Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

We can avoid the slight redundancy by translating that bit as "the difference of the other." In other words, posthumanism deconstructs the programmatic isolation of first-order observation in order to expose its radical openness (and vulnerability) to that which exists beyond the borders of its prescriptive frame.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think I've come to the conclusion that of all the "speculative" philosophers operating today, Ray Brassier is the only one we really need. He's level-headed and willing to dismiss philo-fads when they get ridiculously out of hand. I think this brief discussion of capitalism and emergence is a perfect example:

Basically, I do not think it at all illuminating or useful to construe capitalism as some sort of sublimely turbulent natural phenomenon. It’s important to bear in mind how, for all its seemingly unfathomable, impersonal complexity, global capitalism continues to supervene on the banal personal and psychological traits of the dealers, brokers, traders, executives, managers, workers, and shoppers, who are not just its dispensable machine parts but its indispensable support system, without which it would simply not be able to function.

There’s a temptation to hypostatize capital as though it were an impersonal, wholly autonomous agent subsisting quite independently of the myriad of little human subjects who compose it. This strikes me as a mistake. Here I think a sober appreciation of the mechanical banality of the processes through which capital reproduces itself might obviate this tendency to mystification: this seemingly fantastic, supra-personal complexity is not due to some mysterious self-moving cause or superhuman agent but an effect generated by the myriads of micro-processes that compose it: it is neither more nor less mysterious in its operations than any other complex, multi-layered emergent phenomenon. This kind of emergence and complexity are banal and ubiquitous.

I think there is an important dis-analogy between noise and capitalism in that noise as I understand it is precisely not complex in the way in which capitalism is alleged to be: the sort of emergent complexity exemplified by self-organizing systems is relatively uninteresting. The fetishizing of complexity in the sense of self-organization, along with emergence and irreducibility, etc., is part and parcel of the neo-vitalist tendency to prefer mystification to explanation, so prevalent today. What I consider to be interesting about noise is its dis-organizing potency: the incompressibility of a signal interfering with the redundancy in the structure of the receiver. Not transduction but schizduction: noise scrambles the capacity for self-organization.

Link: http://ny-web.be/transitzone/against-aesthetics-noise.html

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

"There is a reality that transcends the bounds of possible human experience set out by Kant, but we are learning that it is populated by ‘things’ about which it is proving increasingly difficult to say ‘what’ they are using the resources of sense currently available to us."

and I just learned about Object-oriented ontology.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well, that's part of it; but that's a very generic statement about the interests of the speculative movement as a whole. Brassier doesn't practice or pursue OOO on the level that someone like Graham Harman does.

Brassier's hard to categorize, but if I were forced I'd label his work as something like "naturalistic eliminative nihilism." The difficulty comes in trying to ascertain Brassier's position toward metaphysics, because he does admit some sympathy toward reductivist models. Whatever the underlying order/structure of Brassier's philosophical approach, it's very antihumanist.

 

[Dak]

Basically, I do not think it at all illuminating or useful to construe capitalism as some sort of sublimely turbulent natural phenomenon. It’s important to bear in mind how, for all its seemingly unfathomable, impersonal complexity, global capitalism continues to supervene on the banal personal and psychological traits of the dealers, brokers, traders, executives, managers, workers, and shoppers, who are not just its dispensable machine parts but its indispensable support system, without which it would simply not be able to function.

There’s a temptation to hypostatize capital as though it were an impersonal, wholly autonomous agent subsisting quite independently of the myriad of little human subjects who compose it. This strikes me as a mistake. Here I think a sober appreciation of the mechanical banality of the processes through which capital reproduces itself might obviate this tendency to mystification: this seemingly fantastic, supra-personal complexity is not due to some mysterious self-moving cause or superhuman agent but an effect generated by the myriads of micro-processes that compose it: it is neither more nor less mysterious in its operations than any other complex, multi-layered emergent phenomenon. This kind of emergence and complexity are banal and ubiquitous.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

 

[Dak]

Ein, this is all entirely outside my field obviously, but maybe some reference within this listing will provide something at least interesting if not agreeable:

Mises.org: Pioneers in Free-Market Literary Criticism

 

[Einherjar86]

Ein, this is all entirely outside my field obviously, but maybe some reference within this listing will provide something at least interesting if not agreeable:

Mises.org: Pioneers in Free-Market Literary Criticism

It sounds interesting. I wouldn't dismiss it, but based on what Cavallo writes, I'm concerned that Mendenhall is more interested in libertarianism than he is in literature.

I think the effort of the book is, in fact, laudable and admirable. It's definitely true that literature can be a means to critique the power dynamics of a society, and that it can expose latent mythologies and narratives that we tell ourselves about the lives we live. However, I'm not entirely sure what "libertarian literary criticism" has to offer that hasn't already been covered, based on what I've read.

The fact that Marxism continues, under various guises, to have a stronghold in academic literary and cultural studies even though it has been largely discredited as economic theory and practice leads me to suspect that many mainstream academicians are blind to its inherent totalitarian apologetics and are unaware of a viable alternative approach.

I would disagree. It is the case that adamant Marxists exist today in academia, and that many of them maintain economic policies that are likely applicably invalid (my wife has opined as much when we discuss this); but the majority of Marxists in the Humanities aren't Marxists in an applicable, economic sense (to the best of my knowledge and experience). In fact, no one in my graduate year in the English program self-identifies as a Marxist; we merely acknowledge that Marx made significant headway in formulating a method of cultural critique that is amenable to textual analysis in general.

Marx provided the critical model of ideology par excellence; and literary critics admire his approach because they too are interested in illuminating a level of operation taking place "beneath" (so to speak) the surface - akin to illuminating the "meaning" of a text. But a scholar can present a Marxist analysis of a text and not consider herself to be a "Marxist."

Nonetheless, as Mendenhall points out, “even the latest anthologies of literary theory and criticism have sections devoted principally if not exclusively to Marxism, but nothing at all to capitalism, an assumed evil.”

Again, I think this is because there exists no formulaic model of capitalism as a method of critique. We can identify values of Austrian economics at work in certain literary texts, but the method of textual criticism itself mirrors Marx's approach to politics and economics.

