Marx: Alienation and private property
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ค. 2024
- In this video, philosophy professor Ellie Anderson explains the theory of alienation that Karl Marx develops in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Professor Anderson also discusses the difference between use value, exchange value, and surplus value, the early Marx's theory of human nature, and wage labor under capitalism.
This video was created for Professor Anderson's Spring 2021 "Continental Thought" course at Pomona College.
For more from Ellie, check out Overthink podcast!
Overthinkpodcast.com
Not a word wasted!! It’s personally satisfying to find people who can present ideas with such clarity.
100%
Clarity of expression, so good.
Came here to say exactly this. She is gifted as a communicator. Wish I could have had her as a prof in some of my phil classes.
I’m a PhD student in English who’s dissertating on the representations of policing laborers in literature and this is one of the most succinct and helpful breakdowns of Marx’s thought I’ve come across during grad school. Brilliant.
You took on 10's of thousands of dollars in debt to get a degree that you'll still have to apply with 200 other applicants just for and adjunct assistant professorship just to earn minimum wage for 15 years until you can apply for tenure. You're a sucker, and it'll take you 20 years before you even begin to realize it
That is the best explanation of Marx's Philosophy I have ever heard! Clear and precise. Thank you.
This is an excellent video. Elucidating and thought provoking. Do you think it is possible that the next stage of humanity's evolution, spiritually and socially, is the theory and practice of veganism?
Yet it misses what communism has been in practice. In theory anything can be seen as perfect but the truth only emerges when you put it into practice. Capitalism implemented has a terrible end as we are currently witnessing but so does communism. The end of capitalism leads to a world war to see who will take lead for the "Next time" (Innocent people dying in wars because of the faults of the corrupt and greedy) and communism leads to war via self implosion of the one person who rises to the top with full power over their subjects (Innocent people dying by the corruption and power trip of their tyrannical leader).
But the cycle may just end with capitalism as world war 3 will be fought with nukes ( i predict before 2030, maybe as close as 2027).. whoever survives world war 3 will not need worry about how the world should be run and what direction to take, it will be clear.
@@muneebiqbal5584 except for this video only explores the philosophy of Marx. It doesn't claim to explore communism in practice.
Marx was a 19th Century Utopian. Doesn't work-- never has, never will.
However they always disregard illegal property management which is totally marxist related in this fashion. Even a person can be your personal property. You know. These aren't that great and they always go around critical focal points. That's just how you live now.
I just found this channel last week. It's so great to find such clear and sober explanations in TH-cam where competition for visibility leads too often to pyrotechnics rather than content.
Wow, this video save me! I have an exam soon and your explication is way better that i got from my teacher. Thank you!
Well, I'm giving an exam on Marx, so I'll keep this in mind.
Thank you all the work put in to producing this series. The Professors passionate delivery and depth of knowledge on these topics is inspiring.
Really beautifully simplified and so relatable! Would love an episode on Bakunin “statism and anarchy” - panslavism, pangermanism, before the 2 wars and .. today ! And also one on the conquest of bread !
he doesnt deserve any attention. sorry.
I just listened to an hour-long lecture on alienation by a Yale professor that spent 50 minutes on details about Marx’s life that anyone could read in an encyclopedia article and 10 minutes on alienation. I felt alienated from the professor’s account of alienation. This is so much better.
As a Framer and Concrete Formworker I know I build shitty homes where quality only matters enough not to get called on it. And any initiative outside the acceptable parameters of my superiors earns me an increasing sense of anxiety of unemployment or fear of abuse. Often meaning I cant do a good job even if I want to.
@@dans2971 I consider myself a capitalist, according to my worldview, but even I can see the problems that capitalism have. The race to the bottom. I can see that for example in the electronics space. Everybody likes televisions, and at the same time, hates them. Everybody says the modern television is great, has beautiful image quality, its thin, but at the same time, its expensive, flimsy and rapidly becomes obsolete, with newer models being launched every year. So what that they are flimsy... just throw it away and buy another, not considering what the gigantic amount of electronic trash will do to our planet. And so what that they are expensive... just buy the cheaper models. Which have worse image and are even flimsier and break more often. Until you see that the richer guy have a better TV, and then you can't help but buy the more expensive one. And try, as a customer, to give feedback to the big manufacturers of TVs... they only see sales numbers. Who cares if the product is trash, as long as people are buying it and we can turn a profit on it.
So this is the struggle of capitalism. Its a driving force for improvement of several dimensions over time, but at the very expense of other important dimensions, which are not readily apparent to the consumers and producers. This lack of bottom standards makes everyone race to the bottom in terms of extracting the best profit possible. This is where I think unfortunately the state has to intervene. Take the recent EU decision in mandating that mobile devices must have USB-C as the standard charging port. Each manufacturer of phones has its own type of charging port, which only leads to waste on a grand scale of things, but its something that the corporations would never sit down together to agree on a standard, as it doesn't benefits them as they want to keep their consumer base locked in. And its something the consumers themselves don't care enough to protest with their wallet, because they don't see the full picture of waste (until they open their drawer 10 years later and see a bunch of unusable chargers with different types of charging ports...)
Now, there are exceptions to the rule - user communities that push for better quality from producers on one hand, and also producers who cares about quality over simply profit.
Great video, I have heard that Japan has been looking at Marx for a way out of Capitalism. It's interesting that a country so committed to Capitalism is now looking for a guide to do things differently. We are structured by systems and I appreciate that Japan is searching for a system to follow to move forward. Why not Marxism? Karl developed a comprehensive option to go by and distribute wealth in a community based manner. Anyway this video got me thinking so good work!
I'm going to binge all of your videos... you're amazing.
S to the I to the M to the P
@@idontgetlaidbut IN my opinion, you Can Expect Laughter
Thank you, this is essential knowledge that everyone should be introduced to. You do that very well.
