/liberty/ - Liberty

>>66503

Don't bother because muh dialectical method. You are not allowed to point out any contradictions he makes until the final volume, which he never finished properly, partly because he was a lazy bum, and also because he was running out of bullshit to write. You're also not allowed to speak against his definition of value as Marx thinks concepts are not a subject to proof or reasoning.

He doesn't have a "theory" of value. It's a "concept of value".

No, why would he?

>>66503

Don't try to understand Jews.

It's so easy to judge the labors of others worthless. From my perspective, it looks like Marx himself labored for nothing. Did he not count? It's not that easy.

Keep trying to understand others. You'll get there someday. Don't listen to Jews when they try to convince you that you don't need to understand your tribal others.

>>71224

>Don't listen to Jews when they try to convince you that you don't need to understand your tribal others.

Your "tribe" being who exactly?

>>66503

Marx was hopelessly confused on value. He knew exchange value, utility value, and labor value, but not how they related to each other. What you posted was one example. Another is his diatribe against Condillac, after Condillac said that exchange increases the utility for both parties. Marx denied this becauase if we apply the theory of labor value, we get a different result. Marx' theories are so absurd, they allow for voluntary exploitation that leaves everyone involved better off. Where's the exploitation, then? Depending on the time o'clock that you ask Marx, it's either in the horrid living conditions of the proletariat or in their "alienation" of the product of their value. The former was evidently solved by capitalism until now, and was always more to blame on the atomization of communities, land redistribution and Malthus' Law than on capitalism. The latter is a normative theory in disguise.

post this on /leftypol/

>>71231

Done

"Value" in the sense Marx uses it is only defined for commodities in exchange, there's no exchange if nobody want it, therefore there can't be value either.

>>71227

This is not true. Marx clearly describes how use-value, exchange-value and value are related. He criticizes Condillac for confusing exchange-value with use-value, which he does.

>>71227

Also "that exchange increases the utility for both parties" is not contradictory for Marx, it happens in social metabolism for example, but it's not necessary.

>>71249

No, it's social.

Here are your answers OP (and other posters) >>>/leftypol/2269049

Would you mind reading this response:

>>2269085

>>71257

What response?

>>71253

>Utility is only subjective when you try to measure utility

>You need to eat therefore value is intrinsic

>Video game example

So we're basically x=2^-n posts away from someone invoking SNLT and declaring victory.

>>71258

Probably >>>/leftypol/2269085

>>71250

>This is not true. Marx clearly describes how use-value, exchange-value and value are related.

Marx didn't describe anything clearly. He is the most pedantic, and one of the more confusing authors, that I've read. Several times did I catch myself backtracking to see if I'm just too stupid to understand his reasoning, or if I just missed a premise here or there. Always, it turned out that I wasn't at fault, he was simply wrong, obtuse or both. Usually both. And it's not like the subject matter is just complicated. I've started reading scholastic metaphysics and even this stuff is more accessible than Marx just talking about the weather.

>He criticizes Condillac for confusing exchange-value with use-value, which he does.

He didn't. Condillac was clearly talking about use-value in the excerpt. His thesis was that utility is increased for both parties after an exchange and he proved as much.

>>71251

>Also "that exchange increases the utility for both parties" is not contradictory for Marx

It still invalidates him. You cannot maintain that there's any exploitation going on when an exchange is voluntary and mutually beneficial, not by any meaningful definition of exploitation. And I don't regard his alienation-theory as meaningful, not when it's framed as an economic and not an ethical theory.

>it happens in social metabolism for example, but it's not necessary.

Look, there's a way to overdo the biological metaphors. You just went that way.

>>71277

That's one thing I've noticed, you lefties cannot ever make your theories accessible. Which, by the way, is where "read a book" comes from: From how you use that to end arguments, not from the fact that you recommend literature. The latter is actually a good thing, but you use it as a substitute for argumentation.

I could make a disclaimer to the effect that not all lefties are like that, but I can count the (honorable) exceptions on one hand.

>>71279

We've had no more than two leftists here as far as I can remember that argued in good faith. Still waiting for the third one.

>>71279

Leftists' answer to everything is to read a book. This will not do you much good if the books contain wrong theories, though. Most Marxist theory is at any rate written by English department Marxists, many of whom have never even read Marx like Althusser here >>71277.

There's no contradiction because subjective utility doesn't really come into the marketplace.

>>71279

http://mangafox.me/manga/das_kapital/

Is this accessible enough yet?

>>66503

A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.[2] Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.

Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways. To discover the various uses of things is the work of history.[3] So also is the establishment of socially-recognized standards of measure for the quantities of these useful objects. The diversity of these measures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be measured, partly in convention.

The utility of a thing makes it a use value.[4] But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities. When treating of use value, we always assume to be dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens of watches, yards of linen, or tons of iron. The use values of commodities furnish the material for a special study, that of the commercial knowledge of commodities.[5] Use values become a reality only by use or consumption: they also constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the form of society we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the material depositories of exchange value.

>>71325

That's a good, not a commodity. I won't try to understand what a material depository of exchange value is.

I believe that in Marxism a commodity can be "a" use value, as in, it has a use, but the idea is NOT equivalent to utility in the neoclassical sense, because we can write down things like utility functions in neoclassical economics and suggest that exchange creates utility for both parties, whereas Marxists would explicitly reject this idea and say that exchange is only possible because equivalent amounts of social labor have gone into commodity production and money transfer is just obscuring this.

>>71324

Marxists usually engage with other economists, not fringe bullshit scammers.

>>71343

Then why do you post here?

>>71337

Right, I forgot this is an Austrian board… but at any rate, the usual definition of utility is NOT the same as the Marxist conception of use-value.

>>71343

Except Marxism is a fringe economic tendency confined to a few heterodox departments, and essentially no one regards him as anything more than a historical figure, so not really. Marxism is more of an English Department thing.

>>66507

Marx wanted his work to be debated. You can't get to Communism without capitalism.

>>71718

Marx was incredibly vitriolic and quick to make a mortal enemy out of anyone willing to criticize him. He almost broke up with Engels for it, but inevitably had to apologize as he needed his money to keep sustaining his blatantly parasitic lifestyle. He did not want his work questioned as much as he wanted to escape any and all possible criticism by demanding that truth changes with time and perspective.

>>71724

>Marx was incredibly vitriolic and quick to make a mortal enemy out of anyone willing to criticize him.

This. Locke apologized profusely about having to criticize Filmer after the latter died. Leibniz didn't criticize Locke after his death, at all, out of piety. Meanwhile, Marx acted like the already dead Lassalle, an honorable man, lacked basic knowledge of economics in his Critique of the Gotha Program. That's not the behavior of someone looking for an honest discourse. He treated Lassalle with just a little less disdain than Bastiat despite the two ostensibly sharing the same sentiments about the working class.

>>71728

Marx and Lassalle shared sentiments, I mean. Obviously not Lassalle and Bastiat.