Austrian economics certainly has a very important critique of power and politics that it can offer; but unfortunately, I'm not sure it has anything original to say. For instace:

In “A Tale of the Rise of Law: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain,” Mendenhall draws from John Austin’s propositions on jurisprudence and Murray Rothbard’s theory of state formation to argue that Geoffrey’s history of kingship in Britain makes use of customary law and myth in order to “legitimize the official narrative of nationhood,” thus championing a centralized state in a period of conflict over law and monarchical government.

This, for example, is very old news. I can see how the libertarian methodology (if we're calling it that) could provide an intense critique of kingship or the central state (obviously); but these things have been criticized, and by people that do not qualify as Marxists. I do realize that Marxism is prevalent in the academy today, but lots of literary critics simply consider themselves historicists, and this is definitely the case with early modernists and those interested in English succession and kingship. I took a seminar my first year on succession crises and political means of legitimizing kingship, and we did the same thing in class: looked at various cultural texts and identified how they serve as apologies for state rule (often, simply, the central apparatus that happens to be in control at that time).

The chapter on “Liberty and Shakespeare,” while reflecting on the increasing inclusion of Shakespeare and other literary texts in law school curricula, also outlines the limitations of previous critics who — often without a background in law, legal history, or the common-law tradition — sought to document and interpret the Bard’s use of legal concepts in his literary opus.

I don't see the problem with this; a critic doesn't need a vast knowledge of law in order to take notice of certain concepts or institutions at work in various works of literature throughout history. The workings of law aren't really at issue, but rather what can be gleaned about a certain cultural milieu based upon the legal apparatuses in place. Furthermore, Elaine Scarry, a literary scholar at Harvard, doesn't have a degree in law but has proven her knowledge of legal documents throughout her work. Sometimes a degree isn't entirely necessary if academics prove their familiarity with a topic in their work.

Ultimately, I think that lots of literary scholars are equally as critical of Marxism as they are influenced by it. The overall sympathetic treatment that Marxism gets derives less from a "blindness" to its totalitarian history and more from an attraction to its formal methodology.

I do, however, really like that the author took into account the confusion over the term "capitalism." That's something that lots of literary critics don't bother to take into consideration but that remains important for having serious discussions about politics and cultural critique. "Capitalism" has, more or less, become synonymous with the global, multinational, politico-corporate form that the world economy has evolved into.

It was an interesting piece though, and I appreciate the fair treatment of the text (as fair as possible, anyway).

 

[Dak]

Actually, Marx was accused of plagiarizing Bastiat (a charge that he denied). In truth, Marx knows that value doesn't magically derive and subsist on its own; he's also aware of value's origins in needs/wants, which is why he comes up with the concept of exchange value (something Smith and Ricardo didn't have). However, in order to exchange something, there needs to be a form; the commodity-form, or value-form, which isn't conceptual via individual needs since all needs are different. The commodity-as-value-form derives from labor (as it appears under capitalism).

It would appear the argument for that is based on the following passage:

If then we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labor

Marx gets away with making such a ridiculous statement by insisting that we abstract, and then ignore everything else. Commodities do not have only one thing in common, but for the sake of argument if they did have labor only in common, labor does not have itself in common - but Marx insists that we do not acknowledge this:

Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labor in the abstract

This is a patently stupid assertion. One has merely to acknowledge that people do consider quality to understand this.

It is a glaringly weak piece of the foundation, above and beyond the prior passage, where commodities, or value forms thereof are called the "cell". Likening an economy to bodies and organs etc has enough inherent issues without seizing upon something that might rather be understood as a mineral or calorie or something instead as a cell.

I think Marx's primary value cool comes from his identification of the commodity-as-value-form. In order for commodities to be equalizable through currency (i.e. money), they need to possess a ubiquitous marketable value (i.e. the seller sells all copies of a product at the same price; not according to how badly a consumer needs/wants the product). It is true that different people may be willing to exchange different things (or amounts) for a specific commodity; but the commodity-as-value-form still gets tagged with a universal market price, and this price appears in the form of socially necessary labor.

But there isn't a "universal market price". Even for the identical item from a single source, it reaches various customers at differing levels and locations in the economy at different prices. It may even exit the source to begin with at different price levels based on volume, etc.

The key word in the excerpt you just quoted is "form." Marx is interested in the commodity form as the value form of labor; or, in other words (as you already noted in your post above), in how value readily appears.

This doesn't mean that labor is necessarily the entire source of value; in fact, Marx acknowledges that it isn't (hence why he introduces the concept of exchange value). However, labor presents the form through which value appears. This form has a measurable retroactive effect on how we value commodities.

Labor doesn't create value necessarily though. Labor is necessary for commodities to exist, literally, in no abstract form. But commodities do not necessarily have to have any value whatsoever, no matter the manner or amount of labor that goes into it. This is a crucial distinction which as of yet has not been made, and the setup does not portend any such eventual moment, as it would quite unravel things.

 

[Einherjar86]

Marx gets away with making such a ridiculous statement by insisting that we abstract, and then ignore everything else. Commodities do not have only one thing in common, but for the sake of argument if they did have labor only in common, labor does not have itself in common - but Marx insists that we do not acknowledge this:

Labor appears to have itself in common; that's the whole gist behind alienation.

This is a patently stupid assertion. One has merely to acknowledge that people do consider quality to understand this.

It is a glaringly weak piece of the foundation, above and beyond the prior passage, where commodities, or value forms thereof are called the "cell". Likening an economy to bodies and organs etc has enough inherent issues without seizing upon something that might rather be understood as a mineral or calorie or something instead as a cell.

I have no objection to the critique of the metaphor; organicist metaphors often fail to do justice to the actual object of inquiry.

But there isn't a "universal market price". Even for the identical item from a single source, it reaches various customers at differing levels and locations in the economy at different prices. It may even exit the source to begin with at different price levels based on volume, etc.

There does exist, to a (significant) degree, some kind of universal market price. Someone looks in Home Depot for a floor fan and finds all copies of one particular version priced the same - you won't find one copy priced a certain way, and then an identical version next to it priced lower. Furthermore, employees won't haggle if buyers don't feel the price corresponds to their needs.

Now, those buyers might go elsewhere; say, to Amazon. Amazon might sell the product cheaper, but they also sell all their new versions at the same price. What emerges between separate industrialized sellers is an abstract standard that reflects not just the demand for the product, but also the labor and materials that went into it.

