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Labor markets are not capitalism. A commodity production system using prices for exchange with productive instruments under private ownership is capitalism. If

Labor markets are not capitalism. A commodity production system using prices for exchange with productive instruments under private ownership is capitalism. If we define capitalism to mean "anything that supports my argument" then yeah, of course you're right. > For example, the doctors guild could say that surgery costs a million dollars. And they would have exactly zero customers and go bankrupt, because another competing doctors guild would do the surgery because they value saving lives over driving luxury cars. Labor market. > Does that mean that surgeries objectively costs a million dollars? If you paid it, then it objectively cost that much when you paid it, no? > But what that regulation looks like isn't objective in any way, and it will shape the prices you will see, so labour prices are subjective. Yeah, labor prices are subjective. Observed labor, performed at a specific price, performed over a specific time, is objective. How much labor and what amount of resources and what processes took place to transform those resources for any given product is very much objective. These values might change over time as some labor becomes more costly or resources become more scarce than others, but that doesn't change that there is an objective measurement to what it cost to make some thing. Not some thing that might exist in a day or a week, but some thing that already exists. You can thump your subjectivity bible all you want, but you're wrong.

Jensson 3y ago
> because another competing doctors guild Why would there be another competing doctors guild? Worker organizations become monopolistic just like any other unless you regulate that. edit: > How much labor Labor isn't fungible, you can't replace a doctor with an average person. No two human do exactly the same labor, labor is therefore impossible to quantify unless you simplify it, and how we decide to simplify that is also subjective. Naïve socialists tend to say that all work hours are equal, which obviously isn't true and wont work at all. So then we have to decide whose labour is worth what, and we are back at the unequal society we have today where some persons labour is decided to be worth billions and others barely anything, unless you come up with some new different way to value labour.
- orthecreedence 3y ago
  > Why would there be another competing doctors guild? Why wouldn't there be? Communism is "the free association of producers." If people need a surgery and I'm a doctor with full access to the means of performing surgeries... It might help to try to break out of the red scare/USSR box you're putting everything into. Nobody wants SLAVERY, BREAD LINES, or HOLODOMOR. > Labor isn't fungible, you can't replace a doctor with an average person. Nor am I advocating for it. You're continually taking the worst representation of a concept I'm explaining and it's becoming tiring. You can track labor as "heart surgeon labor" or "house painter" labor, or "serial concept misunderstander" labor. And, by the way, none of what you said negates what I've said about objective costs.
qwytw 3y ago
> because another competing doctors guild would do the surgery because they value saving lives over driving luxury cars No, because they can undercut they other doctors and get all their customers while still making a lot of money. That's literally how all business work in competitive markets and most of them have nothing to do with 'saving lives', yet they behave in the same way. And free market competition is something generally associated with capitalism because it's hardly possible without private ownership of businesses. > performed over a specific time, is objective. Because it's determined by the market (more or less the same like the price for all other goods). It's objective as much as the price of any good and service in a capitalist system is.
- orthecreedence 3y ago
  > Because it's determined by the market Sure, a labor market, like I've been saying. And my argument is that this raw information has usefulness to making economic decisions, and prices erase that information. A labor market determining the value of labor, and that labor being performed and imbued into some product, is a much more objective measure than that product costing some arbitrary amount set by some analyst trying to maximize margins. You aren't refuting the fact that prices erase information, you're just explaining how markets work.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > imbued into some product Labor can be worthless if it's 'imbued' into a worthless product. I'm not sure what you're suggesting, supply and demand determines the price, if your good cost more in labor and material to produce than anyone is willing to pay for it nobody will buy it. > much more objective measure So the market will set prices for labor but not for goods and services? What? > You aren't refuting the fact that prices erase information What does that even mean? Are you implying that workers should only be paid as much as they need to fulfill some set of needs and no more?
    - orthecreedence 3y ago
      > I'm not sure what you're suggesting Really? That it costs labor and resources to make things? Is that really hard to understand? > if your good cost more in labor and material to produce than anyone is willing to pay for it nobody will buy it. Thanks for explaining markets again. This is tangential to my point. > So the market will set prices for labor but not for goods and services? What? You're getting close. Cost and price are separate entities. Price is "what I think someone should pay" cost is a set of labor and resources it took to make something. > Are you implying that workers should only be paid as much as they need to fulfill some set of needs and no more? No? I'm not saying anything about paying people or even the organization of production. I'm saying that prices are a form of lossy compression. 5 + 7 + 6 + 2 = 20, but given 20, we have no idea that 5, 7, 6, or 2 were part of the equation or that there were four numbers to begin with. If it takes an hour of labor and a kilogram of wood to build something (something that, yes, someone wants because we're not talking about mudpies obviously), the cost to build that thing is an hour of labor and a kilogram of wood, not $20. $20 is arbitrary and effectively useless measurement. The number $20 contains information and you might be able to infer some of the information contained in it, but you can never actually be sure what the information is or the other pieces of information that make it up. Prices erase information. As a system of measuring cost, they are pathetically limited. Yeah, ok I get it, people exchange things in markets and blah blah, but if a chair has 3kg of wood in it, then we know that it cost at least 3kg of wood (a resource) to produce. There is nothing subjective about this.