A wonderfully spent 20 minutes. Very clear. Very precise. Very well done. I look forward to your other videos. 😁
With regard to Marx's theory of capitalism, Engels said that everything Marx wrote before 1859 was incomplete and "wrong" in some respects compared to his theory as it stood from 1859 onwards. The 1844 manuscripts should be viewed as the work of a thinker trying to develop his ideas.
Dialectical materialism is superstition - useless dichotomy (dialectic) to establish a dictatorship based upon power over society.
Of course, he was still developing.
Wow the way she explained the private property is definitely an eye opener ❤
Many thanks for such informative lectures! It would be great if you could do a video on Gilles Deleuze's concepts regarding capitalism.
These capsule videos are amazing.
Beautifully explained 👏👏
Thank you for making such a clear and useful video. Very helpful.
The manuscripts are my favorite of Marx's books. It's very "technical" yet, extremely beautiful to read
I cannot believe I can watch this for free. LOVE
Great lecture. Thank you!
Wonderful. Sophisticated clarity and insight, a joy to encounter.
Excellent. Clear and concise. Thank you.
Wonderful digest of Marx professor Ellie, never thought I would understand him, much better informed now, have an imaginary round of applause: you deserve it. look forward to all of your posts, I have waited for someone who would explain the intricacies of philosophy with all of the real clarity of a writer and teacher rather than the turgid explications so often to be found in this genre.
Marx was right with quite a few things that meanwhile caused havoc on this planet. "Capitalism is an economic system profoundly at odds with a sustainable planet. The exploitation of nature is as fundamental to the profit system, as the exploitation of working people. The capitalist economic notion is that the air, rivers, seas, and soil can be treated as a "free gift of nature" to business. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations."
Marx, Wage Labour and Capital (1847)
Great discussion, I'm enjoying this channel so far. Thanks!
thanks for offering us such a beautiful presentation. Great job.
What I truly love about your videos is that, when I sit down, dedicate my mind and effort into the video, what I come out with is _a profound_ insight into something I have not had the time to really look much into before! Then, just like that, what was a 10 minute video becomes a desire for me to dedicate _some more_ time and effort into the subject! Really impactful method of instructing... that is certain
This is wonderful and VERY much in line with our intentions
This is a great video, that's worth spreading, thanks for your amazing work
This was a great explanation, thanks! Would like to see you tackle Engels’ “Origin of Family, Private Property and the State”
Thank you, you made my lesson plan easier for me.
2:20 This is why i believe writing and pursuing the arts is essential. Learning an instrument, drawing, or (i think you mentioned it in the hegel video?) when the servant develops a more complete sense of self through manual labor, they excude their humanity into their work. Quite literally seeds of prosperity.
I've felt that my sketches and writing help to solidify myself as an individual. A positive, creative, outlet helps to rejuvenate the soul.
8:22 If your Travis Scott Nike's don't have chinese blood in the stitching you got ripped off dude 👎
14:55 lmao
Yeah, so prosperous... I've been a musician and a painter all my life. I've always made money from my music and art and if I hadn't worked for the evil capitalist the whole time, I might have been able to afford 2 boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese per week. Don't get me wrong I agree that art etc etc has been a vehicle for my humanity but never has it been a seed of prosperity!!!!
I have got to listen to this multiple times!!! She's a genius!!
Loved the video! You’re an excellent speaker :)
It would help to explain monopoly control over pricing and asset inflation as we currently experience in the neoliberal order when explaining the capitalist system. Otherwise one confuses rents with surplus value.
You explain everything really well and I love watching your videos
really awesome video, so well explained
In this lecture, the Professor refers a number of times to Page Numbers. Are these Lecture Notes publicly available so that we can refer to those page numbers? Please let me know. Thanks a lot!
I believe she is talking about the numbers in the actual book he wrote. Now, he and Engels wrote a lot of stuff, but you could quote mine in "Das Kapital" or the communist Manifesto for the pages selected.
Unless she is talking about teaching material, in which case you are probably out of luck. ^.^
In the description it says it is from the economical and philosophical manuscripts
thank you for sharing this with the world, we need more truth and light in this world.
While I’d recommend to anyone to read the thing that’s being presented in OverThink, Dr. Anderson really does present it so well and clearly
Poderia deixar a legenda automática ativa em todos seus vídeos, neste não está... Obrigado.
Your content is excellent, thank you.
Thank you for the video. What book are you referring from?
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Page numbers are from Marx, Selected Writings (ed. Lawrence H. Simon, Hackett)
Really amazing! An extremely clear explanation of some of the most essential ellements of Marx's thinking. Thank you!
Material costs can be reduced via the exploitation of resources that really belong to others. This is key component of capitalism and imperialism. It is essentially the theft of materials to reduce costs and increase surplus.
Good video!
This video is great, I'm going to send it to my students, thanks :)
@11:10 This reading of Alienation is basically the thought behind Amazon's policy of only keeping employees around for 4 years. They believe the employee's best work is "used up" in that time frame, and they are "exchanged" for a new laborer.
Seriously? I didn't know that. It is despicable.
This is a pretty clear explanation.
Amazing video!
Thank you awesome to see young folks keeping alive the incredible intellectual achievement of Mr. Marx. Greetings from an old dude who tries to remain hopeful :)
Well, yeah. We study _all_ of history. Including the mistakes.
@@Alexander_Kale Doesn`t all of human history consist of mistakes? The different is only in the extent and duration of these mistakes. And who commits them and especially when. Stalin`s mistakes are bad. Similar mistakes committed several times in British India in the second half of the 19th century do not matter. The British government stubbornly refused to bail out Indian farmers with food when their crops failed for weather reasons. The leading idea of the British government in its decision-making was if the farmers were aided, they would stop being independent farmers and rely on government handouts.
Farmers had to be independent. The principle totally opposite to that of Stalin later on, but the outcome was identical - heaps of dead people.
@@Alexander_Kale Ah yes, The Enclosures were the correct part of history but analyses and critiques of the ensuing class society and worker alienation and exploitation are the mistaken parts.
