/liberty/ - Liberty

>>93698

You would have to attack the legitimacy of the free market as a discovery mechanism. It's literally the only possible attack.

>>93698

The LTV has been heavily criticized by many different schools of economics. In the modern day. I think only the only academic support of it come from Marxists.

In any case, Bohm-Bawerk has a book just shitting on basically every economic theory of valuation out there, including the labor theory of value. So, if you want to find an honest answer to your question, I might suggest starting there.

>>93698

It's absolutely doable. I suggest you open up a copy of Wealth of Nations and just try to count the non sequiturs and unproven premises on the pages about the LTV. The theory was not even a step forward at the time. It is not outdated, it is stillborn.

So, what precisely is wrong with it? Many things.

>Labor is not homogenous

It is neither homogenous with regards to productivity (mudpies vs heart surgery), nor with regard to lifetime lost on it (one hour in a lead mine is not the same as one hour running errands in the fresh air), nor with how fulfilling it is. Yet this supposed homogeneity is the closest that proponents of the LTV have for a first principle. If there is no meaningful unit of labor, then labor cannot be used as the basis of calculation. Furthermore, by bringing up this homogenity, you acknowledge that there are principles above labor itself. If you say that labor is value because one hour of labor is one hour of lieftime lost, as Marxists sometimes do, then why not say that lifetime has inherent value? And if you do that, then we gotta ask why the lifetime lost when we play or have fun is not seen as valuable. Because it was fulfilling, or pleasurable? Then why not say that only pleasure or fulfillment have value? Just food for thought.

>Muh mudpies

That argument is usually laughed out by Marxists, but if you listen closely, you can hear their voice break as they do so. Basically, how do you handle labor that is evidently completely unproductive? Do you still pay the worker, or not, and if not, for what reason? Because the exertion is the same, and even the intention of the worker might be the same, yet he produced nothing but, say, holes in the ground. To say this was productive only because he worked is absurd. Attempts to avoid the mudpie-argument usually bring in utility through the backdoor. For example, a Marxist might say that the labor offered no utility whatsoever, therefore it is without value in this case, but then why do you make labor and not utility the measure of value?

>The whole deal with "socially necessary" labor time

Marx never defended this concept. He just said that labor time is calculated by what was "socially necessary" to produce whatever was produced. So if one worker needs an hour to assemble a chair that can ordinarily be assembled within half an hour, then that is counted as one half an hour. This kind of flies in the face of the supposed homogenity of labor, too.

These are just three objections, and I think the first two are conclusive, while the last is at least almost conclusive when it comes to Marxist economics in particular. With a theory as bad as the LTV (which, so I heard, was originally influenced by Calvinist doctrine), you only have to make your pick.

>>93951

>was originally influenced by Calvinist doctrine

Suddenly things fall into place

>>93951

>ancap flag

>how do you handle labor which is unproductive, but which the free market thinks is AWESOME??!? ("reee" optional)

Really?

>>93963

>how do you handle labor which is unproductive, but which the free market thinks is AWESOME??!? ("reee" optional)

Look, if you're trying to make a witty comment, make one that I can understand on a first read. It's not the sentence itself, but that I was at a loss as to what exactly you were trying to criticize. I shouldn't have to think that hard just so I can feel insulted.

>how do you handle labor which is unproductive, but which the free market thinks is AWESOME??!?

What are you playing at? The desk jobs that offer no gain in productivity? These don't really exist on a free market, unless it's demanded by regulation. Sure, there's always good old nepotism, or just incompetence, but neither tendency is exacerbated by the free market. If you insist on hiring your nephew to doublecheck the spelling on some standard form every five minutes, then that is consumption, not production, and you suffer the loss for it. If you just don't realize that this kind of job is not very productive, then you likewise suffer a loss in the form of opportunity costs. The people who complain about unnecessary jobs are usually those that have no idea how companies function.

Or maybe you are hinting at companies producing stuff that you don't like, and hence you regard the labor going into it as unproductive. That is not an economic problem, however, but an ethical one. I don't like porn, but I criticize it for ethical reasons. It is without value in an ethical sense, but in an economic sense, value is subjective, and while I may say it has negative value for me, it has value for many others. That's a quirk of the language, really. Ethics and economics use two completely different meanings of one term.