Jensson 3y ago

> because another competing doctors guild Why would there be another competing doctors guild? Worker organizations become monopolistic just like any other unless you regulate that. edit: > How much labor Labor isn't fungible, you can't replace a doctor with an average person. No two human do exactly the same labor, labor is therefore impossible to quantify unless you simplify it, and how we decide to simplify that is also subjective. Naïve socialists tend to say that all work hours are equal, which obviously isn't true and wont work at all. So then we have to decide whose labour is worth what, and we are back at the unequal society we have today where some persons labour is decided to be worth billions and others barely anything, unless you come up with some new different way to value labour.

orthecreedence 3y ago
> Why would there be another competing doctors guild? Why wouldn't there be? Communism is "the free association of producers." If people need a surgery and I'm a doctor with full access to the means of performing surgeries... It might help to try to break out of the red scare/USSR box you're putting everything into. Nobody wants SLAVERY, BREAD LINES, or HOLODOMOR. > Labor isn't fungible, you can't replace a doctor with an average person. Nor am I advocating for it. You're continually taking the worst representation of a concept I'm explaining and it's becoming tiring. You can track labor as "heart surgeon labor" or "house painter" labor, or "serial concept misunderstander" labor. And, by the way, none of what you said negates what I've said about objective costs.

qwytw 3y ago

> because another competing doctors guild would do the surgery because they value saving lives over driving luxury cars No, because they can undercut they other doctors and get all their customers while still making a lot of money. That's literally how all business work in competitive markets and most of them have nothing to do with 'saving lives', yet they behave in the same way. And free market competition is something generally associated with capitalism because it's hardly possible without private ownership of businesses. > performed over a specific time, is objective. Because it's determined by the market (more or less the same like the price for all other goods). It's objective as much as the price of any good and service in a capitalist system is.

orthecreedence 3y ago
> Because it's determined by the market Sure, a labor market, like I've been saying. And my argument is that this raw information has usefulness to making economic decisions, and prices erase that information. A labor market determining the value of labor, and that labor being performed and imbued into some product, is a much more objective measure than that product costing some arbitrary amount set by some analyst trying to maximize margins. You aren't refuting the fact that prices erase information, you're just explaining how markets work.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > imbued into some product Labor can be worthless if it's 'imbued' into a worthless product. I'm not sure what you're suggesting, supply and demand determines the price, if your good cost more in labor and material to produce than anyone is willing to pay for it nobody will buy it. > much more objective measure So the market will set prices for labor but not for goods and services? What? > You aren't refuting the fact that prices erase information What does that even mean? Are you implying that workers should only be paid as much as they need to fulfill some set of needs and no more?
  - orthecreedence 3y ago
    > I'm not sure what you're suggesting Really? That it costs labor and resources to make things? Is that really hard to understand? > if your good cost more in labor and material to produce than anyone is willing to pay for it nobody will buy it. Thanks for explaining markets again. This is tangential to my point. > So the market will set prices for labor but not for goods and services? What? You're getting close. Cost and price are separate entities. Price is "what I think someone should pay" cost is a set of labor and resources it took to make something. > Are you implying that workers should only be paid as much as they need to fulfill some set of needs and no more? No? I'm not saying anything about paying people or even the organization of production. I'm saying that prices are a form of lossy compression. 5 + 7 + 6 + 2 = 20, but given 20, we have no idea that 5, 7, 6, or 2 were part of the equation or that there were four numbers to begin with. If it takes an hour of labor and a kilogram of wood to build something (something that, yes, someone wants because we're not talking about mudpies obviously), the cost to build that thing is an hour of labor and a kilogram of wood, not $20. $20 is arbitrary and effectively useless measurement. The number $20 contains information and you might be able to infer some of the information contained in it, but you can never actually be sure what the information is or the other pieces of information that make it up. Prices erase information. As a system of measuring cost, they are pathetically limited. Yeah, ok I get it, people exchange things in markets and blah blah, but if a chair has 3kg of wood in it, then we know that it cost at least 3kg of wood (a resource) to produce. There is nothing subjective about this.