@@SvalbardSleeperDistrict the mistake is the idea that marxism, which requires you to rely on the complete selflesness of others, was ever going to work.
@@Alexander_Kale The only "mistakes" here are being made by you in your ridiculously misinterpretative claims, and that is putting it mildly and giving you the benefit of the doubt that you have actually read Marx and just somehow got lost in the process and made these hilarious assumptions that have nothing to do with Marx. That in addition to the fact that 90 percent of Marxism - and 90 percent of what is covered in the video above - is about Marx's analysis of class society and capitalism, and has nothing to do with prescriptions or visions of "what should" happen sometime in the future.
If those weak responses - with PragerU-level caricature slogans about Marxism - is all you had to offer, you shouldn't even have bothered with a reply. If you want to be commenting on a channel that deals with understanding things, first try and attempt that yourself.
Part 1/2
Thank you for this video!
You speak wonderfully! For me as a non-native English speaker, that was a treat! Thumbs up for that!
I think the content of the video is worthy of discussion.
* Property
'People want to "have', they want to "possess".'
Why do you want to own something? For what purpose was property developed in society?
* Weighted needs and trades
People have needs and they want to satisfy them. But in practice, all people, even the very rich, have needs that are greater than their ability to satisfy them (certainly Mr. Musk wants to build a huge space station even faster, fly to Mars even faster, etc.).
Consequently, people must prioritize their needs. They have to think about what they want and can trade in. In connection with the division of labor that has also developed, they cannot simply hand over their own work products without receiving anything in return, because if they did, they would starve.
* Formation of value
In human society, therefore, the value-equivalent exchange of goods had to be developed.
Since different products are manufactured with different levels of complexity and require different working hours, something other than working hours had to be used as a criterion for the exchange value of a good. For this, people developed value.
The value-equivalent exchange had to be developed in society in order to counteract the waste of resources (materials, time) on the production side, but also the waste of resources on the side of the use of goods.
However, value cannot prevent the squandering of resources because, as a social relationship (according to Marx and Engels, among others), it must also include next objective parts but also subjective parts.
* Value equivalence through the common value size
A weighted need initiates the exchange. To do this, both bartering partners must agree on a common value of the goods to be exchanged.
At the bazaar or in negotiations between an entrepreneur and a sales chain, they come to an agreement in dialogue. In the department store, the initially only potential buyer has to adapt to the specifications of the initially also only potential seller in order to be successful.
The bartering partners assign this common value to both the goods and the object of value with the same value.
The value equivalent of money reflects a right to a percentage of all goods to be distributed economically.
If the potential exchange partners cannot agree on a common value, there will be no exchange - the purchase contract / invoice cannot contain an offer price and a different purchase price.
The value equivalence becomes objective, i.e. going beyond each exchange partner and effective on the societal level and reflected by the common value.
The common magnitude of value is an objective component of value.
The reflections of this objective quantity of value in the conscious processes of the exchange partners are subjective elements of value. Before the exchange, these are usually of different sizes.
There is no difference between economic value or real value or "labor value" according to Marx and the exchange value.
There is no question that both bartering partners can have other subjective values about the goods to be exchanged, but these would be one-sided and not part of the value relationship.
* Political and other guidelines are included in value formation
The formation of value on the market shows what is produced and bought under the given political and other social conditions or specifications as well as under the given natural conditions and in what way, but also how the goods can be used.
Included in the assessment leading to value is usually the time and complexity of producing work products, extracting the natural assets used, or even the separating power of separating property (ownership of mineral resources, vintage cars, etc.).
again another great video - thanks again, I say, hoping commenting puts the algorithm even more in your favor. your labor is valuable, and I got its result here for free!
Is that Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self sitting on the shelf above Ellie’s left ear? One of my favourite modern critiques.
best part of this video is looking at those bookshelves, I’m envious
Thanks!
Thanks for the reminder
Thank you.
Thanks again. Just a quick note of affirmation. Being an artist l find an honest disheartening confession by an ex-Christy art auctioneer. . He said when the bidding is all over the person who won the bid receives the loud applause not the artist.
Because it raised the bar on the value of their collections .
It's not the artist work that dictates the price it is who once or owns it.
I know that the creation of a vase was used as a simplification of modern capitalism. But if we look further into this as an example, there aren’t just raw materials. There is the people who excavate the clay. The people prepare the clay for processing. The people who work in shifts relentlessly to grow/harvest and refine the pigments to create paint. The supplychain workers who carte each trailer full of these refined and processed materials.. and finally at the hands of the craftspeople who shape them.. I understand the analogue for simplicity.. but the point of owning production is all the more vast and devastating when the idea of producing a single product is so far removed from, not just the single sculpture(having to relinquish a piece of themselves) but from every individual who has not the sum of their respective labour…. There is no work of any kind created by one individual.
I remember when my friends and I found seems of different colored clay in the ground. We made pipes and bowls from clay we dug up. And another one of our friends had a kiln. So we fired our pieces. It wasn't efficient, but it was memorable and fun.
Fantastic content❤
Thanks
Not sure if we can so unproblematically splice young and mature Marx.
What book is she referring to when citing page numbers?
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Since the age of the smartphone, I've always felt the impulse to capture the moment, the object and the experience, through the lenses of the camera. I record IT through the phone, yet I miss it. It's like if I don't have it in my phone, it never happened. One of my goals is to have an experience, like a holiday, and capture it only through my eyes.
great vid prof. Ellie. You show in your videos that there's no need to use a complicated vocabulary to teach us philosophy, contrary as many academic people are accustomed to use. (a great topic of my interest.. is complex vocabulary a real need for communication in academic areas? can we deliver the same message with simple words? is it maybe a way to distiguish intelectual people from normal people? can this be a way to discriminate and put away people who could have get closer to social research? do we want to communicate our philosophical and social message to all humans or only to those who talk in our high level language? i confess that in spanish, for example regarding argentinian academic papers, can be even more annoying to read.. at least for me.. and sorry for my awful english) :)
Despite sometimes using excessively obscure vocabulary unnecessarily, it is also not possible to generalize and say that any technical and difficult-to-understand vocabulary right away is because they are trying to discriminate against you or something like that. Remember that this video is just a very brief introduction to Marx's thinking. Many topics are difficult to discuss seriously and in depth without a more technical vocabulary.
omg i found this channel totally random, amazing
Professor Anderson, real quick if you happen to read here:
About the painting. Why isn´t it possible that, at the auction, it´s the other way around? That the value and meaning of the feelings it creates, engenders and evinces is manifest spiritually in the attendance and attention garnered and represented materially in not just the price hike but most importantly in the final outcome/price.