>>93983

> It's not the sentence itself, but that I was at a loss as to what exactly you were trying to criticize

1. Click the red, double-arrowed link in that post.

2. Look for the text "how do you handle labor which is unproductive" in the referenced post.

>What are you playing at? The desk jobs that offer no gain in productivity? Or maybe you are hinting at companies producing stuff that you don't like, and hence you regard the labor going into it as unproductive.

I have no idea. Assuming you're the same poster, YOU'RE the one that typed "how do you handle labor which is unproductive." It's up to you to figure out what exactly you were referencing with that.

Marxist LTV ONLY addresses goods and services which have attained market clearance. I don't give a shit how or why it attained market clearance. I don't care if it is "wise" in my estimate that someone bought it. It is not my goddamn business.

So, go ahead and re-read >>93951. Maybe you'll see the irony in using an ancap flag to, you know, BITCH ABOUT THE MARKET DOING THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE. Maybe you won't.

>>93825

>what is an opportunity cost

>>94068

Well, that depends. Do you view a red wine stain as something that adds value to a carpet?

>>93698

To falsify the LTV you would need to present data across industries measuring the amount of labour that is used in that industry against the output of those industries. If there is no correlation between the two the LTV has been falsified.

Spoiler: they correlate

Read Pasinetti

>>94131

Corporate net profits range wildly from 10% as an average to upwards of 50% for some pharmaceutical companies-or around 2% for Walmart and Amazon respectively for example.

How do we measure "the amount of labor" that these wildly different industries and companies use anyway? Look at the tech sector with its code monkeys literally doing jack shit for about 80% of their work day yet the employees and companies they work for are making relatively large amounts of money because of low operating costs.

>>94155

> Corporate net profits range wildly from 10% as an average to upwards of 50% for some pharmaceutical companies-or around 2% for Walmart and Amazon respectively for example.

I'm very confused what 10% and 50% profits means. Either way, there's data for pharmaceuticals included here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emnYMfjYh1Q&t=1s

>>93698

you don't need to disprove something hasn't been proven.

>>94197

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emnYMfjYh1Q&t=1s

Proven!

>>94199

>communist proves communist theory is right

>>94201

So you'd want someone who knows that communist theory is correct but is somehow braindamaged enough to not be a communist?

Do you also need proof of evolutionary theory from a creationist?

>>94201

>advocated by Ibn Khaldun, Socrates, Ricardo, and Schumpeter

>Communist theory

you really are a tard. Kill yourself please.

>>94199

It wasn't proof last time or the time before that either.

>>94219

What?

>>94221

You're not the first one to post the video, boyo.

>>94222

Well then what is the critique of it? Where did he go wrong in his method to produce such spectacular numbers?

>>94224

Perhaps you are mistaking the terrain. These idiots will frequently say "it was disproven" or "there are lots of arguments." They will not, however, make a single one.

It's their modus operandi, and basically, a spam campaign to make sure this STAYS a shit board.

>>94222

Not necessarily that video.

>>94224

If the prices are fixed, they have nothing to do with the values and abilities of those forbidden to work.

While we're at it, the mention of Occam's Razor is even dumber. Allegedly supply and demand are wrong because they're more assumptions than labour alone. But what wrong with labour and with a hypothetical theory that considers supply and demand as axioms is that the assumptions are impermissible and not at all justified as fundamental knowledge.

>>94131

So by this test, diseconomies of scale disproves LTV because

the marginal rate of output decreases with and increase in marginal labor.

>>94199

Correlation of an input does not make it a determinant of output. The labor market is tied to labor supply and employment availability as well as demand by both employer and employee. Supply and demand is what determines how/where to allocate resources and effectively how much labor is required in production, and these two factors determine output.

>>93698

Yes, the LTV is falsifiable, unlike the subjective value theory.

Here are some of the claims made by it:

There is a tendency for the rate of profit to fall over time.

There is a constant requirement for technological advancement.

There is a tendency of the organic composition of capital to increase.

>>94396

SVT is falsifiable both empirically and logically.

>>94396

>There is a constant requirement for technological advancement.

it is not true because in the 1st world people are returning to more primitive horticulture because they want it to be "eco friendly"

>>94197

/thread

>>94618

Give me some examples that the STV can be falsified then.

>>94690

How does this discredit what I mentioned? Putting ecological barriers on what is used in industry doesn't falsify my statement.

>>93951

>Labor is not homogenous

"Productive activity, if we leave out of sight its special form, viz., the useful character of the labour, is nothing but the expenditure of human labour power. Tailoring and weaving, though qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are but two different modes of expending human labour power."

