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> Marx considered all profit from financial investment to be economic rent, unjustly misappropriated from workers. No, Marx considered profit made from the val

by ue_ 9y ago

> Marx considered all profit from financial investment to be economic rent, unjustly misappropriated from workers. No, Marx considered profit made from the value added to commodities by labour, this profit arising from purchasing of labour-power, to be exploitation. Although you may disagree with his theory of value, as far as I know the theory of exploitation comes directly from his theory of value. As Engels put it: "Whence comes this surplus-value? It cannot come either from the buyer buying the commodities under their value, or from the seller selling them above their value. For in both cases the gains and the losses of each individual cancel each other, as each individual is in turn buyer and seller. Nor can it come from cheating, for though cheating can enrich one person at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total sum possessed by both, and therefore cannot augment the sum of the values in circulation. (...) This problem must be solved, and it must be solved in a purely economic way, excluding all cheating and the intervention of any force — the problem being: how is it possible constantly to sell dearer than one has bought, even on the hypothesis that equal values are always exchanged for equal values?" You've asserted that Marxism is demagogic quackery multiple times, without really saying why. Why do you think this is the case?

spangry 9y ago
What you've highlighted is what I've always thought Marx's primary criticism of capitalism was: that the surplus value (roughly: revenue - wages - cost of capital) from industrial production is deemed the exclusive property of the owners of capital. Following from this was the prediction that this surplus value would be used to attain additional capital which would accumulate in the hands of the capital owning class until capital entirely replaced labour in production. In the context of the industrial revolution, IMHO Marx's predictions were ultimately incorrect. It turns out that steam is not intelligent enough to run the machines, and so production still requires the employment of labour. Consequently, up until this point, capital has enhanced the productivity of labour, not displaced it. Some of this productivity gain has even been captured by labour in the form of increasing wages. I wonder if recent the advances in machine-learning will, in time, be viewed as the start of the 'next industrial revolution'? More disturbingly, I can't help but think Marx might be proven right this time around...
- wordupmaking 9y ago
  > until capital entirely replaced labour in production Automation + Robots = capital and means of production become one and the same. For one in a direct way (you own robots and those do the work, which includes maintaining and building robots), but also because robots won't blink forcing people to do whatever, breeding and brainwashing them into whatever, eventually turning non-owners into perfect robots as well. I'm not even sure that's a prediction, we're clearly on that road and the walls to the left and right are too high to easily change lanes already; we're making them higher yet. If it takes a crash to change direction there will be no vehicle left to change directions with, that's my "prediction" anyway.
- ue_ 9y ago
  >capital which would accumulate in the hands of the capital owning class until capital entirely replaced labour in production. I'm not sure if this is what Marx was getting at, at least from my point of view. Marx of all people knew that labour would always be required to work machinery, however his point was that the tendency for the rate of profit to fall was a consequence of the diminishing need to extract surplus value, as all a machine does is transfer value, unlike labour power it does not create value. To a certain degree, machinery has indeed displaced labour, though of course those employees which remain are more productive because of it, though that doesn't mean that more surplus is being extracted, at least not necessarily. I don't think Marx intended to say that all labour would be displaced, and indeed in the long run a capitalist is intelligent to know that nobody will be around to buy back the products that his machinery creates. In chapter 1 of Capital he writes: The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value. I don't think he meant to imply that the value would srink to exactly zero. And as my sibling commenter has mentioned, the machinery itself requires production, and the machinery's value, which it transfers, must be given to it by labour. Machinery alone does not eliminate the requirement for labour, as you have noted, but Marx's theory doesn't require that it does.
Jabanga 9y ago
>No, Marx considered profit made from the value added to commodities by labour, this profit arising from purchasing of labour-power, to be exploitation. That is what I was implying. I was making the point that the non-labouring beneficiary of an enterprise that makes use of labour, who contributes only a financial investment, was accused of extracting economic rent, or in his words, 'surplus value'. >You've asserted that Marxism is demagogic quackery multiple times, without really saying why. Why do you think this is the case? Because it ignores the value contributed by the capital the investor provides. If the value of labour on its own was really equal to the value of money paid to the worker + the profit earned by the employer from the work the worker did on the commodities, then a worker on their own would be able to spend an equivalent number of hours converting commodities into a product, and earning a profit equal to what they would have made selling their labour, plus the profit their employer would have earned from their labour. The use-value of the work of the investor in saving capital, and intelligently directing it, is ignored in Marx's estimations, which is why this contradiction exists in what Marx claims labour is worth, and what profit it could actually produce on its own, without the capital of the investor.
- ue_ 9y ago
  > If the value of labour on its own was really equal to the value of money paid to the worker Nobody, not even Marx, is claiming this. The employer does not actually buy labour, this is a popular misconception. He purchases the capacity to perform labour, which is measured usually in hours (though it can be measured by other metrics too). This capacity is a separate commodity, which is the only thing most workers have available to sell. This commodity is a special kind, for its use value (not exchange value) is the ability to create value, that value is transferred to the products themselves and is crystallised in them, as abstract labour. >and intelligently directing it Nobody denies that the direction itself is applying labour to the products; for if it wasn't, engineers or project managers wouldn't be applying labour. The question is why the capitalist not only receives the fruits of his own labour, but also the fruits of others' labour. Do you not think that a capitalis' labour, when applied in conjuction with the labour of the workers, equals a product which is exactly equal in value to the product if the capitalist was also extracting surplus? The fact is that surplus does not need to be extracted for the products to be made, which is the entire argument behind socialism - you don't need the capitalist for production.
Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago
It's not really quackery, but it's overly simplified and ignores the essence of the private property. It's interesting that Marx failed to fully understand the role of private property even according to his own materialistic approach to history. Can you tell from Marxist point of view, what is the purpose of private property? Why did it appear in the history? Which problem did it solve?