I posted a two-part comment on this.
I'm an old dude who read (and to an extent embraced) Marx in college (years ago) and have also lived in the so-called real world for decades since then. So here goes...
It is flawed to think labor is like a baby bird in the nest, helpless and waiting for the capitalist's scraps, but I believe that view is all too popular today. The capitalist must pay labor something called a "market-clearing price," otherwise that labor will not be available to the capitalist. Even a lowly burger flipper can walk across the street to work for Burger King if McDonalds is offering him less pay and benefits for his time.
Additionally, seeing labor emotionally divorced from the end result of that labor (the product) is flawed. True, I have sold my labor that went toward creating things for which I had little passion or care. But the opposite can also be said. I have worked on projects, where the end result didn't belong to me, but I had much passion for creating timely, quality results. And almost always, my passion for that end result is what set me apart from my co-workers, and made me ever higher salaries because my employer placed higher value on my efforts.
Absolutely correct!
The classic interpreters of Marx separate value from result.
However, the value is formed on the market, i.e. not through the production costs, to which an expected surplus value is added, as described by Marx with W = c + v + s, but through and with the reimbursement of the production costs, on which the real added value is added.
However, one cannot determine with the production whether the costs will be fully reimbursed and if not, whether an added value will also be paid. This means that the value formation usually only has to take place as intended with the formula (but is not expressed by the parameters) if production is to be continued, expanded and improved as far as possible.
@@rainerlippert - You wrote “value,” but then appeared to describe and make an argument about _price_ … and you won’t make much headway towards understanding Marx if you misunderstand or misuse his terms. Value is not the same as exchange value, which is not the same as use value, which is not the same as price.
@@danopticon
Hello Ricky Tenderkiss!
Thank you for the reaction!
Marx contradicts himself in some places in Capital!
What price did I write about?
There are two prices:
1. The offer price.
This is determined, for example, by an entrepreneur or a retailer.
However, Marx assumed that this is the price that reflects the value. He formulated value formation in his well-known formula:
W = c + v + s.
He applies this formula to the production side of commodity society.
But there is still no surplus value on the production side. There are only the costs c + v. The entrepreneur can only estimate how much surplus value he can ask for in the market.
Even if an angel were to hand him money from heaven and say, "Here, look, your surplus value s!", this money would not be surplus value, because it would only replace part of the cost.
The "surplus" on the production side that Marx sees as produced is in reality only an expected surplus.
Since surplus value is part of value, there can only be an expected value too. The value formula must be specified for the production side of commodity society:
W|expected = c|cost factor, replacement expected + v|cost factor, replacement expected + s|expected.
This expected value is made visible as an offer price.
Only when a buyer buys the product on the market, completely (!) replacing the costs c + v and paying even more, does surplus value come about.
Consequently, the value formula must also be specified for the market side of the commodity company:
W|real = c|cost replacing + v|cost replacing + s|real.
This makes it clear that the value can only be formed when it is known whether surplus value will be paid or not and if so, to what extent.
This happens on the market, so value is only created on the market.
Value is a relationship that exchange partners enter into with one another in order to exchange a commodity for an equivalent value (or commodity for commodity). The value is related to the exchange goods and only makes sense if they are actually exchanged.
Exchanged with on the basis of the common value that the exchange partners mutually agree on. This value is made visible as a purchase price or sales price (both identical) and has an effect on the social level in this size.
There is no difference between exchange value and labor value and real value. There is only the value formed between the exchange partners.
There is a difference between the real value and the expected value in many cases, especially when a product does not sell. Then the expected value remains, but a real one is not formed.
The exchange takes place on the basis of a common value that the exchange partners agree on. This value is made visible as a purchase price or sales price (both identical) and has an effect on the social level in this size.
There is no difference between exchange value and labor value and real value. There is only the value formed between the exchange partners.
There is a difference between real value and expected value in many cases, which Marx identifies as labor value, especially when a product is unsold. Then the expected value remains, but a real one is not formed.
@@rainerlippert - Again, you won’t be able to engage with Marx if you substitute your own meanings (or other economists’ meanings) for his, particularly if you confuse what Marx calls “value” with, instead, what a commodity sells for on the market, or “price.”
You are repeatedly writing the word “value,” but not using the term in the same sense that Marx arrives at. You’re substituting an alternate meaning, such as when you mislabel Marx’s surplus value as “how much [a seller] can ask for in the market,” or when you write, twice, “value is made visible as a purchase price or sales price (both identical).”
But to Marx, value is formed through socially necessary labor. The market may then set a _price_ which is lower or higher than that value (or which is completely unhinged from that value), owing to a variety of factors: supply and demand, fads, advertising, state intervention, a seller’s monopoly power, and so on. The only time value would equal price would be under hypothetical equilibrium conditions; otherwise, value is like a Lagrangian point for economics: useful, and real, and vital to other calculations … but not something you can pick up and carry away in your pocket.
You also appear to take the variables found in Marx’s _Capital_ but then use your own definitions for them. But in _Capital_ lowercase *c* is *constant capital,* *v* is *variable capital,* and *s* is *surplus value.*
You will have an easier time engaging with the material if you approach it with an open mind, rather than trying to filter it through other theories you may have read, or rather than trying to substitute Marx’s terms with your own.