-Capital Volume 1, pages 31, 32

>why not say that lifetime has inherent value?

Because lifetime alone can't be exchanged at the market.

>how do you handle labor that is evidently completely unproductive?

The products of unproductive labour can't be exchanged at the market.

>Do you still pay the worker

If you hire someone to produce something and the labour is then deemed unproductive in the market, has nothing to do with whether the worker is paid or not.

>why do you make labor and not utility the measure of value

Because you can't compare use-values. Which is greater, the use value of bread that keeps humans from starving, or the use value of diamonds that is used in jewelry and machinery?

That a product is a use value only means that it has a utility. If a product is socially useful, the only information we can get is that it also has an exchange value.

>>94737

>use value of bread that keeps humans from starving, or the use value of diamonds that is used in jewelry and machinery?

>he still can't into marginal utility

No one is ever in the predicament of having to choose between all bread and all jewelry, so there is no paradox of value. Prices arise in connection with definite amounts of goods and not in connection with whole categories of various goods.

>>94738

Exactly and that's why you can't use utility as a metric.

>>94739

>it contradicts my central planning fantasy so it can't be real

The absolute state of tankies.

>>94738

By connecting prices with definite amounts of goods you are connecting them to productivity and labour.

How do you even quantify utility?

>>94766

>How do you even quantify utility?

You can't and you don't, that's the whole point. Utility is not an objective cardinal value; it is strictly a subjective value which may only be denoted ordinally.

>>94767

if someone wants to pay for X more than someone else then utility for him is higher, right?

>>94767

So, how do you explain prices?

>>94769

This would only make sense if everyone had the same income

>>94769

Only his marginal utility—Whether it's because he values X more or because he values the money less is anyone's guess. And you can't compare different measures of utility between different decision nodes, because, again, utility can only be defined as ordinal numbers. When making a given decision, a person will prefer x to y, y to z, and z to a. That's as specific as one can reasonably be when it comes to utility. There is no "util" unit of measurement that can give cardinal numbers to these preferences, not between different possible choices of a person, and not between people.

>>94771

What's stopping explaining prices? Prices represent the point where the the seller values the product less than the money he receives, and the buyer values the product more than the money he loses. Incidentally, this is why trade by definition is always beneficial—both buyer and seller consider themselves better off after the trade than before. Market prices are simply that point where the greatest number of buyers and sellers see trade as mutually beneficial. Their utility or preferences don't have to match for this to occur— in fact by definition, trade will only happen if they don't match.

>>94767

>I can't into cardinal utilities

Get a load of this brainlet. Even bees have cardinal utilities!

>>94772

It's enough that the two people you compare have the same income.

>>94994

>Even bees have cardinal utilities!

How many utils are experienced by twenty-four bees crafting fourty-one grams of honey? Is this more or less than the number of utils experienced when a nigger finds a basketball on the street? How much more or less?

>>94773

>the point where the the seller values the product less than the money he receives, and the buyer values the product more than the money he loses

That's not a point, it's an interval, and the price is a point on the interval.

>>94995

>>reasonable argument

>niggerniggerniggerni

Never change, /pol/

>>93990

>Assuming you're the same poster, YOU'RE the one that typed "how do you handle labor which is unproductive." It's up to you to figure out what exactly you were referencing with that.

Different guy here, but I'm pretty sure he's talking about labor which doesn't produce anything that anybody else wants. He's explicitly referencing the classic "mud pie" argument, which provides a serious problem for Marxists, as it forces them to acknowledge that labor itself is not the foundation of their concept of value, but the "social necessity" of that labor, which is just a way of trying to talk about "utility". Again, he mentions this explicitly in his post.

>Marxist LTV ONLY addresses goods and services which have attained market clearance.

That means that it can only postulate about the value of things as a function of supply and demand, rendering it subordinate to market valuation, and therefore NOT a fundamental theory of value. If a good must obtain market clearance in order for the LTV to address it, then that means that market clearance is a necessary condition for the determination of value, which according to your premise, makes market price logically prior to labor as a basis for evaluation of a good. This utterly destroys the idea of LTV being a theory of the fundamental value of goods.

You can't make market clearance a prerequisite for your theory without therefore establishing that it is more fundamental than labor.