Labor doesn't create value necessarily though. Labor is necessary for commodities to exist, literally, in no abstract form. But commodities do not necessarily have to have any value whatsoever, no matter the manner or amount of labor that goes into it. This is a crucial distinction which as of yet has not been made, and the setup does not portend any such eventual moment, as it would quite unravel things.

Labor does create value because even if no one wants the product, those who contributed their time and effort will value that time and effort, and thus will place value on the object made (even if they have no use for it).

 

[Dak]

Labor appears to have itself in common; that's the whole gist behind alienation.

To who? In what cases? Certainly with some field, labor could be construed as similar (although, again, this ignores skill level, industriousness, etc), but the difference in laboring at open heart surgery vs pushing a button on an assembly line are pretty significant even without making a significant qualitative analysis.

There does exist, to a (significant) degree, some kind of universal market price. Someone looks in Home Depot for a floor fan and finds all copies of one particular version priced the same - you won't find one copy priced a certain way, and then an identical version next to it priced lower. Furthermore, employees won't haggle if buyers don't feel the price corresponds to their needs.

Now, those buyers might go elsewhere; say, to Amazon. Amazon might sell the product cheaper, but they also sell all their new versions at the same price. What emerges between separate industrialized sellers is an abstract standard that reflects not just the demand for the product, but also the labor and materials that went into it.


Labor does create value because even if no one wants the product, those who contributed their time and effort will value that time and effort, and thus will place value on the object made (even if they have no use for it).

These kind of go together. Value is in the eye of the beholder (to include the laborer), but that doesn't create any exchange value (I should have been specific). For a particular (continuing with fans) make/model fan, there will be a constrained range of prices, based on inputs which include demand and market saturation as well as components and labor - labor which includes everything from cleaning the warehouse or factory, to servicing the fleets of trucks that carry the goods, to the cashier, and so on, as well as things like the marginal utility and opportunity costs of stocking x number of fans. The price itself does not approximate anything approaching something like a valueform, or objective valuation of the individual fan, in terms of either exchange or use value. What is the labor value of opportunity cost? What is the labor cost of the concept of marginal utility?


Doing some side reading on value form, apparently Marx does argue at some point I have yet to reach, that values cannot be directly observed, and manifest only as exchange value. This might appear good at first, but I still find it problematic. While I might buy a fan at 29.99, another fan I might not buy at all (and I may have bought the first at a higher price point). Conversely, some commodities only begin to be valued when more are available (for a crude example, a square inch of fabric).

Marx's understanding is severally hampered by no inclusion of marginal utility or opportunity cost, but in his defense these concepts were in their infancy,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalism

Although the doctrines of marginalism and the Marginal Revolution are often interpreted as a response to Marxist economics,[42] the first volume of Das Kapital was not published until July 1867, after the works of Jevons, Menger, and Walras were written or well under way.[citation needed] Hayek and Bartley speculate that Marx may have come across the works of one or more of these figures, and that his inability to formulate a viable critique may account for his failure to complete Kapital.[43]

and Bastiat may have been the first to really focus on opportunity cost (without calling it that), but Marx is dismissive on the outset of Bastiat as practicing "vulgar" economics, without actually taking anything in particular to task (and I believe because he couldn't).

Edit:

If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value

No True Labour!

 

[Einherjar86]

To who? In what cases? Certainly with some field, labor could be construed as similar (although, again, this ignores skill level, industriousness, etc), but the difference in laboring at open heart surgery vs pushing a button on an assembly line are pretty significant even without making a significant qualitative analysis.

Open heart surgery doesn't qualify here because there's no commodity, or "social hieroglyph," involved (and doctors aren't really the community of unskilled labor that Marx is targeting).

Marx is looking at mass production - so, assembly lines, as you say, but also mine workers, factory workers, etc.; vast quantities of labor power. The workers have no immediate means to access the commodity as it appears in finalized form. A worker might press a button on an assembly line, but that contribution offers no means to connect, labor-wise, with the final product. Alienation derives from the compartmentalization of labor into units that essentially homogenize labor.

These kind of go together. Value is in the eye of the beholder (to include the laborer), but that doesn't create any exchange value (I should have been specific). For a particular (continuing with fans) make/model fan, there will be a constrained range of prices, based on inputs which include demand and market saturation as well as components and labor - labor which includes everything from cleaning the warehouse or factory, to servicing the fleets of trucks that carry the goods, to the cashier, and so on, as well as things like the marginal utility and opportunity costs of stocking x number of fans. The price itself does not approximate anything approaching something like a valueform, or objective valuation of the individual fan, in terms of either exchange or use value. What is the labor value of opportunity cost? What is the labor cost of the concept of marginal utility?

I know there's a huge debate between LToV and marginal utility. I still, despite this argument, don't think that LToV is being properly understood in this context. Let me quote what I think is a clear and helpful explanation:

The LTV is not a timeless "law" but rather an effect of the capitalist economy itself: its validity is thus contingent on certain capitalistic conditions already existing. First, there must be a reasonable amount of competition in the production of commodities. Second, one must be operating in a sector where the margin/volume tradeoff is skewed in favor of volume, if adequate production capacity is possessed (in late capitalism this is usually the case). Third, one must have a labor force consisting of "free" labor, i.e. labor not under formal bondage (slavery).

Under these conditions, any rational capitalist will use his costs of production when calculating the feasibility of starting an enterprise - not what consumers are willing to pay for the products. The reason for this is, in a competitive economy, any "non-exploitative" surplus that our capitalist could gain from the disparity between his costs of production and what consumers are willing to pay will rapidly shrink down to nothing as competing firms enter the market and undercut current prices, compensating for the reduced profit margin by cutting into our original capitalist's market shares and/or expanding the field of effective demand for the good.

In this situation, our capitalist is faced with two choices as to the maintenance of profitability: continue to rely on the downward-trending "producer surplus" over which he has no control, or rely on the disparity between the maintenance cost of his labor force and the final "equilibrium" price of the things produced by said labor force, a disparity which the capitalist can control, to an extent, and is not "objectively" skewed in either direction. Again, if the capitalist is rational, he will choose the latter option, which is the classical Marxist definition of exploitation.