I would especially recommend writing on a post-it note “VALUE IS NOT PRICE EXCEPT UNDER EQUILIBRIUM CONDITIONS” and placing that near whatever page you’re reading that day. There are also a number of companion volumes you might read alongside _Capital_ which purport to help the contemporary reader wade through Marx’s 19th century Hegel-influenced writing style, but not knowing your native language I’m hesitant to recommend any particular one; broadly, I’d say choose one written by an author whose background is both economics and continental philosophy.
@@danopticon
I see your problem: you are obviously only able to retell what others have already told.
I encourage you to think for yourself and check what Marx writes.
Marx contradicts himself in several places in Capital. You can only find out where the mistake lies if you think along with it.
You mention the variables I mention in my answer. But you cannot grasp what these mean.
Let's see if you're ready to discuss:
Marx describes value formation with his value formula W = c + v + s.
W Value of a product of labor
c constant capital (proportionate costs for raw materials, supplier products, buildings, with Marx also machines, external resources such as electricity, etc.)
v variable capital (proportionate cost of labor - the values of labor, for Marx only human)
s surplus value - proportional to the respective product.
According to Marx, the value is therefore formed from the costs c + v plus the surplus value.
Marx applies this value formula to the production side of commodity society, since for him the market has no meaning for value formation.
Do you think these statements are correct?
On the production side, however, there is no surplus value. Only a buyer on the market can pay for the surplus value. But the buyer can only do that if he fully reimburses the costs c + v for the product and then pays even more, namely the surplus value.
Do you think these statements are correct?
Thanks.
Wow thank you!
Doesn't Hegel's account draw from Locke?
I think it's a false reading of Hegel to understand the Spirit, the "Geist", as not being realized by materialistic conditions and intersubjectively, but as a superhistorical cartesian res cogitans or something like that. Correct me if i'm wrong though
Hi Dr Anderson, congratulations on your videos for the clarity of exposition and your eloquence!
I think that in discussing Marx’s examination of alienation, you should focus on his “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts” in which he deals with the subject in detail.
There he identifies four instances of alienation in capitalism:
1. The workers become alienated from their product as it belongs to capitalists;
2. They become alienated from the labour process itself as it is set up and organized and managed by capitalists;
3. As a result of the above, workers become alienated from their species being (Gattungswesen), that is, from their human nature as the essential attribute of human nature is free and creative work, life activity. So the satisfaction workers can derive in their lives is reduced to their animal attributes of eating, drinking and having sex (even these often cannot be satisfied).
4. As a result of the above, not only workers but everybody is alienated from their fellow humans as they live in a society of competition, subjection, domination and exploitation. Even capitalists are alienated as they are subjected to the logic of capital, that is, to produce for the sake of profit and more profit ad infinitum.
I think Marx’s theory of exploitation dealt with in Das Kapital deserves a different video. There you would have the space and time to analyse the production of relative and absolute surplus value and their appropriation by capitalists.
This is the topic of the video--the four types of alienation are discussed in detail in the second half.
Your teachers/guide...are spirits
11:46 This is important
Brilliant.
Great video, thank you very much , note to self(nts) watched all of it 20:08
what book are you citing? p79 of what?
Marx and Engels Reader
this was originally created for a class, so students had the textbook
Are there any counter arguments to these ideas or are these the truths self-evident?
Of course there are tons of counterarguments, potential and real :)
This is an introductory video the purpose of which is introducing the ideas from the text.
@@OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy Thanks for the reply. Is there a good resource on alienation and its counterarguments presented side-by-side.
Hi, I have posted counterarguments to Marx's Theory of Value (LTV).
I look forward to a discussion!
@@whatabouttheearth you're right, after watching it again I was completely convinced and now I'm a marxist. I hope you're happy.
In discussing the feeling of being miserable, one wants to understand pain structure. So a human is a whole person whose existence is determined by consciousness. Feelings add energy to doing actions to live our whole lives. Pain structures are built to wall off human actions in the liberated sense of working. In other words the whole of a human being is miss shaped by oppression.
This is a good one. I've been a concrete guy for years, along with other labor. I just think of the dudes that built the pyramids. Some pharaoh sends out an HR team gathering up boulder technicians, those guys spend their lives building the pyramids and the pharaoh and his family get to enjoy the appreciation of the property. Been going on for a while now. but what im trying to figure out is how technology and potential population decrease are going to influence things. also the fact that peoples violent nature seems fragile or like there are raw nerves everywhere.
With $200 3D printers and other inexpensive desktop CNC machine tools, Marx' "means of production" comes within the grasp of the individual and the masses. Capitalism, strictly defined, implies the (artificial? technologically mandated?) separation of capital, or the investment money required to buy the means of production -- conceived of as a social class, or a social force -- from the people who do the work. Arguably this is a distinct concept from 'free markets' for example. Worker-owned enterprises or cooperatives aren't strictly speaking, capitalist, though they may operate in a 'free market' and also be 'privately' owned -- by the workers themselves.
But I would argue that it was really Industrialism -- the technology of production by means of purpose-built mechanical machines, and social machines that mimic physical assembly lines -- that supercharged the social power of Capital and sent Marxian alienation through the roof. A Gutenberg printing press cannot be used other than in the mode of mass production because of its physical/technical properties. It would make no sense to set up the type to print 1 copy of page 1, then tear it all down again to print 1 copy of page 2, etc. The only reasonable way to use it is to set up the type for page 1 and print as many copies of it as you think you can possibly sell before tearing down the type and resetting it to print page 2. All other mechanical-industrial machine manufacturing processes thereafter were extensions of that paradigm. Mass-production was the only way to use simple, specialized mechanical machine tools. And if mass-production was a technical mandate of the technology, then factories had to become ever bigger. And this technical pressure to accumulate capital in order to build the ever-bigger mechanical tools of mass-production increased the social power of the 'investor class' -- the absentee-owners of Capitalism -- dramatically.