>>94068

Who is "we"? The overall market or a given individual? If an individual; you decide how much you're willing to pay for whatever enjoyment you get from him, or how much of him you're willing to supply for a given amount. If you're talking about market valuation, then it's the aggregation throughout the market of those individual decisions, represented by the supply-demand curve.

>>94131

>correlation is causation: the post

I guess ice cream consumption causes drowning deaths.

>>94199

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emnYMfjYh1Q&t=1s

>>94224

>Well then what is the critique of it?

>entire thing rests on Logical Positivism

Well there's your problem right there: you're not actually doing economics.

>misapplies Occam's Razor to try and falsify supply and demand

And the hits keep on coming! Supply and demand aren't empirical premises; they're a priori arguments, so Occam's Razor has nothing to say about them because Occam's Razor is a heuristic, not a law, which deals strictly with empiricism. In fact, the entire premise of Falsificationism rests on the assumption that you're operating in the realm of empiricism, which as stated before, is not the case.

>Entire justification for LTV is: if labor content correlates to money value of output, then labor must cause the money value of output

>this is literally asserting that correlation = causation

Holy shit, I thought you were just misunderstanding it, but this ignoramus is actually saying it.

Oh wow! You mean bigger companies that make more money have more workers working more hours! Who would've thought!? That must mean that all those goods only have value because people had to sweat! Nevermind the fact that people would still want the same exact things if they were made by machines! According to this guy's theory, automation should cause companies to lose money because less labor means less monetary value of output! If that were true, then no company would automate, and we'd all be digging holes with our teeth.

No wonder nobody takes Marxists seriously. Well, except for other Marxists. Have fun with that.

>>94396

>Yes, the LTV is falsifiable, unlike the subjective value theory.

Subjective Value Theory isn't an empirical proposition. The Pythagorean Theorem is precisely as unfalsifiable as SVT, but it's 100% right. You can disprove them both, not by making empirical observations, but by arguing from first principles.

>There is a tendency for the rate of profit to fall over time.

>There is a constant requirement for technological advancement.

>There is a tendency of the organic composition of capital to increase.

You're forgetting that these things all come with a ceteris paribus". All a priori economic principles are ceteris paribus''. Removing that misrepresents them.

>>94737

>Tailoring and weaving, though qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are but two different modes of expending human labour power.

This amounts to an admission that it is not labor being used as the basis of valuation, but the disutility of the labor. This doesn't rescue your theory.

>Because lifetime alone can't be exchanged at the market.

>The products of unproductive labour can't be exchanged at the market.

If market exchange value is a prerequisite for labor to provide value, then that market value is logically prior to the labor value, and therefore labor cannot be the foundation for value. This is your own argument.

>Because you can't compare use-values. Which is greater, the use value of bread that keeps humans from starving, or the use value of diamonds that is used in jewelry and machinery?

>>94739

>and that's why you can't use utility as a metric.

Aaaand welcome to Subjective Value. Thanks for playing.

>>94772

>This would only make sense if everyone had the same income

Only if you're trying to assert that price = value, which it isn't. Value, being subjective, cannot be known. Price can indicate that an individual values one thing more or less than another thing, and it can indicate trends among groups, but SVT acknowledges that utility and value are both subjective, and so it isn't really meaningful to assert that they are knowable. One cannot even meaningfully express them beyond their ordinality in any given moment.

LVT rests upon the assumption that value is some objective thing, inherent to the physical world. SVT acknowledges that "value" is a verb; it's a thing people do, a preference. We can't observe what is objectively preferable between apples and oranges, because preference is in the human mind, but we can observe which ones tend to fetch a higher price.

>>94996

>That's not a point, it's an interval, and the price is a point on the interval.

You don't buy things with an interval of money; you buy them with a specific quantity of money. That's a point. You only get the interval when you aggregate the exchange decisions of multiple buyer-seller pairs. He described an individual selling price, which is a point. The interval of the market price is a statistical aggregation.

>>95030

Excuse me, how is that moving the goalposts? It's non sequitur after non sequitur with you people. Like grouping together the ideas of objective utilities with cardinality one one side and subjective with ordinality on the other, no reason given, just repetition is enough to "prove" a logical connection to your meme-AIDS brains.

>>95031

>>>the point where the the seller values the product less than the money he receives, and the buyer values the product more than the money he loses

>>That's not a point, it's an interval, and the price is a point on the interval.