Doing some side reading on value form, apparently Marx does argue at some point I have yet to reach, that values cannot be directly observed, and manifest only as exchange value. This might appear good at first, but I still find it problematic. While I might buy a fan at 29.99, another fan I might not buy at all (and I may have bought the first at a higher price point).

Could you please explain how this example counters Marx's argument?

Marx's understanding is severally hampered by no inclusion of marginal utility or opportunity cost, but in his defense these concepts were in their infancy,

and Bastiat may have been the first to really focus on opportunity cost (without calling it that), but Marx is dismissive on the outset of Bastiat as practicing "vulgar" economics, without actually taking anything in particular to task (and I believe because he couldn't).

According to Marx, Bastiat also never took anything particular to task, when it came to value: "However, in fact Bastiat gives absolutely no analysis of value. He only dilates upon empty notions as consoling proof that "the world abounds in great and excellent daily services."

No True Labour!

There's no argument in that statement (that you quoted). It's nothing but a blanket assertion meant to be taken as true: "If the thing is useless, the labor put into it is useless." Why should we accept this as accurate?

 

[Dak]

Open heart surgery doesn't qualify here because there's no commodity, or "social hieroglyph," involved (and doctors aren't really the community of unskilled labor that Marx is targeting).

Marx is looking at mass production - so, assembly lines, as you say, but also mine workers, factory workers, etc.; vast quantities of labor power. The workers have no immediate means to access the commodity as it appears in finalized form. A worker might press a button on an assembly line, but that contribution offers no means to connect, labor-wise, with the final product. Alienation derives from the compartmentalization of labor into units that essentially homogenize labor.

Well it should become obvious to economically inclined readers that Marx has shrank his proverbial window down to such limits that one is simply not allowed to list the litany of the real world objections:

Differences in skill? There is no difference if we pretend there isn't.
Differences in goods? There is no difference if we pretend there isn't.
What about labour on goods with no use value (I don't think there is such a thing, but for the sake of the argument):It doesn't exist!
What about services? Ignore those.

And so on.

I know there's a huge debate between LToV and marginal utility. I still, despite this argument, don't think that LToV is being properly understood in this context. Let me quote what I think is a clear and helpful explanation:

The LTV is not a timeless "law" but rather an effect of the capitalist economy itself: its validity is thus contingent on certain capitalistic conditions already existing. First, there must be a reasonable amount of competition in the production of commodities. Second, one must be operating in a sector where the margin/volume tradeoff is skewed in favor of volume, if adequate production capacity is possessed (in late capitalism this is usually the case). Third, one must have a labor force consisting of "free" labor, i.e. labor not under formal bondage (slavery).

Under these conditions, any rational capitalist will use his costs of production when calculating the feasibility of starting an enterprise - not what consumers are willing to pay for the products. The reason for this is, in a competitive economy, any "non-exploitative" surplus that our capitalist could gain from the disparity between his costs of production and what consumers are willing to pay will rapidly shrink down to nothing as competing firms enter the market and undercut current prices, compensating for the reduced profit margin by cutting into our original capitalist's market shares and/or expanding the field of effective demand for the good.

In this situation, our capitalist is faced with two choices as to the maintenance of profitability: continue to rely on the downward-trending "producer surplus" over which he has no control, or rely on the disparity between the maintenance cost of his labor force and the final "equilibrium" price of the things produced by said labor force, a disparity which the capitalist can control, to an extent, and is not "objectively" skewed in either direction. Again, if the capitalist is rational, he will choose the latter option, which is the classical Marxist definition of exploitation.

Some problems with that explanation: First, rational is defined for us as exploitation. So any number of counter examples would be handwaved as someone being irrational. "Marxism says the following is rational, therefore it is".

Entrepreneurs do consider labor costs, or "use his cost of production" (which takes into account more than payroll, but this is left out). But they also must consider both what can be charged for the product at least in the short term, as well as how big the potential market is. That last part is completely left out, while the idea that income must beat expense is entirely glossed over. A tl;dr version would read "the LTV states that a rational capitalist only focuses on Payroll."

Could you please explain how this example counters Marx's argument?

Well I was going to go into the direction of personal value, but looking at Marx's argument going forward, it is obvious he doesn't care about personal valuations, or much about people at all. As his argument focuses on the exchange value of commodities as the realized form of abstracted labor, I will try to work within the extremely constrained arena he attempted to construct.

Let us say we have 2 coats. Both are new (as in previously unowned). Both have the exact same amount of labor in creation. However, one is left over on the rack from last year, and the other one is a fresh arrival. The one left over from last year has required a total amount of human labour of a greater quantity than the new one, as it has required general retail maintenance for a year. Yet when we examine the price, the old, more labour laden coat is now half the price of the new, less labour laden coat. 1 new, more laboured coat is now worth 10 yards of linen rather than the 20 it was worth with less labour, while the new coat less laboured coat is worth 20. This direct totality of value embodiment between labor and commodities Marx argues for is simply not there.

Only within the very tiny, murky, and historical window Marx wishes us to look through, does exchange value begin to appear to approximate labor directly.

According to Marx, Bastiat also never took anything particular to task, when it came to value: "However, in fact Bastiat gives absolutely no analysis of value. He only dilates upon empty notions as consoling proof that "the world abounds in great and excellent daily services."

According to what I've read so far, and what I can google, Marx is content to treat Bastiat as a strawman for ad hominem attacks. I don't know when that quote was written, but I'm wondering if that attack was based on this:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basHar5.html#Chapter 5

I therefore say: Value is the relationship existing between two services that have been exchanged.

Of course, there is a whole chapter (at least) spent on this, so hardly "absolutely no analysis", rather Bastiat more fully illumines value in a fraction of the time.

Further along:

Value, far from having any necessary relation to the labor performed by the person rendering the service, is more likely to be proportionate, we may say, to the amount of labor spared the person receiving the service; and this is the law of values.

This is certainly not a complete picture, but certainly closer than the one LToV paints. What, of course, is left off in the dialogue that follows is why would any given person have an original want for diamonds, why labor for them? Of course, Marx isn't anywhere near being able to answer that question, while Bastiat does not care why someone might want diamonds or daisies. Psychology suggests in many cases we might not even know why ourselves, so it is wise for economists to steer clear of this.

