thanks for illuminating the key principles of this chapter. I find that in attempting to read the original text I get overwhelmed by the detail, and miss the forest for the trees.
The critical issue which drives crisis in the commodity is that over time more and more "dead" labor is in the commodity and this is an increasing proportion of that commodity: less and less live labor which is the origin of all value. One need close reading of the first chapter of Capital and consider reading the "Preface to the Critiqe of Politial Economy."
@Las Vegas Free Press I actually agree with the original commenter. I was genuinely trying to listen to the content, but his constant smacking/clicking noise is like a nail straight to my brain. I couldn’t fully appreciate the information for the format.
Nah. All you need to understand about capitalism comes natural to everyone. It's who's giving the orders. Who's the ultimate boss. Who's preventing you from getting the full value of your labour. Who's exploiting you. Who's oppressing you. Who's living off your back without raising a sweat.
No. The commodity is specific to capitalism. In socialism, we would have products of labor. Those products would have the same use values but wouldn't have a monetary value. In theory, those products would be distributed by the needs of the consumers
@@rdevil5330 You are right. But i don't think it's possible to have a socialist era before communism. If the revolution don't bring up a communist society in 2 years it has failed. Marx's words. In that sense even socialism need to destroy the commodity form or it will maintain the same problem's of capitalism like China does
@@jorgemachado5317 so production will be based on planning needs ? But how wolill we calculate the needs of people for different foods , i mean for exakple how much potatoes we need ?how much tomatoes we need ? What is thr basic measure we use to know the needs of every person for different kinds of needs ? Is there a video explain that or a book ?
@@georgesoap1733 "But how wolill we calculate the needs of people for different foods , i mean for exakple how much potatoes we need ?how much tomatoes we need ? " How we calculate now? This problem of calculation is a red harring. We cannot calculate these things in either capitalism or communism. The best we can do is manage our resources by region using supply and demand measure. We need to engage in the planing - not only a bureaucracy but ALL the working class. We will commit mistakes and learn from them. Even today most of the market is planned by big corps. There is no market laws operating in oligopolies, monopolies, monopsonies and oligopsonies. The only thing that changes is the SOCIAL FORM in which we plan, not the CONTENT of the social planing. "What is thr basic measure we use to know the needs of every person for different kinds of needs ? Is there a video explain that or a book ?" We can't possibly know this in capitalism either. We need to produce and demand in order to discover our needs and possibilities. That's not given. You are just supposing we will change the content of human life (which is a product of your lack of understanding about the critique Marx did). We will not change the content of human life. A communist society would change the social relations in it. The SOCIAL FORM would be the major change
Your ennunciation does not meld well with my ADD, and there aren't any real subtitles for this video. Just some feedback so your future videos may hopefully appeal to a wider audience
Why such a fetish with ancient communal living? Isn’t it romanticizing the past to say that everyone in communal societies had equal access to goods? Wasn’t there a social hierarchy? Isn’t it demonstrable that people at the top of the hierarchy had disproportionate access? The chief got first dibs or a lion’s share, or at least the cream of the crop?
Asking 4 A Friend its using the past communal societies as an example not really basing it on any sort of past society. During the time of marx there was no real examples of socialism or communism now, we have more of an idea of how communism works and how socialism works.
In order to be able to produce commodities ,serves had to be freed , form the land . The very essence of capitalism is wage laborer and commodity production. without landless masses, " proletariats "There couldn't bc capitalism..
To each according to their need. What determines need? He talked about briefly the distribution of commodities based on need. This might work based on known commodities but what of unknown products. Most products would fit under this unknown definition. I need bread because I'm hungry. We all must be given bread based on our need. But bread didn't always exist it was developed and crafted. So suggesting we need bread no longer makes sense. Ultimately our needs are limited to food, shelter, air, water and in only the most basic forms. Bread is a luxury and the need is for food. Because Marx pushes the concept of need it really doesn't apply to the vast majority of commodities. Under capitalism the market decides what is wanted or needed and people work to meet that demand. We don't rely on a government dictate to determine what our needs are. The simplicity of the free market beats the rationing of the communist one.
> _The simplicity of the free market_ > _free market_ There's no such thing. > _Under capitalism the market decides what is wanted or needed and people work to meet that demand._ Nope. People decide what is wanted or needed. The market then gives it to *people who can afford to buy it,* not to people who demand, want or need it. People work (in capitalist conditions) so that they can be among those who can afford to buy, not because of demand for what they make. Lots of people create worthless garbage for which demand needs to be artificially created. Bread is not luxury, it is merely a more efficient way of meeting the need for food.
Marx never said that the government should dictate what need is. He said that the government, money, and the class system aught to be destroyed. I don't agree with everything Marx said, nor do I understand all of it -- after all, I'm watching a Marxism 101 video. Even with my limited understanding however, I can tell that Marx didn't advocate for government control of people's lives. That's called State Capitalism and it's the system of present day China and of the USSR. It's not Communism.