>You don't buy things with an interval of money; you buy them with a specific quantity of money. That's a point.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately a shithead here or if it's functional illiteracy, there is good evidence for either hypothesis. If the (potential) seller is willing to sell at $6 or higher and the the (potential) buyer is willing to buy at $10 or lower, that's an interval from 6 to 10. Any price falling within that range is a price where both feel they benefit from a cash-for-commodity swap.

>>95036

He asked you for an objective measure of utility.

You criticized him for the use of the word nigger.

In 8ch.

>Well done, you avoided the question like a champ.

You then proceeded to ignore 90% of >>95031's post to make a superficial criticism.

Why do Marxists always come up empty-handed when you make the most basic critiques of their theories?

>>95036

>It's non sequitur after non sequitur with you people. Like grouping together the ideas of objective utilities with cardinality

>>95055

>He asked you for an objective measure of utility

And here you just did it again. Why on earth do you people believe that cardinal utilities are objective? If I were asked to draw a diagram with the four corners cardinal utility & ordinal utility & subjective utility & objective utility and to also draw an arrow meaning logical implication wherever it applies between these four concepts, I wouldn't draw a single one.

>>95059 (me)

>Why on earth do you people believe that cardinal utilities are objective?

Should have written: must be.

>>95059

Ah, I see. You're going to "refute" the arguments because we weren't using your special-snowflake definition of "cardinal utility" when addressing it, and instead of providing a concrete definition of what you actually mean you'll just keep dancing around the subject, never saying anything specific enough to be disproven. Typical lefty trash.

You can, it's called the fucking USSR.

>>95059

Ordinal utility is weaker than the cardinal.

>>94995

>>95061

You are making up shit. Cardinality doesn't imply objectivity. You are probably failing to properly remember some basic bitch econ book (and you fail because you didn't understand it when reading it).

>>95068

That's right. You can obtain ordinal information from cardinal information, but not vice versa.

>>95032

>SVT acknowledges that utility and value are both subjective

<In ancapistan, diamonds will become harder or softer depending on your feels.

>>95099

>it's another game of, "let's play musical chairs with definitions to avoid argument and ridicule our opponents"

This is why arguing with leftists is a waste of time, you need to figure out not only which dictionaries they're juggling but which one they're holding at any given moment.

>>95102

<Halp! Someone knows what words mean!

>I'll… I'll call them a "leftist!" That means I win!

The absolute state of your movement. Congrats, bro.

>>95036

>Any price falling within that range is a price where both feel they benefit from a cash-for-commodity swap.

But that's not what the other anon described. You're talking about something other than what he was mentioning. The price at which something is purchased is a point, and the economic definition that was used describes such a point. What you describe is an interval of potential prices, but not actual prices.

>>95099

><In ancapistan, diamonds will become harder or softer depending on your feels.

Hardness is an objective quality. Utility is not. To prove your theory that it is, please identify precisely how many utils the hardness of diamond provides. I maintain that you cannot, because utility is neither quantifiable nor objective. The properties that we find useful may be objective, but the utility itself is not.

If you can't tell the difference between these profoundly distinct ideas, then I recommend you ensure that your helmet is firmly secured before asking your handler for assistance with leaving the house.

>>95109

>I recommend you ensure that your helmet is firmly secured before asking your handler for assistance with leaving the house.

I commend you on managing to glimpse the 101-tier shit, but no, they are not profoundly different. Its utility, as anythings', are the properties it has.

>>95109

>What you describe is an interval of potential prices, but not actual prices.

Let me point out what the point about the point on the interval is: The desirable property of the product-money exchange is that both want it to happen, so (putting aside change in opinion and disinformation) it's a Pareto improvement compared to the exchange not happening. The actual price is not special in that regard, because it isn't unique, it is true for a price at any point on the interval. None of the points on the interval Pareto-dominates another point on it. This leads to the question how it is determined where the actual market price appears and whether there is anything special and particularly desirable about how it happens when there isn't intervention/regulation by a third party.

>>95111

>The desirable property of the product-money exchange is that both want it to happen, so (putting aside change in opinion and disinformation) it's a Pareto improvement compared to the exchange not happening

You're forgetting that there are other factors that impact the price aside from value of actual products in question by the individuals - the actual point is also largely impacted by their relationships and overall attitude towards the trade. Mood, relationships, need for money, sentimental value, expectations and views on justice - all without that misinformation that can happen with ALL these things.

>>95110

> Its utility, as anythings', are the properties it has.