There's no argument in that statement (that you quoted). It's nothing but a blanket assertion meant to be taken as true: "If the thing is useless, the labor put into it is useless." Why should we accept this as accurate?

That is an argument then, or part of one. It certainly isn't accurate. Let us say something is made that is useless (this is impossible in either use or exchange terms, but let us suppose). The labour is worse than "useless" (understood as essentially non-existent). It is destructive. Labor and commodities have gone in the one side, and simply disappeared. Of course, something doesn't have to be entirely useless for this destruction to occur. Things merely have to be unwanted/unneeded, regardless of any inherent usefulness or the exchange value of the input labor/commodities.

Interestingly, Marx does take pains to stress the social relation of commodities - without (so far) addressing the counterfactual relations. Again, opportunity cost. Buying a coat doesn't simply cost $20, it costs each and every other option I had with $20. Going to the park doesn't cost only an hour of my time, but every other option available to spend time in some other manner.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well it should become obvious to economically inclined readers that Marx has shrank his proverbial window down to such limits that one is simply not allowed to list the litany of the real world objections:

Differences in skill? There is no difference if we pretend there isn't.
Differences in goods? There is no difference if we pretend there isn't.
What about labour on goods with no use value (I don't think there is such a thing, but for the sake of the argument):It doesn't exist!
What about services? Ignore those.

And so on.

Well, the decision isn't made arbitrarily. Marx is identifying a historical shift. Doctors operating on bodies, or diagnosing bodily ailments, is a tradition that precedes capitalism. He's interested in huge quantities of labor because that is the phenomenon as it emerges in late-18th/19th-century Europe.

Some problems with that explanation: First, rational is defined for us as exploitation. So any number of counter examples would be handwaved as someone being irrational. "Marxism says the following is rational, therefore it is".

Entrepreneurs do consider labor costs, or "use his cost of production" (which takes into account more than payroll, but this is left out). But they also must consider both what can be charged for the product at least in the short term, as well as how big the potential market is. That last part is completely left out, while the idea that income must beat expense is entirely glossed over. A tl;dr version would read "the LTV states that a rational capitalist only focuses on Payroll."

"What can be charged" is surplus value; it must go above and beyond the cost it took to produce the commodity. So, for Marxism, the very notion of subjective value (i.e. what people will pay for something) is bound to the problem of exploitation, because it allows the employer to rationalize charging beyond what it cost to make the item.

If you believe axiomatically that people should work for their possessions, then it makes sense to believe wholeheartedly in free-market economics. If you believe that cornering a niche in the market and charging people extra for it is parasitic, then it makes sense to believe wholeheartedly in Marxist critiques of economic behavior.

I personally believe in the Marxist critique of economics. I just don't think Marxism has a viable solution to what it identifies as a problem. Furthermore, I was interested in demonstrating (yet again) that LToV is not some kind of metaphysical absolute. It is a historical condition.

Let us say we have 2 coats. Both are new (as in previously unowned). Both have the exact same amount of labor in creation. However, one is left over on the rack from last year, and the other one is a fresh arrival. The one left over from last year has required a total amount of human labour of a greater quantity than the new one, as it has required general retail maintenance for a year. Yet when we examine the price, the old, more labour laden coat is now half the price of the new, less labour laden coat. 1 new, more laboured coat is now worth 10 yards of linen rather than the 20 it was worth with less labour, while the new coat less laboured coat is worth 20. This direct totality of value embodiment between labor and commodities Marx argues for is simply not there.

So now you're saying that price equals value? But as we've said earlier (I thought), price doesn't equal value. We can only use price as a signifier of value if we take into consideration products entirely on the same level. I'm not arbitrarily disregarding time left sitting on a coat rack; I'm saying that once we take cultural exposure into consideration it doesn't make sense to equate price with value. Marx might very well say that the price difference in this case is merely another example of exploitation, since the employer is still bagging surplus costs despite the dwindling amount paid to the laborer. Theoretically, in this case, if the coat sits that long on the rack, the laborer should receive the amount promised for the coat while the employer sacrifices his surplus value since (obviously) he/she misjudged what could be charged beyond the cost of production.

Have to take on the rest later, leaving work now.

EDIT:

Only within the very tiny, murky, and historical window Marx wishes us to look through, does exchange value begin to appear to approximate labor directly.

Given the process of industrial and technological development, I'd say it's a very substantial window.

According to what I've read so far, and what I can google, Marx is content to treat Bastiat as a strawman for ad hominem attacks. I don't know when that quote was written, but I'm wondering if that attack was based on this:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basHar5.html#Chapter 5

Of course, there is a whole chapter (at least) spent on this, so hardly "absolutely no analysis", rather Bastiat more fully illumines value in a fraction of the time.

I agree that Marx is dismissive of Bastiat; but I don't think it's because he isn't familiar with Bastiat's work. Just glancing at his short essay "Bastiat and Carey" shows that he's read the former; but I believe he finds Bastiat tedious. Depending on where one's values lie, I don't see how either could stand the other for very long.

This is certainly not a complete picture, but certainly closer than the one LToV paints. What, of course, is left off in the dialogue that follows is why would any given person have an original want for diamonds, why labor for them? Of course, Marx isn't anywhere near being able to answer that question, while Bastiat does not care why someone might want diamonds or daisies. Psychology suggests in many cases we might not even know why ourselves, so it is wise for economists to steer clear of this.

Marx isn't concerned with why people want anything either. The concern is how people represent "want" to themselves. The commodity (e.g. "diamonds") is a social hieroglyphic that reorganizes relations between people, who can "want" diamonds for any reason. But this reason is partially conditioned by the hieroglyphic itself, meaning it contributes to how people "want" it.

Diamonds are a good example.

Q: Why are diamonds expensive?
A: Because people want diamonds.
Q: Why do people want diamonds?
A: Because they're expensive.

Diamonds are actually an extreme example, but the same logic works internally with any commodity. Obviously someone wants a coat to keep warm; but someone wants a Neiman Marcus coat because it's a Neiman Marcus. The point here isn't to qualify why people want something; it's to demonstrate that the logic of "want" can be orchestrated or perpetuated in large part by a producer, rather than totally by the practical use-value of a commodity.