@@georgepantzikis7988 There has never been a stateless socialist country that has lasted. So socialism usually involves the state controlling everything.
@@Ronni3no2 LOL. You really don't understand the market. Bread is a luxury. If the goal is just substance then pretty much anything edible could be substituted for bread. People are the market. The market demands are really the people's demands. People have to work in any system and the goal is anyways the same. They work in order to survive. At least under capitalism their labor can receive the greatest rewards. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system.
@@SociallyTriggered As far as I can tell the only Socialist country to ever exist has been Cuba; and, despite the embargo, they're still around. As for Communism (the point of socialism) it has never existed in human history, so we can't make statements about whether or not it "really" works.
I may be mistaken but it appears to me that this interpretation of value contradicts itself. This is because, on the one hand, it is claimed that value is a socially constructed property of commodities, yet is, at the same time, a property which can be analysed in terms of the commodity itself. If it is socially imposed then we cannot look for its justification in any of the inherent properties of the commodity; we can only look at the society. This lack of logical continuity causes problems with Marx's model. The example of land that the speaker presents is a very good one: if land has no labour put into it how can it then be valuable? The answer he gave did not, in the least, satisfy me. This is not because it is untrue, but because it goes against the Marxist model. This is because, if scarcity of land in the market is what gives it it's value, then why would you assume that a different mechanism is at play for all the other cases? Also, the fact that he calls these other cases "fringe" is quite telling: just because something isn't commonly traded among a general populace, doesn't mean that it is a fringe case. It means that it serves a purpose that isn't usually required or facilitated for. In summary, it appears to me, that it's not the labour that gives something it's value. It is the amount of Will that people exert towards it. This Will can be private (what an individual wants) or public (the average of all the private Wills) but, in both cases, the value is determined purely by the society while the commodity itself has none of it.
> _This is because, on the one hand, it is claimed that value is a socially constructed property of commodities, yet is, at the same time, a property which can be analysed in terms of the commodity itself._ One is _exchange,_ the other is _use._ As for things that have no labour put into them being sold, their usefulness has nothing to do with utility and market principles, but with the force of hierarchichal institutions (such as the state, church etc). You can only sell land if you have the EXCLUSIVE right to it, and exclusive means everyone else who tried to use it would get hurt. You can certainly create a market of worthless pieces of paper that say _"The state won't hurt me if I do X",_ but that's not an argument against Marx. Marx deals with freely reproducible and tradable commodities. The value is indeed determined by society, but it is determined by deciding how much labour will be dedicated to the production of the good (which is a concrete thing, measurable in principle) and not by some sort of agregate of individual whims.
@@Ronni3no2 I see your point but would like further clarification on one point; that is, if Marx has addressed, to your knowledge, such an example. The example is that of something being valued purely due to its scarcity (a rare stamp for example) with the labour gone into it being rendered insignificant. Furthermore, this hypothetical stamp (if I continue the analogy) has value only to those individuals who are interested in stamp collecting, while for most of society it holds no more value than any other piece of paper. The point being that the *socially required time of production* remains the same within a single commodity while the same society by which the *socially required time of production* was determined doesn't have a clear unanimous consensus among its members about the value of said commodity (I know stamps may not be, in the strict sense of the word, commodities, but this may be applied to anything that is collected: from clothes to video games). Does Marx provide an explanation to this phenomenon, and if not, could you as - I presume - a follower of Marx?
@@georgepantzikis7988 I'm not a "follower", I just think Marx had very good ideas and explained some things about the capitalist mode of production pretty well. What you ask is kind of impossible without introducing anti-market elements. If a stamp is unique, cost 1 cent to make, lots of collectors want it and would pay $100 for it, why is there only one? There's no reason why I couldn't take the same paper and ink and print a thousand more... unless the state comes in and threatens to put me in jail for forgery or fraud. This again introduces "how much do you value not being in prison" into the equation so it's the state (i.e. the class that controls it) that is deciding that the price will be high, not "society". This is how things like patents, trademarks, copyright and IP work. Without this obstruction, there would be a consensus: it's just some cheap paper and some cheap ink put together. An even better example would be dollar bills - they are cheap to make. Society didn't decide that a dollar bill is worth $1. The state did that and you go to prison if you try to enter the dollar market as a supplier and take advantage of the inflated prices. :) If this weren't the case, a consensus would be reached very quickly. If it is something that cannot be replicated, such as a Leonardo painting then it's simply monopoly pricing and sky's the limit. However, the same can be said of the labour required to reproduce it (you could even say it's infinite). "Socially required time of production" isn't the time that went into it, it's the average time it takes to make another one (and if you cannot make another one, be it because of force of state or force of nature, the concept breaks down).
@@Ronni3no2 Could you not, by that logic then, come to the conclusion that the manufacturing potential is much higher than we are currently producing, since a class is limiting production ability, and would thus conclude that capitalism is, in a way, eating at its own foundations? Because extrapolating the trend of being unable to produce at your maximum would require, by definition, the accumulation of the left over "potential" (I don't know how else to put it) by those placing the restriction. So, the system would get less and less efficient until, I guess, it collapses under its own weight.