This is simply false. Utility is derived from useful properties, but it is not one and the same. I repeat my challenge: please provide an objective means of computing the precise objective number of utils (units of utility) of diamond, given its hardness.

>>95111

I'll grant you that, and it's an important insight, but I'm just trying to be precise about what the guy was specifically talking about, which was the point at which the transaction occurs, not the range within which the transaction could occur. Your point does describe something worthwhile to understand and examine, but it isn't suitable as a correction for his statements. I'm not saying that the interval doesn't exist; I'm saying that his comments were confined to something more specific than that.

>>95149

>please provide an objective means of computing the precise objective number of utils (units of utility) of diamond, given its hardness.

Okay : one. Its hardness.

The "objective means" aren't - unless you want to always resolve to one, "being itself," which is the sum total of its properties. Its properties with regards to density, light interactions, auditory resonance properties, and so on, well… plausibly infinite, just need to find out new ways to ask it to come up with material properties which define it.

But given its hardness… one. Its hardness. And the utility of a matter is its properties, no more, no less; there is no magic outside of this.

>>95175

I didn't ask how hard it was. I asked how useful it was. Those are different questions. Quantify its usefulness.

Not hardness.

Usefulness.

Precisely how many more times useful is diamond than, say, tungsten carbide? Remember that I'm not asking how hard it is; I'm asking how useful it is. Give me that number.

>>95229

>Precisely how many more times useful is diamond than, say, tungsten carbide?

For what?

You're missing (or violating) a fuckton of basic 101-tier things from the sciences which were developed mostly between 1200 and 1700.

Also…

>>95229

>I didn't ask how hard it was

but…

>>95149

>given its hardness

This is going to end in tautology every single time. A matter is defined by its properties; its properties are its utility. This is old. It is also not subjective.

I'm sorry you can't do 101-tier shit. That is your problem, not other peoples'. The entirety of history, nor reality, are not going to change for your whims, however.

We can do this as long as you want. The answer is the same.

>>95259

> its properties are its utility. This is old.

You are the only person I have ever seen to define utility in this manner, including quite a few textbooks. "Utility" in economic terms has always described the satisfaction or benefits that a person derives from a certain action, service, or good.

>>95258

>For what?

That's exactly my point. My point is that trying to utility is dependent on the user and their circumstances. It's inherently subjective. My point is that the assertion of objective utility is absurd to anyone with even a rudimentary comprehension of economics.

The idea is that the question doesn't have a coherent answer.

>>95259

>A matter is defined by its properties; its properties are its utility.

No matter how many times you say it, it's still wrong. Your fallacy is argumentum ad nauseam.

>>I didn't ask how hard it was

>but…

>>>95149 (You)

>>given its hardness

And? "Given" means "We will assume this information is available". If the hardness is "given", that means I'm not asking for it. If you're presented with a math problem, and you're given X=48.2, the question isn't asking what X is. It's given. I'm "giving" you the hardness, and asking you to use that to give me back the utility. I'm not asking for you to just give me back the hardness.

>The entirety of history, nor reality, are not going to change for your whims

At no point have I said that they do. I have said that utility is subjective. Asserting that a concept is subjective does not establish that objective reality conforms to the mind; merely that the concept is not an objective aspect of reality. Your fallacy here is a strawman.

You still haven't answered my challenge. When I ask "How useful is diamond?", your answer is "hardness". That isn't coherent in any sense. Even if you were to use a number, it wouldn't answer the question:

>How useful is diamond?

>10 on the Mohs scale.

That only says how hard it is, not how useful it is. It may be very useful if I'm trying to file hardened steel, but it's not useful at all to somebody who's just trying to bake muffins or get a drink of water alone in the desert.

Utility is not synonymous with any one or more objective properties of an object. We may find those properties useful for our particular purposes, but that utility will always be defined with respect to our goals and restrictions, which can only be subjective. Because our subjective goals and preferences are necessary conditions for utility, that utility itself is therefore subjective. There's no getting around this.

So until you can tell me how many utils diamond has, you still haven't established that it can be done.

>>95292

>My point is that trying to utility is dependent on the user and their circumstances.

<properties change depending on who is doing it.

No.

>No matter how many times you say it, it's still wrong. Your fallacy is argumentum ad nauseam.

You typed these things next to each other. Ironic.

> I'm "giving" you the hardness, and asking you to use that to give me back the utility. I'm not asking for you to just give me back the hardness.