That is an argument then, or part of one. It certainly isn't accurate. Let us say something is made that is useless (this is impossible in either use or exchange terms, but let us suppose). The labour is worse than "useless" (understood as essentially non-existent). It is destructive. Labor and commodities have gone in the one side, and simply disappeared. Of course, something doesn't have to be entirely useless for this destruction to occur. Things merely have to be unwanted/unneeded, regardless of any inherent usefulness or the exchange value of the input labor/commodities.

How is labor destroyed? I doubt the laborer feels as though her labor was destroyed.

Interestingly, Marx does take pains to stress the social relation of commodities - without (so far) addressing the counterfactual relations. Again, opportunity cost. Buying a coat doesn't simply cost $20, it costs each and every other option I had with $20. Going to the park doesn't cost only an hour of my time, but every other option available to spend time in some other manner.

I'm uncertain how this relates to everything else.

 

[Dak]

Well, the decision isn't made arbitrarily. Marx is identifying a historical shift. Doctors operating on bodies, or diagnosing bodily ailments, is a tradition that precedes capitalism. He's interested in huge quantities of labor because that is the phenomenon as it emerges in late-18th/19th-century Europe.

.....

Given the process of industrial and technological development, I'd say it's a very substantial window.

By tiny I was referring to the limitation to a specific and limited segment of the economy in a specific time, while murky was specifically the requirement of abstracting out to the point where only a vague blob labeled "labour" is visible.

While he is interested in labour and commodities, I cannot find where he makes any compelling argument for LToV; he really just submits it in the first few pages, and begins building on it.

"What can be charged" is surplus value; it must go above and beyond the cost it took to produce the commodity. So, for Marxism, the very notion of subjective value (i.e. what people will pay for something) is bound to the problem of exploitation, because it allows the employer to rationalize charging beyond what it cost to make the item.

What can be charged might also be less than cost. Then x commodity doesn't get made. To state that something like surplus value (of course referring to value in exchange terms) exists requires first that some sort of objective exchange value exists. If it is merely the cost of production, doesn't raising costs negate "surplus"? This is what "non-profits" do. But even if the "business" doesn't profit, people do. I just worked two overnights. I considered the pay more valuable than all my other available options. I don't need the money to survive, but it makes other things easier - I offered a service in exchange for promise of future services (commodities do function as service also). Therefore, I profited. Other employees, as well as the company, profited or benefited from having shelves better prepped for inventory. This is Bastiat's exchange of services.

What is the hourly value of moving heavy objects and operating power equipment. I'm sure many people get paid minimum wage for that. I get paid over minimum wage. Am I exploiting my employer by charging more for my labour than what it should cost?

If you believe axiomatically that people should work for their possessions, then it makes sense to believe wholeheartedly in free-market economics. If you believe that cornering a niche in the market and charging people extra for it is parasitic, then it makes sense to believe wholeheartedly in Marxist critiques of economic behavior.

I don't agree that people should (as in have to) work for their possessions in all cases (what about gifts?), and I do believe cornering markets in some ways is parasitic (for instance, rent seeking, special privilege in the forms of license etc). But Marxism doesn't really address the latter, while he explicitly acknowledges that people do work for possessions - or at least some do anyway.

Free market economics is not based axiomatically on "people should have to work for their possessions". It is based on the individual ownership of self. Ownership of self includes ownership of actions and products, and ownership of product includes the ability to exchange.

So now you're saying that price equals value? But as we've said earlier (I thought), price doesn't equal value. We can only use price as a signifier of value if we take into consideration products entirely on the same level. I'm not arbitrarily disregarding time left sitting on a coat rack; I'm saying that once we take cultural exposure into consideration it doesn't make sense to equate price with value. Marx might very well say that the price difference in this case is merely another example of exploitation, since the employer is still bagging surplus costs despite the dwindling amount paid to the laborer. Theoretically, in this case, if the coat sits that long on the rack, the laborer should receive the amount promised for the coat while the employer sacrifices his surplus value since (obviously) he/she misjudged what could be charged beyond the cost of production.

I'm not sure why using price is confusing. Marx specifically does this. I even use Coats and Linen in Form B. Price is exchange value, and in Moneyed-form, or "Form C", is in currency units rather than commodity.

Other than commission arrangements, I don't know of any situation where laborers receive wages only upon sales of commodities. When I go to work, I'm not hoping enough people by plywood that day or whatever. How the laborer is getting shafted in the coat scenario is beyond me, particularly in the case of the older coat. I sell my labor for x amount an hour to a retail store. The store sells most items at a profit, but in many cases it does not. Stores can sell for less than cost for three reasons:

Clearance and/or Damage (like in the coat example)
"Loss-leaders" - a markdown on a high profile item to drive traffic, hoping to recoup the losses on that item with profits on others.
"Predatory markdowns" or however they are called, where a large chain opens a new location and sets prices below area competitor prices at a loss, hoping the competition goes out of business and then prices can be raised (perhaps even higher than the competition was).

If I work for a store engaged in any of the above (and my workplace does the first two quite often enough, particularly markdowns on damaged goods), I don't have to worry about my paycheck reflecting. Hell, in the process of moving building supplies around with power equipment, things get dinged and nicked fairly often, sometimes to the point of needing to be marked down. Even if responsible, it doesn't come out of my paycheck, it comes out of the bottom line of the company.

Assuming and managing the risks of business would be asinine without the potential of profiting. You suggested that in the case of the coat markdown, the employer should assume the loss - this is exactly what happens in business as it stands. But how is it fair an employer assumes all losses but no gains? How would such a model even work?

I agree that Marx is dismissive of Bastiat; but I don't think it's because he isn't familiar with Bastiat's work. Just glancing at his short essay "Bastiat and Carey" shows that he's read the former; but I believe he finds Bastiat tedious. Depending on where one's values lie, I don't see how either could stand the other for very long.

Bastiat even apologizes for his redundancy, so to call him tedious on some things isn't unfair (When he uses reducto ad absurdum/satire constitutes his most engaging reading.) In fact, his chapter on Value might be one of the worst cases of redundancy. But yeah, Marx called Free Marketers "bag men", and I'm pretty sure Bastiat would consider Marx something worse.