In the early '60s, Marshall McLuhan observed that automation replaced _jobs_ with _roles_. The CNC milling machine or laser cutter or 3D printer doesn't care if you produce 10 copies of the same thing, or 1 each of 10 different things. It isn't significantly less efficient if it spits out one-offs or more of the same. So mass-production is not a technical mandate of the technology. And if it doesn't _have_ to mass produce to be useful, then it doesn't have to grow outside of the capacity for it to be owned and operated by mere mortals. I just 3D printed 6 AA battery boxes for a class instead of buying them off the boat from Mass-Productia. I downloaded the Open Source file to do this, and while the author of the design retains copyright, they allow anyone to use it for non-commercial purposes. This is a step toward a new conception of private property that begins to dissolve the conventional Capitalist paradigm. I also have designed my own parts to print or cut out with a CNC laser cutter.
Under the mass-production paradigm (regardless of who actually 'owns' the factories) the worker's relationship to the _tool_ or technology of the factory is inverted. Instead of the worker _employing_ or using the tool, the factory _employs_ the worker. People become interchangeable and disposable extensions of the factory machine. Work is almost never _creative_ because individual workers simply cannot wield the factory like a paint brush or a hammer. Instead, reflexive (re)productivity is the only game in town.
But the more 3D printers and the like permeate the economy and become integrated into the way we live and work, the fewer things will _have_to_ be made by conventional mass-production. People will find creative, rather than merely (re)productive work, and they will begin to have a more interactive and critical relationship to the things they buy and own. Even if you don't have a particular kind of automated tool, you will be able to go to a local shop that does, and work with the creative worker/owner to _customize_ an existing design to your exact needs and desires. Because they're no longer constrained by the limitations of mass-production, spare parts for something made 20 years ago can simply be loaded from the hard drive or memory stick and re-printed, so sophisticated machines no longer have to be thrown into the landfill because 1 $.25 plastic part is no longer in stock and is too obscure to continue to be mass-produced. Being a _customer_ (able to customize) is not the same as being a _consumer_ -- which is to have an uncritical relationship to the things you own. To consume is to use up, throw away, repeat. It is both a cause and an effect of alienation. Alienation causes an unmeetable need for creative expression or agency. And unmeetable needs cause addiction. And addiction causes reflexive consumption to try and fill that black hole of need with some temporary stuffing.
We don't need to artificially redistribute wealth in order to turn the revolutionary crank on Capitalism. I would argue that Capitalism is just one consequence of Industrialism, or the paradigm of mass-production and mass-consumption as a way of life. And it is the domination of the specialized, but stupid, mechanical machine tool that implies mass-production. Instead of artificially redistributing wealth, the paradigm shift from an industrial to a postindustrial culture will happen when we develop and distribute the technologies of personal automation or desktop computer controlled fabrication.
@@joelavcoco That reminds me of an old excavator Johnny Eye. he was the best excavator in five counties around here west of Chicago. darn good shot too. Well those other fellas they couldn't lay their eyes across the land and see how the waters going to fall but ol Johnny Eye could. Now that was back in the day, 60's i suppose. a lot of homes being built around here back then. Large areas sq. miles had to be layed out. Get those other excavators a back hoe and have them dig holes. Johnny Eye's laying out the whole show, son. Now that was before gps, and lasers. They used sight levels and there gut, put the old hawk eye on that, tiger. Maybe a good reason some areas flood, as he was a drinking man too. I mean you can't drink and excavate these days and this all happened 30 miles west of Chicago. All these new machines are GPS, topography and all that. I'm talking about shaping the earth here, bro. the way I see it these computer guys are feverishly working to programs that program, codes that code, when that happens. look out son.
go dig up your own oil bro
Steam powered, hickory
Paying less than their worth is exploitation and separation of the product from themselves is alienation.
Preach it, my sister
She aint preaching. She's presenting. Republicans preach, for a system that's so outdated (that they conveniently are benefitting from) that it's beginning to look kind of absurd.
Thinks
you confuse me sometimes, when you go from thats not how it works to, marx says. Are we analyzing how things are or the thoughts of an individual about said things?
The videos in this playlist are meant to introduce the views of various thinkers, so they represent their views of said things
I like this one.
Gosh, you're good. Much of this follows my own developing perceptions as I've gone through life, and so it had me feeling that I've become a Marxist without ever reading a word of Marx. (Fortunately I dislike labels so I would never declare myself to be an anything-ist, but my thinking is definitely along these lines.) Ah, but then you got to the last part and that was new. I've always struggled with the flaws in Communism -despite realising its innate virtue and ultimate superiority to capitalism - and now you tell me that I'm considering the crude version here, and it will develop to a better version. Thank you. Thinking on.
8:30 To say that alienation is psychological requires clarity; for Marx, estrangement exists concretely, not merely in consciousness. It means hunger. Rather, the “psychological pain for the proletariat (the worker)” is the symptom of alienated labor.
The danger of not clarifying the claim is that the bourgeois (the non-worker) may recognize alienation of the worker, but will try to resolve alienation only by “de-alienating” consciousness. That’s why these mental health seminars in workplace during the pandemic were eventually a band aid cope (because it is reformist in orientation); it only changes the ‘mindset’ of the worker, that their alienation is only an ill mindset.
This is precisely what Marx talked about religion as the opium of the masses; the point is to abolish the material conditions that led to such consciousness. Thus, if the solution to alienated labor is the forced overthrow of capitalism (i.e. an armed revolution) here is where we see not merely the contradiction, but the antagonistic contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
But, without alienation, the workers would have to take the vases home. Is it what they want? Can they sell them by themselves of use them for themselves?
