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at first i found it odd you would dismiss trotsky's intellect (a task traditionally carried out by marxists) on the basis of his economics, but now it's obvious

at first i found it odd you would dismiss trotsky's intellect (a task traditionally carried out by marxists) on the basis of his economics, but now it's obvious that "inflammatory classist conspiracy theories, hate propaganda against the properties classes, and Marxist quack economics" was just you repeating yourself three time. i thought there might be something particular about your intense reaction to trotsky's name, but your account of marx's political economy is so broken (e.g. for marx profit and surplus value are two very separate categories, and in marx's analysis employers indeed do not attain labor power below its true value) that there can't be any foundation on which you could legitimately criticize trotsky's intellectual work. this makes sense because you also just admitted to not actually knowing anything about what trotsky might have written.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
>>e.g. for marx profit and surplus value are two very separate categories, and in marx's analysis employers indeed do not attain labor power below its true value For Marx, the employer's profit was solely expropriated surplus value generated by workers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value >>Marx uses the term Mehrwert to describe the yield, profit or return on production capital invested, i.e. the amount of the increase in the value of capital. Hence, Marx's use of Mehrwert has always been translated as "surplus value", distinguishing it from "value-added". According to Marx's theory, surplus value is equal to the new value created by workers in excess of their own labor-cost, which is appropriated by the capitalist as profit when products are sold. Read his own words: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch07.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour... >>We have said: "Wages are not a share of the worker in the commodities produced by him. Wages are that part of already existing commodities with which the capitalist buys a certain amount of productive labor-power." But the capitalist must replace these wages out of the price for which he sells the product made by the worker; he must so replace it that, as a rule, there remains to him a surplus above the cost of production expended by him, that is, he must get a profit. The man also believed that automation would reduce the demand for labor, and with it, wages: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch09.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour... >>But even if we assume that all who are directly forced out of employment by machinery, as well as all of the rising generation who were waiting for a chance of employment in the same branch of industry, do actually find some new employment – are we to believe that this new employment will pay as high wages as did the one they have lost? If it did, it would be in contradiction to the laws of political economy. We have seen how modern industry always tends to the substitution of the simpler and more subordinate employments for the higher and more complex ones. How, then, could a mass of workers thrown out of one branch of industry by machinery find refuge in another branch, unless they were to be paid more poorly? and >>To sum up: the more productive capital grows, the more it extends the division of labour and the application of machinery; the more the division of labour and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. This was proven wrong in his own lifetime as factory worker wages rapidly grew in industrializing Britain. He was an economically illiterate quack promoting basic fallacies like Ludditism that are popular with laymen.
- interpenetrate 7y ago
  since you haven't got to capital vol 3 (or read any text that covers that material) you do not have the knowledge required to engage in a conversation about marx's derivation of profit from surplus value. you simply do not have a handle on these categories of political economy. there's even a keynesian here demonstrating your illiteracy in orthodox economics. if this stuff interests you i suggest you study rigorously but if it doesn't interest you then that's fine -- you can be a fantastic anti-communist without it e: as far as the increasing wages of english workers towards the end of the 19th century, you would have to look at engels' criticism of the bourgeois labour party (written to marx) and the continuation of that work by lenin (imperialism, etc). i don't think you actually care about any of this. the mere indication of a historical difficulty within the field of political economy is good enough for you to call marx an illiterate quack (not even the grimiest neoclassical economist would go this far). whatever helps you feel good about your brain i guess
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    I don't need to read the entire corpus of Marxist literature to conclude that Marxian economics is quackery. A few choice statements from Marx, demonstrating his economic literacy and belief in basic economic fallacies like Ludditism, is quite enough. >>the mere indication of a historical difficulty within the field of political economy is good enough for you to call marx an illiterate quack Claiming automation would reduce wages is a basic fallacy that economic laymen believe in. No one with even a moderate grasp of economics would believe this. He was a quack. >>whatever helps you feel good about your brain i guess You are promoting a man who had an amateur understanding of economics, and whose doctrines wherever they came to be adopted led to tyrannies the likes of which the world had never seen before.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      >I don't need to read the entire corpus of Marxist literature to conclude that Marxian economics is quackery. You do have to read about modern Marxist economic replies to objections over a century old. The likes of Guglielmo Carcheidi, Kliman and Freeman, and even non-Marxist economists sympathetic to Marx answer many of these problems. >Claiming automation would reduce wages is a basic fallacy that economic laymen believe in. This is not strictly the claim that Marx makes, and this claim you attribute to him only comes from a particular logical view of Marx rather than his own logic.
dang 7y ago
Please keep ideological flamewar well away from HN. These inevitably repetitive and angry discussions are the last thing we want here. Worse, they are destructive of the thoughtful, curious conversations we do want here, so we have little choice but to ban accounts that post like this repeatedly. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd be grateful.