Marx isn't concerned with why people want anything either. The concern is how people represent "want" to themselves. The commodity (e.g. "diamonds") is a social hieroglyphic that reorganizes relations between people, who can "want" diamonds for any reason. But this reason is partially conditioned by the hieroglyphic itself, meaning it contributes to how people "want" it.

Diamonds are a good example.

Q: Why are diamonds expensive?
A: Because people want diamonds.
Q: Why do people want diamonds?
A: Because they're expensive.

Diamonds are actually an extreme example, but the same logic works internally with any commodity. Obviously someone wants a coat to keep warm; but someone wants a Neiman Marcus coat because it's a Neiman Marcus. The point here isn't to qualify why people want something; it's to demonstrate that the logic of "want" can be orchestrated or perpetuated in large part by a producer, rather than totally by the practical use-value of a commodity.

This area is interesting, but doesn't require analysis of economics nor depend on LToV to move forward. If he had stuck with only this hundreds of millions might not have died. Minimalists are pretty harmless folks.

I certainly agree there are times where ownership becomes the "need" itself (which is what I just assumed was meant by Fetishism; as Marx opens on it, I see this might not be the case). "I want it because - I simply want to have it". Wanting a given name brand though does not necessarily reflect this. Social gains, or wanting a particular quality in construction, etc can play a roll. While any car at any given time might be capable of getting me from point A to B, I prefer to buy Hondas for the general quality. Although not necessarily intended for this illustration by Tolkien, Gollum is a good example of my conception of the Fetishization of Commodities.

How is labor destroyed? I doubt the laborer feels as though her labor was destroyed.

Lets say I build a house, and it is so poorly made that it immediately falls down. My labor was destroyed. Now this is a rather extreme and absurd example, but it is same if I labor in any other poor or unwanted way.

I'm uncertain how this relates to everything else.

This is another thing refuting a direct labor-input = value relation.


While an aside to all that, it also relates as a crazy coincidence (and I swear this kind of coincidence has happened before): Mises.org just ran an article explaining the difference between Mengerian Marginalism and the other Marginalists. They also ran another article on libertarian literary critique. A welcome change for something interesting, the site had been rather dry lately.

 

[Einherjar86]

By tiny I was referring to the limitation to a specific and limited segment of the economy in a specific time, while murky was specifically the requirement of abstracting out to the point where only a vague blob labeled "labour" is visible.

While he is interested in labour and commodities, I cannot find where he makes any compelling argument for LToV; he really just submits it in the first few pages, and begins building on it.

It's been famously said of Capital that it's one of the most convoluted texts to read but not because of Marx's ineptitude at writing. Marx pursues an argument that requires the LToV in order to make its points, but cannot substantiate LToV until it has run its course. The entire crystalline structure of how LToV comes into existence and then, retroactively, conditions economic behavior/production is impossible to lay out linearly. It looks like an assumption at the beginning because it is; but by the end it becomes apparent that it is a condition of the whole.

What can be charged might also be less than cost. Then x commodity doesn't get made.

Of course. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm simply saying that when commodity X does get made, the producer must take into consideration the cost of production. Capitalist production necessitates a quantification of value on the basis of projected labor and time. It would stupid for a producer to only consider what he can charge for a product and then set about trying to make it.

I don't agree that people should (as in have to) work for their possessions in all cases (what about gifts?), and I do believe cornering markets in some ways is parasitic (for instance, rent seeking, special privilege in the forms of license etc). But Marxism doesn't really address the latter, while he explicitly acknowledges that people do work for possessions - or at least some do anyway.

Free market economics is not based axiomatically on "people should have to work for their possessions". It is based on the individual ownership of self. Ownership of self includes ownership of actions and products, and ownership of product includes the ability to exchange.

I don't think I want to get into this again, but "ownership of self" is not a conclusion, it is not provable, and it isn't foolproof (i.e. it leads to paradox). As far as I'm concerned, ownership of self is a fantasy.

I'm not sure why using price is confusing. Marx specifically does this. I even use Coats and Linen in Form B. Price is exchange value, and in Moneyed-form, or "Form C", is in currency units rather than commodity.

But Marx doesn't equate money/price with value, nor does he equate exchange-value with value in toto.

Other than commission arrangements, I don't know of any situation where laborers receive wages only upon sales of commodities. When I go to work, I'm not hoping enough people by plywood that day or whatever. How the laborer is getting shafted in the coat scenario is beyond me, particularly in the case of the older coat. I sell my labor for x amount an hour to a retail store. The store sells most items at a profit, but in many cases it does not. Stores can sell for less than cost for three reasons:

Clearance and/or Damage (like in the coat example)
"Loss-leaders" - a markdown on a high profile item to drive traffic, hoping to recoup the losses on that item with profits on others.
"Predatory markdowns" or however they are called, where a large chain opens a new location and sets prices below area competitor prices at a loss, hoping the competition goes out of business and then prices can be raised (perhaps even higher than the competition was).

If I work for a store engaged in any of the above (and my workplace does the first two quite often enough, particularly markdowns on damaged goods), I don't have to worry about my paycheck reflecting. Hell, in the process of moving building supplies around with power equipment, things get dinged and nicked fairly often, sometimes to the point of needing to be marked down. Even if responsible, it doesn't come out of my paycheck, it comes out of the bottom line of the company.

Assuming and managing the risks of business would be asinine without the potential of profiting. You suggested that in the case of the coat markdown, the employer should assume the loss - this is exactly what happens in business as it stands. But how is it fair an employer assumes all losses but no gains? How would such a model even work?

I have no model that would work. I'm not proposing anything. I'm saying the employer naturally runs into this issue and pay must be cut somewhere. When Marx was writing, the employer did not always assume the loss; in fact, wage-cutting was more common (and still occurs today).

This area is interesting, but doesn't require analysis of economics nor depend on LToV to move forward. If he had stuck with only this hundreds of millions might not have died.

You can't blame Marx for Stalinism, just as you can't blame Nietzsche for Naziism.

It does depend on LToV if we're claiming that the price inflation is artificial, or manipulated by the producer. The base cost of diamonds, in that case, is the labor it takes to mine and refine them. Everything else is surplus, and while it might appeal to subjective desires, it builds upon a material foundation of labor.