Not bad, but needs improvement, especially in its discussion of surplus value. She didn't exactly say that the capitalist puts a price on the commodity above what has been spent to produce it, but there was a sense of that. That concept of profit originally was put forward by Sir James Stewart and formally known as "Profit Upon Alienation," and Marx refers to this as constituting the mindset of vulgar economist. Contrast this concept with idea that in the production of commodities, the value of labor consists of paid and unpaid portions. The paid portion is the wage. The unpaid portions is the surplus portion of the value beyond the paid portion. E,G. The worker receives the wage which is equivalent to 4 hours of work, but the working day is actually 8 hours. In this case the productivity of labor is 100%. The surplus S makes up the profit of the capitalist plus the rent (e.g. of land) plus the interest. The total value of the product equals the constant capital plus the wage plus the surplus value, and this value is treated as the price of the product. So that in a larger sense, when the total price(value) of one year, what we know as GDP, grows by say 5%, it means the total value of goods and services grew by 5%. After adjusting for inflation, that is. Anyway, I hope this makes the topic about surplus value clearer. But generally this video is much needed so that those who want to change the world for the better are better equipped knowledge wise. This is what Marx means by revolutionary practice. Thanks for reading.
Wonderful explanation that's extremely relevant today particularly the part about workers being alienated from the product of their labor. I'm not a Marxian by any means, but he certainly makes some apt observations. Where I feel communism falls apart is in it's seeming disregard of human nature and individual desire. Capitalism embraces this and even glorifies it even at the cost of human decency. In the end, both systems produce centralized power structures that inevitably lead to those who most desire power attaining it. I don't see how any system that centralizes power can ever succeed in producing a healthy society in the long-term.
And one leads to abject poverty and misery wherever it's been tried and the other to a massive middle class with running water and heated homes (at least it used to before the leftists took over all the halls of power). Following Marxism has led to more human misery than can be clarified - and it still does.
Part 2/2
* Barter and abstract utility
However, value-equivalent exchange requires that the goods to be exchanged not only have to be useful in some way for the potential bartering partner. Rather, they must be judged to be of such usefulness that the bartering partners give them a value equivalent, i.e., something that is considered equivalent in value.
In the present, money is used as an equivalent of value.
Consequently, it is not a subjectively perceived “absolute” usefulness that is decisive for the exchange, but an abstract one, one that has such a strong effect that the good is exchanged and thus, according to Marx, becomes a commodity.
This abstract usefulness is quantified in the social and natural environment in value or monetary units and represented in the common value.
Whether the object is really useful for the person who bought it cannot be deduced from abstract usefulness. It simply means that the object appears useful enough to the buyer to buy it.
* Barter and not free disposal
But the abstract usefulness for an exchange can only be assigned to an object if it is not freely available. Consequently, an association must be formed for value-equivalent exchange to work. This can be private property, cooperative ownership or power of disposal over the object.
* Value formation in a formula?
Marx summed up the process of creating value in one formula. But he was wrong:
W = c + v + s.
W value per product of labour
c constant capital (proportionally per product: raw materials used, supplier products, premises, with Marx also machines, etc.)
v variable capital (proportional to each product: value of the labor force, with Marx only that of the human ones)
s the surplus value produced per product
Marx applies this formula to the production side of commodity society, since for him the market has no meaning for the formation of value.
This suggests that value is created or formed with the production of goods.
But this formula is correct neither for the production side nor for the market side of commodity society.
** The value formula on the production side
There is still no surplus value on the production side. Only a buyer on the market can pay that!
Even if an angel were to hand down an “surplus value” from heaven to the entrepreneur, that would not be surplus value. This money would only replace part of the costs.
The entrepreneur can only estimate a feasible surplus value on the basis of market observation. Since the surplus value is part of the value, there can only be one expected value on the production side, also because the surplus value is paid not on the cost but on the reimbursement of the cost.
The expected value is made visible to potential buyers by the asking price.
W|expected = c|cost factor, replacement expected + v|cost factor, replacement expected + s|expected.
** The value formula on the market side
On the market side, in turn, the surplus value is not paid directly on the production costs, but on their replacement.
In the case of work products, the value is therefore not formed on the basis of the production costs, but on the basis of the recognition of expenses (!).
However, it can neither be deduced from this that the expenses are always recognized with an surplus added value, nor that they have to be recognized in full and thus compensated.
This value formula can only be used to derive how value must be formed if production is to be continued, expanded and improved:
W|real = c|cost replacing + v|cost replacing + s|real.
* Communism:
The dream society without economic exchange - to each according to his needs.
Communism will certainly not be realized on earth.
According to current knowledge, a society without economic exchange only works with unlimited resources and unlimited usable energy, whereby everything can be used by everyone (possibly selflessly and considerately) without exchange.
This should only be possible if most of humanity can use the resources of space.
the way I think of surplus value is that it applies to both parties in a voluntary arrangement. The worker wants the money more than the time, so exchanging time for money provides a surplus. That is the basis of any voluntary transaction. If one party does not perceive surplus value then the transaction does not occur.
@@jacquesmalan5950
Absolutely correct! The surplus value is voluntary, but cannot be paid for separately. This decision is not made with production, but in the market.
An entrepreneur links the costs that he incurred with and for production (c + v) proportionally to the work product in the expectation that he will be reimbursed for them through the sale of the product. In addition, he adds surplus value to the costs because he wants to get more back from selling the product than the production and everything that goes with it cost him.
From this sum he calculates an expected value for the product.
A buyer on the market cannot see the costs or the expected surplus value of the entrepreneur, he only sees the total price. So it can happen that the buyer
a) reimburses the entire costs and pays the expected surplus value;
b) reimburses the entire cost but pays more or less than the originally expected surplus value - a different surplus value;
c) only reimburses the costs but does not pay any surplus value;
d) less than the cost replaced.
In a department store, a buyer can only decide whether to buy the product or not.
In a bazaar he can bargain and try to reduce the expected surplus value.
It is the buyer's subjective decision whether to buy the product with the expected surplus value (department store) or the changed surplus value (bazaar).
