can't own stuff under communism?

>>13214756
Owning stuff under communism isn't a problem, but people are as they are.
We are natural born hunters and collectors. That's what helped us to survive the eternal stuggle while living in nature and prepare for winter times or long dry periods.
This is inherited in our genetic code and we can't that easily get a way from it or ignore it entirely.
That's why people fight wars, murder each other, steal, rob, loot and plunder.

Under communism, the leaders always ate caviar and expensive food, had better cars and lived in luxury, while they worshipped and forced non consumerism and altruism onto the normal people that basically had nothing but the absolute necessary standard stuff.

Humankind is in a fukkeed dilemma. We like to collect and pile up the stuff we like, need and love, but we know that's ultimately killing our economy and environment and destroys our resources.
When we tried communism, the hypocrisy bloomed and as said the upper 10% had a luxury life, while other people got put into gulags for wanting the same.

>>13207511
Not quite.

>>13207511
No.

>>13208810
Tranny.

>>13214756
Don’t play dumb.

>>13208810
fake butterfly

>>13208892
I don't blame her [him (it)] for leaving

>>13214820
>We are natural born hunters and collectors.
>That's what helped us to survive the eternal stuggle [sic] while living in nature and prepare for winter times or long dry periods.
By collectively cooperating, yes. Not by serving some master, because he had some paper that marked the land and all on it as "private property". That came much later, as did replacing the master with an organization called "the state" (which doesn't really change anything).
>Under communism
Only "socialist states" have ever existed, even by their own terms.
>the leaders always ate caviar and expensive food, had better cars and lived in luxury, while they worshipped and forced non consumerism and altruism onto the normal people that basically had nothing but the absolute necessary standard stuff.
It seems you've never heard of the Paris Commune, Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war, nor of the Zapatistas. Not to mention Thomas Sankara, on top of numerous others.

I'm still uncertain if you're aware of the distinction between private and personal property, so I'll suggest you to check that out, too.

>>13214204
a union is a local monopoly on labour. Good if your employer is a monopoly (government, for instance), but if they have to compete and do business with the rest of the country/world, you are just putting your employers out of business, and incentivising the capitalists to move your job somewhere less likely to strike.

>>13214712
own stuff as in, owning slaves? yea no sweaty, capitalism is unsustainable even under its own self imposed rules. that's why nobody enforces laws and regulations against corporations

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/orthodox.htm

Daily reminder to stop chomping out about LTV

>Let us assume for the sake of argument that recent research had disproved once and for all every one of Marx’s individual theses. Even if this were to be proved, every serious ‘orthodox’ Marxist would still be able to accept all such modern findings without reservation and hence dismiss all of Marx’s theses in toto – without having to renounce his orthodoxy for a single moment.

>>13208574
Only if you still harvest grain

>>13209923
You literally cannot without markets

is capital easy for a layperson to pick up? i can't stand university jargon

>>13216579
no, try this instead, liberal

>>13216579
Is any 19th century literature easy? Or, better yet, not outdated?

>>13216579
Chapter 1 is pretty dense and Chapter 3 is dry as leaves, but beyond those chapter it's a fairly easy read. Marx took pains to make all his works as accessible as possible.

>>13216579
Read David Harvey's companion alongside it

>>13214824
>dialectical thinking
Everyone uses this term but nobody explains what the fuck it's supposed to mean

Friendly reminder that you have to read all three volumes

>>13216985
reminder: you don't have to read anything to know the interests of the rich and the poor are irreconcilable. if you ever had to work or grew up poor, it's self evident the economy works to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, even at the expense of the planet.

>>13216867
>Read David Harvey's companion alongside it
don't do this, it's awful. He conflates exchange value with price and thinks exchange value and value are distinct.

>>13216579
You could/should read 'Wage Labour and Capital' instead. As it being a sort of proto-Capital, a draft-stage version of it, it's a bit more compact and understandable, as it goes through the same main points without all the complex mathematics.

>>13216998
Pic related.

>>13216998
This. Reading Marx is only an useful tool to annoy trust-fund kids if you are a poorfag who moved to the nearby big city and want to tell those fags they are useless parasites with an ounce of self-assurance. They can't really say anything if you scream at them "GIVE ME MY SURPLUS VALUE BACK! PAY FOR THE FUCKING BEERS NOW!" after telling them the story of your dad who has a broken back due to decades of minimum wage and then storm out of the bar.
You can also talk about Nick Land to impress the hip autistic ones if you want to make a stupid "noise jazz-rock" project that won't go anywhere with them, whatever.
If your parents have money, you should skip all that stuff and just read fiction, it's much more enjoyable.

>>13216998
This. Reading Marx is only an useful tool to annoy trust-fund kids if you are a poorfag who have moved to the nearby big city and want to tell those fags they are useless parasites with an ounce of self-assurance. They can't really say anything if you scream at them "GIVE ME MY SURPLUS VALUE BACK! PAY FOR THE FUCKING BEERS NOW!" after telling them the story of your dad who has a broken back due to decades of minimum wages and then storm out of the bar.
You can also talk about Nick Land to impress the hip autistic ones if you want to make a stupid "noise jazz-rock" project that won't go anywhere with them, whatever.
If your parents have money, you should skip all that stuff and just read fiction, it's much more enjoyable.