I certainly agree there are times where ownership becomes the "need" itself (which is what I just assumed was meant by Fetishism; as Marx opens on it, I see this might not be the case). "I want it because - I simply want to have it". Wanting a given name brand though does not necessarily reflect this. Social gains, or wanting a particular quality in construction, etc can play a roll. While any car at any given time might be capable of getting me from point A to B, I prefer to buy Hondas for the general quality. Although not necessarily intended for this illustration by Tolkien, Gollum is a good example of my conception of the Fetishization of Commodities.

I agree that this is a part of it; and Gollum isn't a horrible, if not hyperbolic, example. Gollum is basically a miser, which - in Marx's definition - is a failed capitalist. Someone who gets hung up on the fetishization without no sense of how to manipulate it.

Lets say I build a house, and it is so poorly made that it immediately falls down. My labor was destroyed. Now this is a rather extreme and absurd example, but it is same if I labor in any other poor or unwanted way.

Really? The labor is gone? There's no trace of it in sweat and blood? In the memory of those who failed? In the signs of use on worn tools?

It's absurd to say that labor was destroyed. An intended purpose may render labor futile, but the labor still took place and had detectable, measurable influence on the world around it.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Talked to my father over the phone about the private prison system in the United States and how it trades on the new york stock exchange/profit-making industry. He laughed at me and told me to get off the internet. I sent him an email with a ton of references. He actually sent me a text "fml" this afternoon. My Dad is what I like to think of as the average honest hard working American. I respect the dude more than anyone I know and talking to him makes me realize how insignificant "the people" are.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

HERD TO ÜBERMENSCH

https://soundcloud.com/lostboyevsky/lostboyevsky-herd-to-ubermensch

 

[Dak]

I respect the dude more than anyone I know and talking to him makes me realize how insignificant "the people" are.

I know exactly what you mean man. People don't realize how much they are being straight ripped off/lied to/etc, and it requires no appeal to "conspiracy theories" or whatever. I finally decided that it isn't the "conspiracy" that is the greatest danger, true or not. It is the shit that is straight in your face, if you bother to actually fucking read, and comprehend it rather than have a blowhard tell you what it means and "save you the time". I would say like 90% of the time when I lead off with "I was reading the other day/week/month that...", regardless of who I am talking too, I am providing information they had no idea about. It's because out of every 10 people in class, or the breakroom, or whatever, when everyone else is playing Flappy Bird or Angry Bird or Shoot the Birds or tweeting or whatever other brainless inane shit, I'm the only one reading - and not celebrity gossip or whatever.

Relating to your post, my brother picked up a copy of the Economist in an airport newsstand otw for a home visit once, and seeing it my dad was like "wow thats adult/heavy reading" or something. My brother tells me this and we are both like "um, aren't we all supposed to be adults?". My dad has worked his ass off his whole life, played by the "rules" he was told existed growing up, and has nothing to show for it but hours of work and mountains of debt. There are the rules, and then the rules published for the masses - dependent on your subsect. You merely need to understand where you lie; playing by the wrong ruleset, or mixing and matching is a recipe for disaster. Ironically my dad gave mostly good advice growing up, he just never followed any of it himself. Back to newsources: I subscribed to the Economist for a year and just let it lapse because I thought the quality has visibly gone down even in the last year, and a lot of article comments have said as much, and the trend is older. I still pay for the NYT and Foreign Policy, but I'm close to letting NYT lapse for the same reason as letting the Economist lapse. Im willing to pay for quality, but no one else is interested in it apparently.

 

[Dak]

@Ein:

I'll refrain from any more commenting on DK then until I finish it, since pretty much any [wrong] thing he says is predicated on the LToV, so I'll give the small benefit of the doubt that Marx wows me at the end. The fact that he is happy to reference everything that supports his argument directly or by opposing with poor argument, but refuses to reference Bastiat directly smacks of fear - and for good reason.

I find it interesting he basically constantly refers to things which, if followed out logically, bring one to subjective value, but he is apparently blind to this. In fact, I could certainly argue that the nature of subjectivity asserts that even *an* LToV only verifies subjectivity. We could certainly agree on LToV being the "true" mode of value - and this would still be subjective! Of course, the actual subjective value argument asserts that we take more into account than the labor involved; in fact, the labor involved is not the highest on the list of contingent factors in valuation. If anything, contingency is the final destruction of LToV.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm all for critiquing purported truth values, but simply suggesting that what two people agree appears to be the case doesn't get us anywhere fruitful. Two people might subjectively experience the world as flat, but we know - scientifically speaking - that it isn't. This isn't to say that the subjective truth of a personal world experiences the earth as spherical; merely that an alternative frame reveals an alternative "truth."

Marx would probably agree with you that his own practice of conceptualizing value in this way is a subjective practice; despite anything you might believe, he was not an idiot. But he would also say that when you look at how entrepreneurs and producers behave in this capitalistic society, they behave as though value can be reduced back to labor power - this is how producers come up with the projected cost of production before setting out to produce a product (apologies for the redundancy). Anything beyond that, which the capitalist pockets, is surplus value - cost that can be charged in addition to what it costs to make the product, and this is certainly reliant upon the perceived subjective desires of a consumer base.

However, what Marx argues is that the process that allows an entrepreneur to charge surplus value favors him from the very beginning because he possesses the means to organize the labor required to make the product and then charge extra - in other words, he owns the means of production. The appeal to voluntarism says that employees don't have to work for their employers; they can go get a job anywhere else they please. But when this is the case everywhere, the employee's position looks basically the same everywhere she goes. The ideal of competition and capitalism is that the individual employee can build her own business if she works hard enough; but I think your dad and Jimmy's would agree that this is near-myth, a phenomenon that happens to few.

The basic contradiction at the heart of capitalism is in its very empowerment of any and all to do whatever they please with their bodies and labor. They can quit any job they don't like. While this looks great on the surface, underneath it we find that this rational behavior does in fact conceal a form of exploitation. I don't care how free any individual is to do whatever she wants with her body; when a system in place privileges and relies upon those who already own the means of production, the freedom of employees matters little. The promise of freedom is an empty one; it is freedom up to a certain point.

I have no alternative. I don't agree with a communist system. In fact, I believe that capitalism is here to stay and probably should; but I'm willing to acknowledge, and I will claim until the end, that it operates upon a fundamental exploitation of human labor.