CryptoPunk 7y ago

>>e.g. for marx profit and surplus value are two very separate categories, and in marx's analysis employers indeed do not attain labor power below its true value For Marx, the employer's profit was solely expropriated surplus value generated by workers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value >>Marx uses the term Mehrwert to describe the yield, profit or return on production capital invested, i.e. the amount of the increase in the value of capital. Hence, Marx's use of Mehrwert has always been translated as "surplus value", distinguishing it from "value-added". According to Marx's theory, surplus value is equal to the new value created by workers in excess of their own labor-cost, which is appropriated by the capitalist as profit when products are sold. Read his own words: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch07.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour... >>We have said: "Wages are not a share of the worker in the commodities produced by him. Wages are that part of already existing commodities with which the capitalist buys a certain amount of productive labor-power." But the capitalist must replace these wages out of the price for which he sells the product made by the worker; he must so replace it that, as a rule, there remains to him a surplus above the cost of production expended by him, that is, he must get a profit. The man also believed that automation would reduce the demand for labor, and with it, wages: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch09.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour... >>But even if we assume that all who are directly forced out of employment by machinery, as well as all of the rising generation who were waiting for a chance of employment in the same branch of industry, do actually find some new employment – are we to believe that this new employment will pay as high wages as did the one they have lost? If it did, it would be in contradiction to the laws of political economy. We have seen how modern industry always tends to the substitution of the simpler and more subordinate employments for the higher and more complex ones. How, then, could a mass of workers thrown out of one branch of industry by machinery find refuge in another branch, unless they were to be paid more poorly? and >>To sum up: the more productive capital grows, the more it extends the division of labour and the application of machinery; the more the division of labour and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. This was proven wrong in his own lifetime as factory worker wages rapidly grew in industrializing Britain. He was an economically illiterate quack promoting basic fallacies like Ludditism that are popular with laymen.

interpenetrate 7y ago
since you haven't got to capital vol 3 (or read any text that covers that material) you do not have the knowledge required to engage in a conversation about marx's derivation of profit from surplus value. you simply do not have a handle on these categories of political economy. there's even a keynesian here demonstrating your illiteracy in orthodox economics. if this stuff interests you i suggest you study rigorously but if it doesn't interest you then that's fine -- you can be a fantastic anti-communist without it e: as far as the increasing wages of english workers towards the end of the 19th century, you would have to look at engels' criticism of the bourgeois labour party (written to marx) and the continuation of that work by lenin (imperialism, etc). i don't think you actually care about any of this. the mere indication of a historical difficulty within the field of political economy is good enough for you to call marx an illiterate quack (not even the grimiest neoclassical economist would go this far). whatever helps you feel good about your brain i guess
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  I don't need to read the entire corpus of Marxist literature to conclude that Marxian economics is quackery. A few choice statements from Marx, demonstrating his economic literacy and belief in basic economic fallacies like Ludditism, is quite enough. >>the mere indication of a historical difficulty within the field of political economy is good enough for you to call marx an illiterate quack Claiming automation would reduce wages is a basic fallacy that economic laymen believe in. No one with even a moderate grasp of economics would believe this. He was a quack. >>whatever helps you feel good about your brain i guess You are promoting a man who had an amateur understanding of economics, and whose doctrines wherever they came to be adopted led to tyrannies the likes of which the world had never seen before.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    >I don't need to read the entire corpus of Marxist literature to conclude that Marxian economics is quackery. You do have to read about modern Marxist economic replies to objections over a century old. The likes of Guglielmo Carcheidi, Kliman and Freeman, and even non-Marxist economists sympathetic to Marx answer many of these problems. >Claiming automation would reduce wages is a basic fallacy that economic laymen believe in. This is not strictly the claim that Marx makes, and this claim you attribute to him only comes from a particular logical view of Marx rather than his own logic.

dang 7y ago

Please keep ideological flamewar well away from HN. These inevitably repetitive and angry discussions are the last thing we want here. Worse, they are destructive of the thoughtful, curious conversations we do want here, so we have little choice but to ban accounts that post like this repeatedly. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd be grateful.