Only if the (initially only potential) buyer buys the product can the work expended on the product subsequently be qualified as socially useful and thus as value-creating. Only then can the socially necessary working time for the product as well as the additional working time, the so-called “unpaid working time”, be calculated retrospectively.
Only when the buyer completely replaces the costs and pays even more does it appear to the entrepreneur as if he had paid the workers (in Marx only the human ones) for only part of the working time and get paid the other part, the extra working time the buyer. For the entrepreneur, Marx referred to this part of the working time as “unpaid working time”. But it just wasn't paid by the entrepreneur.
Are you telling me Ellie that I have to get all the way to page 75 before I find out that wages don’t reflect commodity value? Dang!!!😮
The capacity of Marx of being able to see something so, so, so clear,in the 19th century that is still more present then ever, is fascinating. I thing humans beings had the chance to see in 2020 the enormuos quantity of miserable industries we have.
Excellent points. I'm not a fan of communism. But Marx was spot on in recognizing the inherent misery of working as a drone and being controlled by forces outside of yourself.
@@barb2793 Absolutelly
it is important to note that marx isn't really about feelings or sense impressions, in your alienation example you said that making a vase "feels good" as a creative active being but alienation goes deeper than making you feel a certain way, it physically separates you from the fruits of your labor, hence economic inequality.
Chomsky has a better explanation of this:
th-cam.com/video/JmbLXl-mlL4/w-d-xo.html
which is only important in the emotional level.
The robots for instance also get physically separated from the fruits of their labor (physical work). yet it doesn't bother their logical circuits or mechanical structures.
Marx was a romantic poet at the first place...
Fantastic video. In a sense, perhap you could say that for Marx, the exploitation happens when the Hegalian spirit is alienated in the process of comodification. Or, put another way, it's not that Hegalian spirit doesn't exist, rather it's been negated during the material dialiectic. Maybe.
The three forms of value in Marx's thinking are exchange value, use value and VALUE. Use-value = the usefulness of a thing. Exchange-value = an object representing value. When I exchange my 20 yds of linen for a coat, the coat itself represents the value of the linen (and vice versa). The coat itself, in its materiality, IS the exchange value of the 20 yds of linen. Money is the primary form of exchange-value. Value = the INHERENT value of the thing. The value that is IN the commodity itself - "dead labour". The value of the commodity is determined in production according to the socially necessary labour time necessary for its production.
Surplus value is a technical concept, describing the amount of VALUE that the capitalist accumulates through exploiting living labour in the production process.
This. This comment should be upped. The explanation of value in the video seems pretty "vulgar", to use Marxian terms. It might be on purpose, in order to explain it in more familiar concepts, but none the less - you can't have a proper grasp of his political economy without properly understanding what VALUE represents in it.
Sorry, it sticks out so much, despite concentrating hard on the professor. Can't ignore it.
@@frankrockefeller3038 Oh, I just saw this comment.
"Socially necessary labor is a vague, unscientific notion...[...]"
I disagree. It's pretty well defined in Capital; "The labour time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time."
Doesn't strike me as particularly vague or "unscientific". Could it be measured? I'm not absolutely confident it could. Does that mean it is "unscientific"? Not necessarily. Many concepts within the social sciences are like this, abstract, difficult to grasp fully and hard to measure.But the concept of SNLT is no more "unscientific" than the concept of marginal utility for example.
"It was replaced with the marginal productivity theory."
Replaced? Marx's theory was NEVER the ruling ideology within classical economics. Of course, it can't be, since it's pointing towards the inherent instability and inhumanity of the capitalist mode of production.
"It is why a janitor in the USA earns more than a janitor in India - as a result of the greater general productivity and capital investment under US capitalism."
According to Marx's theory, the wage is not directly related to productivity, instead the wage flows from the value of labour power - the cost for the worker to reproduce as worker.
@@frankrockefeller3038 Sure. Here's a couple of things. Marx theory of the values of commodities isn't a straight up theory of price. Value is NOT price, not i Marx's theory. Value UNDERLIES price, but it is not the same thing. The price of the thing is determined by lots of things, supply and demand for example, the value is determined by the amount of (abstract) (socially necessary) labour that's necessary to produce the commodity.
" [...] exchange occurs when you value the coat more than the linen [...]"
I could retort that that's pretty "vague" and "unscientific". It's a theoretical assumption. Noone in real life is putting commodities against one anothter in free barter or running around considering "utils". That's just not what is going on in reality.
I don't believe we'll get much further than this. In the end, the theory coherently describes certain aspects of reality or it doesn't.
Nothing in economics is particularly scientific in the true sense of the word. However, it can at least be more or less logically consistent. Marginalists throwing numbers left and right and trying to comically formula-ize a social entity as if it's a physical phenomena are as scientific as manic e Sports game pad key pressers are athletic.
That being said, socially necessary labor was not replaced with the "marginal productivity theory", and it's not the reason why janitor in India earns less. The 2 concepts aren't even comparable. Marginal theory of value is the ("western") mainstream's darling for the last 100 years, but the reason for that is not "We proved the other thing wrong". Nor did the other thing go away.
Belief that "double coincidence of personal wants" explains how complex social systems work, can exist only if you personally want it to be true.
Marginal theory of value is next to just saying: "Value is that number that's written on the price tag. End of story."
Even the LTV as explained in this video is parsecs ahead of any MTV iteration.
You’d think I would have been smart enough with a philosophy degree not to believe for a second that software engineering would be satisfying in the end.
To me it's missing that the worker doesn't possess the tools of production, the very essence of his bridge to the creativity. Some ody else is the owner of his essence.
@@frankrockefeller3038 😂the ones are used once a year, and home depot killed local hardware stores, in Mexico they still resist and are cheaper than hd 😡
The fascinating realization that arises here is that what she is describing as crude and then refined communism is actually presently growing out of the western capitalist system. The technology that has arisen from the capitalist system is allowing the proletariat control over their own means of production.
This quote itself is crude and probably much different to what Lenin actually said but “we will hang the capitalists with the noose they sold us”