That's kind of your own problem. Here, let me help you.

"Given its hardness, what are its known properties." "Its hardness."

It's always going to be like this, this is absolutely correct, and so on. A diamond also has a specific density, refraction index, etc; these cannot be derived from the data given.

>Utility is not synonymous with any one or more objective properties of an object.

<it's magic with no physical basis! Diamonds now wash your car!

>Because our subjective goals and preferences are necessary conditions for utility

No.

A diamond does NOT lose the ability to cut steel if you are distracted by a goldfish.

>>95275

Find ONE matter not based in its physical properties.

>>95312

"Utility is (mostly) derived from physical properties" is not the same as "utility is physical properties." Please cool down your autism and take your medicine before posting again.

>>95326

> is not the same as "utility is physical properties."

However, that is the one that is true.

>>95329

Your argument rests entirely on redefining utility as "the objective properties of an object".

>A matter is defined by its properties; its properties are its utility.

This obviates the need for the term "utility" entirely. You may just as well use the word properties.

You have failed to prove there is an *immutable*, *objective* connection between the properties of an object and its usefulness to a person or society.

>>Utility is not synonymous with any one or more objective properties of an object.

><it's magic with no physical basis! Diamonds now wash your car!

>>Because our subjective goals and preferences are necessary conditions for utility

>No.

>A diamond does NOT lose the ability to cut steel if you are distracted by a goldfish.

How much more utility is derived from diamond's hardness (which allows it to cut steel) than from rubber's softness (which makes it an ideal material in wheels)?

Does the utility of diamond decrease if an easy to manufacture ceramic which can cut through steel faster than diamond is developed?

Does the utility of diamond decrease if CFRP supersedes steel as a building material?

>>95329

Show me a dictionary that says this. Show me a textbook that says this. Show me someone besides your own autistic ass that says this.

>>95312

><properties change depending on who is doing it.

>"Given its hardness, what are its known properties." "Its hardness."

><it's magic with no physical basis! Diamonds now wash your car!

>A diamond does NOT lose the ability to cut steel if you are distracted by a goldfish.

None of these are anything close to what I've said. You've done nothing but repeat your claim and misrepresent mine.

Make. Your. Fucking. Case.

Give me the Utils. Tell me quantitatively how useful diamond is. Answer that question, objectively. Give me the objective usefulness number of diamond. That's what you said you can do, but you haven't tried. Do it.

>>95333

>Your argument rests entirely on redefining utility as "the objective properties of an object".

It's not exactly "redefining." Can you find a utility which has nothing to do with the properties of an object? (pro tip : no).

'Utilization' would generally be defined as "applying the properties to achieve a goal." Properties, plus motivation. Since these geniuses are trying to find the utility of an inanimate object, which has no motivation, the properties are all that remain.

>Does the utility of diamond decrease if an easy to manufacture ceramic which can cut through steel faster than diamond is developed?

No! Its ability to cut steel is completely unchanged by this!

This is where it starts to get fun. Any change in the price of diamond from this reflects not a change in utility (there is none), but rather the deflation of currency from the (apparent) increase in wealth, which will ripple through the market. Wierder still, the components of that ceramic's utility is ALSO unchanged; no new properties are created, and because of this, the cardinal utility of everything is literally infinite (and the rightful price of everything is literally zero because of this).

Economics 101. It's kind of fun. But no, the properties of diamond are unchanged by the existence of something else.

>>95358

>Since these geniuses are trying to find the utility of an inanimate object, which has no motivation, the properties are all that remain.

>Any change in the price of diamond from this reflects not a change in utility (there is none), but rather the deflation of currency from the (apparent) increase in wealth, which will ripple through the market.

>Wierder still, the components of that ceramic's utility is ALSO unchanged; no new properties are created, and because of this, the cardinal utility of everything is literally infinite (and the rightful price of everything is literally zero because of this).

>Economics 101

I cannot fathom how I would begin to explain how wrong you are.

What you have said isn't ECON101. It's not ECON. I don't know what it is, but ECON it certainly is not.

I'd recommend that you read Atkinson and Johns' "Studying Economics" but wikipedia might be a better place to start.

>>95358

>Can you find a utility which has nothing to do with the properties of an object? (pro tip : no).