>>13208977
>chapter 1 of capital is boring
>therefore i will read the 1944 manuscripts
if you couldn't get through chapter 1 of capital there is simply no way you don't zone off after two paragraphs while reading any section of the manuscripts

>>13209689
"LTV" (or rather Capital, since "LTV" is not an actual term used in Marx) is not about what we should do, it's about a scientific exposition of how what we in fact do functions. The market determines socially necessary labour time as a statistical aggregate over the whole production over time, this is something readily accepted (with regards to price) by economists as well. The broader point is that "the market" is nothing more than the form taken by the distribution of labor over a society composed of private producers which are closed off to each other. It is only in this context where products of labor take the form of commodities and values to be exchanged.

>>13216998
If all you wanted to learn is "the game is rigged" then of course you don't have to read anything, and if you think all of Capital merely amounts to "the rich get richer" then it's plain that you won't read anything.

>>13209001
t. american

>>13208893
Nozick BTFO'd this argument. It's just veiled demand (subjective value).

>>13208786
>t. Brainlet
The said fleshlight would first need to have some sort of social worth (which it does as seen by the fleshlight company) and it would need to be made in a competitive manner in comparison to the current companies producing said commodity. Since it would take you hours to make the fleshlight, while the fleshlight company can make more fleshlights in the same amount of time (and is able to sell them for cheaper as a result) you will be run out of business. It is theory that encompasses all of society. The value of a commodity is determined by the leading companies producing said commodity, as they can produce more units of commodity than their competitors in a given amount of time, thus running their competitors out of business. You producing one fleshlight is hardly commodity production, which is what the book is about. Large scale commodity production. The book uses a capitalist interpretation of the economy (obviously because how else can you interpret the economy) and mainly points out the law of capital and how capital influences business behaviors. It's not like the manifesto where it seeks to abolish capital, it just describes the movement of capital. It's a good analysis of capitalism and can be read even if you aren't a socialist/communist.

>>13209205
>listen to the guy who promoted mutually assured destruction
Social reforms can only offer an empty promise. The butterfly is correct.

>>13217800
Not that poster, but like he said, reading theory isn't needed to reorganize society for the wellbeing of all and not the luxury of the few. Worker's movements don't come from intellectual liberals, they from the uneducated working class. All workers have an intuitive sense that their managers and wallstreet benefactors don't work as hard as they do, but receive a disproportionate share of the profits. If a worker knows her/his interest is diametrically opposed to his employer's, s/he is a revolutionary.

>>13208870
>>13208886
>Shilling for Smith when most of his work is built on lies.
Why am I even suprised anymore?

>>13217721
Are you kidding me? Have you even attempted to read both?
The first chapter of Capital is like:
>dude 1 pillow = 5 cheeseburgers, but did you also know that 5 cheeseburgers = 1 pillow lmao
The first part of the 1844 manuscripts are like:
>dude the workers are getting fucked in the ass because they don't get paid the full price for their labor if I'm reading Adam Smith correctly, and I'm pretty pissed off about this because I'm an edgy 25 years old dude lmao

I must admit I haven't been very far through the 1844 manuscripts so far, and maybe I shouldn't get discouraged and go back reading Capital instead, but the beginning of the manuscript I have been reading was more engaging than an autistic description about how 10 units of linen = 1 Dior piece of clothing, going on for dozens of pages. I get it, working is the only way to create value, value != use-value, and value != exchange-value, now what? It is pretty boring, despite the banter desu.

>>13217721
Are you kidding me? Have you even attempted to read both?
The first chapter of Capital is like:
>dude 1 pillow = 5 cheeseburgers, but did you also know that 5 cheeseburgers = 1 pillow lmao
The first part of the 1844 manuscripts is like:
>dude the workers are getting fucked in the ass because they don't get paid the full price for their labor if I'm reading Adam Smith correctly, and I'm pretty pissed off about this because I'm an edgy 25 years old dude lmao

I must admit I haven't been very far through the 1844 manuscripts so far, and maybe I shouldn't get discouraged and go back reading Capital instead, but the beginning of the manuscript I have been reading was more engaging than an autistic description about how 10 units of linen = 1 Dior piece of clothing, going on for dozens of pages. I get it, working is the only way to create value, value != use-value, and value != exchange-value, now what? It is pretty boring, despite the banter desu.

>>13216998
the rich getting richer and the poor getting poor is the zero sum game fallacy.

>>13218610
it’s not a fallacy, it’s an objective truth. one class of people has to have power over another for capitalism to work. capitalism doesn’t exist without zero sum power politics

>>13211991
Apologies. Lots of rightwinger about.
Marx’s prediction, or is this just a legend/misconception, that capitalism would inevitably wither away, is obviously wrong. It’s like an AI computer network, but it is made up of human beings, all with their own little motives, and they all banded together and fought back against the socialist movement and still do. It’s a cancer, and the socialist body is weakened
Sorry for rambling. Socialist reformism, still desired by many, myself included not so long ago, is just another way capitalism prolongs itself.
At its core, it’s very structure is something far older than 200+ years of industrialism. It’s the written word of law, proclaiming the kings land rights, and the currency with his head on it.

I think I have some meaningful and drastic solutions. Donno if we can get them off the ground in time though.

>>13212898
Incorrect

>>13214889
Incorrect

>>13214829
As ever, incorrect

>>13218697

No, it isn't.

t. MSc in Economics

All the Marxian pseudo-economists ITT make me cringe so hard. Read a fucking book you losers

>>13214824
Where is this from? I like the flow of the words.

>>13217196
This post depressed me, anon-san.

>>13215309
>to move your job somewhere less likely to strike.
thats only temporary, what happens when those workers strike?