by ue_ 9y ago

spangry 9y ago

What you've highlighted is what I've always thought Marx's primary criticism of capitalism was: that the surplus value (roughly: revenue - wages - cost of capital) from industrial production is deemed the exclusive property of the owners of capital. Following from this was the prediction that this surplus value would be used to attain additional capital which would accumulate in the hands of the capital owning class until capital entirely replaced labour in production. In the context of the industrial revolution, IMHO Marx's predictions were ultimately incorrect. It turns out that steam is not intelligent enough to run the machines, and so production still requires the employment of labour. Consequently, up until this point, capital has enhanced the productivity of labour, not displaced it. Some of this productivity gain has even been captured by labour in the form of increasing wages. I wonder if recent the advances in machine-learning will, in time, be viewed as the start of the 'next industrial revolution'? More disturbingly, I can't help but think Marx might be proven right this time around...

wordupmaking 9y ago
> until capital entirely replaced labour in production Automation + Robots = capital and means of production become one and the same. For one in a direct way (you own robots and those do the work, which includes maintaining and building robots), but also because robots won't blink forcing people to do whatever, breeding and brainwashing them into whatever, eventually turning non-owners into perfect robots as well. I'm not even sure that's a prediction, we're clearly on that road and the walls to the left and right are too high to easily change lanes already; we're making them higher yet. If it takes a crash to change direction there will be no vehicle left to change directions with, that's my "prediction" anyway.
ue_ 9y ago
>capital which would accumulate in the hands of the capital owning class until capital entirely replaced labour in production. I'm not sure if this is what Marx was getting at, at least from my point of view. Marx of all people knew that labour would always be required to work machinery, however his point was that the tendency for the rate of profit to fall was a consequence of the diminishing need to extract surplus value, as all a machine does is transfer value, unlike labour power it does not create value. To a certain degree, machinery has indeed displaced labour, though of course those employees which remain are more productive because of it, though that doesn't mean that more surplus is being extracted, at least not necessarily. I don't think Marx intended to say that all labour would be displaced, and indeed in the long run a capitalist is intelligent to know that nobody will be around to buy back the products that his machinery creates. In chapter 1 of Capital he writes: The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value. I don't think he meant to imply that the value would srink to exactly zero. And as my sibling commenter has mentioned, the machinery itself requires production, and the machinery's value, which it transfers, must be given to it by labour. Machinery alone does not eliminate the requirement for labour, as you have noted, but Marx's theory doesn't require that it does.

Jabanga 9y ago

>No, Marx considered profit made from the value added to commodities by labour, this profit arising from purchasing of labour-power, to be exploitation. That is what I was implying. I was making the point that the non-labouring beneficiary of an enterprise that makes use of labour, who contributes only a financial investment, was accused of extracting economic rent, or in his words, 'surplus value'. >You've asserted that Marxism is demagogic quackery multiple times, without really saying why. Why do you think this is the case? Because it ignores the value contributed by the capital the investor provides. If the value of labour on its own was really equal to the value of money paid to the worker + the profit earned by the employer from the work the worker did on the commodities, then a worker on their own would be able to spend an equivalent number of hours converting commodities into a product, and earning a profit equal to what they would have made selling their labour, plus the profit their employer would have earned from their labour. The use-value of the work of the investor in saving capital, and intelligently directing it, is ignored in Marx's estimations, which is why this contradiction exists in what Marx claims labour is worth, and what profit it could actually produce on its own, without the capital of the investor.

ue_ 9y ago
> If the value of labour on its own was really equal to the value of money paid to the worker Nobody, not even Marx, is claiming this. The employer does not actually buy labour, this is a popular misconception. He purchases the capacity to perform labour, which is measured usually in hours (though it can be measured by other metrics too). This capacity is a separate commodity, which is the only thing most workers have available to sell. This commodity is a special kind, for its use value (not exchange value) is the ability to create value, that value is transferred to the products themselves and is crystallised in them, as abstract labour. >and intelligently directing it Nobody denies that the direction itself is applying labour to the products; for if it wasn't, engineers or project managers wouldn't be applying labour. The question is why the capitalist not only receives the fruits of his own labour, but also the fruits of others' labour. Do you not think that a capitalis' labour, when applied in conjuction with the labour of the workers, equals a product which is exactly equal in value to the product if the capitalist was also extracting surplus? The fact is that surplus does not need to be extracted for the products to be made, which is the entire argument behind socialism - you don't need the capitalist for production.

Mikhail_Edoshin 9y ago

It's not really quackery, but it's overly simplified and ignores the essence of the private property. It's interesting that Marx failed to fully understand the role of private property even according to his own materialistic approach to history. Can you tell from Marxist point of view, what is the purpose of private property? Why did it appear in the history? Which problem did it solve?