Are you catching the switch-out you're pulling here? You're hearing "is not" and replacing it with "has nothing to do with". Not being a thing and having nothing to do with a thing are not the same thing. Saddles aren't horses, but they have something to do with them. Humans aren't chimpanzees, but they're related. Ethics and morality aren't the same thing, but they're related.

By the same token, something can relate to the physical properties of an item, but not be the physical properties of an item. The beauty of the Mona Lisa isn't a physical property it has, but a subjective reaction that people have to the physical properties; that is, it's appearance. In the same way, the physical properties of an item are things that a person can find useful, because it happens to satisfy their subjective goals, but the ability to satisfy that goal isn't useful to someone who does not have that goal. A contractor may find a nail gun extremely useful, because they have a strong need to drive nails quickly, but to everyone else, driving a lot of nails very quickly doesn't help them very much; it's not a useful goal to pursue, and so the nail gun isn't as useful.

Yes, the physical properties, which are objective, are the things that people find useful, but that does not make them the usefulness itself. The subjective outlook of the user doesn't change the object itself in any way; it merely changes those standards of use by which the object is evaluated.

>>95362

I… actually figured this would come down objectively to "materialism vs woo." Thanks.

>A contractor may find a nail gun extremely useful, because they have a strong need to drive nails quickly, but to everyone else, driving a lot of nails very quickly doesn't help them very much; it's not a useful goal to pursue, and so the nail gun isn't as useful.

The ability of a nailgun to propel a nail - its utility - is NOT changed by a person's whim to use it.

The individual VALUATION of a given utility MAY change by a person's whim or position.

Changing your subjective valuations does NOT in any way, shape, or form alter the utility of an object. It remains the same, and its ability to be deployed in accordance with its properties continues whether you do so or not.

>>95334

>no response

imaginemyshock.jpg

>>95367

What you're talking about is not what utility is.

>>95367

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Principles_of_Economics/Utility

>Utility is a term used by economists to describe the measurement of "useful-ness" that a consumer obtains from any good. Utility is the want satisfying power of any commodity or capacity of a commodity to give satisfaction. Utility may measure how much one enjoys a movie, or the sense of security one gets from buying a deadbolt. The utility of any object or circumstance can be considered. Some examples include the utility from eating an apple, from living in a certain house, from voting for a specific candidate, from having a given wireless phone plan. In fact, every decision that an individual makes in their daily life can be viewed as a comparison between the utility gained from pursuing one option or another.

>>95371

…however, that use - literally, the use of its properties - is the same whether a single consumer values it or not.

Read >>95358. Properties + motivation. The motivation (which determines individual utility VALUATION) is individual. The utility of an OBJECT, however - which is seperate from its utility valuation to a single consumer in a specific situation at a specific time - is a little more, well, fixed.

If you'll look back, you'll see that all the questions were about the utility of an object itself, not the valuation of this utility by a consumer; specifically, there was no consumer present.

>>95372

>is shown the definition used by economists

>rejects it

Well I tried.

>>95373

>take this definition

>subtract the human with subjective values, leaving only the object.

>what's left?

>>95374

Oh, god, it's even better than that, anon. Even in their sloppy source (which equivocates a fuckload of things) it's there…

<"Sally, in an instant, compares the utility she would derive from both choices and selects the cereal."

<" Recalling that utility includes every element of a decision"

…etc.

If you countercherrypick, it gets even better.

<"Ability of a good or service to satisfy one or more needs or wants of a consumer."

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/economic-utility.html

While still a hybrid equivocation, it notes "a" customer, not "the" customer. It even gives the example…

<"The economic utility of our good is excellent so we are confident it will generate demand by existing in the marketplace."

Yeah. "Generate." Hard to do when you're trying for "utility, value, demand - it's all synonyms, words have no meaning."

The most extreme congruence with your use is by Professor Robinson (Cambridge), "Utility is the quality in commodities that makes individuals want to buy them." e.g., "I'm buying it for its hardness."

So, while you're right that "valuation from considering the utility" minus "person considering" is "the properties in the commodity," a better response might be

>shows them their own link

>rejects it

I tried.

>>95374

>take a definition

>subtract something from it (change it)

>what's left?

A definition for something else. So, not utility.

>>95377

>they were never asking about utility in the first place!

Okay.

>>95381

Leftists always argue semantics when they are losing arguments, whereas /pol/ resorts labelling and strawmaning.

>LVT retardation

<capitalism is when you assert that the free market is not a valid discovery tool

>>93818

are you ironic?