@@georgepantzikis7988 Indeed, the potential is much greater, but there are other contributing factors. In a system such as ours, the state is often the only meaningful way to fight back (and it may or may not be "productive"). And it isn't just bans on productive activities, there's also activity producing useless garbage; e.g. marketing is a billion dollar industry of often very smart and talented people working whole day on something that doesn't need to exist. Making and using bombs also isn't particularly creative. But it isn't the lower productivity compared to what could be that leads to the crash, it's lower profits. Capitalists must compete with each other to remain in the market and each one is trying to get an edge over the others. The way they achieve this harms workers - longer hours, worse conditions, no benefits, employing illegals, moving to a country with virtually no regulations etc. Another big one is paying people to invent better technology that will replace a large number of workers. In the short term, it gives a big advantage to the capitalist until his competitors catch up, but it hurts the workers who are fired (and in the long term, we benefit from having cheap microwave ovens). Other than the unemployment it causes, the consequences are concentration of capital, fewer players in the market, and lower returns on investment (which the capitalist might decide to compensate by squeezing the workers further). The contradiction of capitalism is that the only people who produce value (labourers) are also the people to whom you must sell back what they produced. To beat competition, you want to do this at a highest possible price and you also want to give the employees the lowest possible wage. This idea has some obvious problems, which is why the whole system crashes regularly and needs the state to come bail it out. This cannot go on forever. People have a tendency to respond to certain things being done to them.
"How can something become less valuable but be just as useful?" The answer is: because on average throughout the whole world, the efficiency of production has gone up! In one industry with one product becoming able to be produced with half as much labour and then introduced to the economy will have the effect of of making every other object 0.000001% less valuable in order to compensate! Less valuable in order to compensate for the new lower price per square meter but only in relation, but the fact is that u have created value and so in fact everything on earth becomes 0.000001 more value and thus utility!
@@eyedentity1849 He clearly has a minimal (at best) understanding of what mainstream econ can and cannot explain. The distinction between use and exchange value is basically that between subjective value and price. Any talk about the amount of "labor" that is "congealed" within any good is either metaphor or metaphysics, but certainly not science. Marx had some deep an important insights... but his overall economic framework was thoroughly refuted by Bohm Bawerk in the 1870's. (This is why he couldn't figure out how to finish the last 2 volumes of Das Kapital.)
Jeff G well I could disagree with you there because without labor nothing would get done. Supply and demand is way how that labor can be distributed however the underlining fact is that labor still forms the value of most things to an extent.
@@contracorpse2017 You've got things exactly backward: We don't like and value goods because we work to produce them. Rather, we work to produce goods because we value them. This is precisely why the labor theory is wrong. Nobody denies the importance of labor: but it is a means rather than an end in itself. In a world where goods and labor are merely reproduced in the exact same quality and quantity - the labor theory would approximate that of marginalism in terms of describing the distribution of labor and wages.... But in a world of uncertainty and innovation, it simply fails.
@@macgarnicle Yeah but the final aspect of the labour theory is a plan or a community plan sure we still value those things but the value is determined by the needs and the value of the community. thats why economic planning and the labour theory of value work so well with each other. While the value of you work is determined by supply an demand in capitalist system in a communist the value of your work would be determined by how necessary it is to the community. Obviously within the confines of a capitalist frame work the labour theory of value doesn't work, but within a socialist setting it does. i can go in extensive detail covering how all this would work but thats left up to you to decide if you even want to hear it.
Economic gobbledygook. Say I get a Potter to produce a bunch of pots then hire someone to smash them to dust. Under Marx the social value of the dust is higher than the intact pots. He confused commodities with products and values with costs.
This is essentially the Mud Pie fallacy, which is just a problem of equivocation. The point is to find the equilibrium value of a standardized commodity being produced, in which relative differences in Socially Neccesary Labour Time can be measured. This is only one of the different forms of "value" Marx analyzes, in a wider view of the motion of capital and its dynamics. He simply has a broader view of what "value" is. Neo-classical and similar perspectives on economics Exchange Value is the chief focus in Supply-Demand mechanisms simply because capital has no concern in investigating from where value emerges, merely how its exchange operates and how to best manipulate it for a variety of ends, therefore Exchange Value often is mistaken for simply being "value", a shorthand definition that is carried over when trying to understand Marx's completely contextual and layered set of terms. Marx doesn't deny this view of simple Exchange Value in Supply-Demand thought, but it's not helpful for what he's trying to analyze. Marx is looking at "value" through a perspective of equilibrium conditions, and trying to investigate how value exists with the removal of variables, not for the purposes of explaining Exchange Value, but for examining the roots of contradictions caused in the dynamics of capital between Exchange Value and other "unseen" forms of value and aspects of capitalist economy that lead to crises (think Boom-Bust cycle in simple terms) Hope this helps, This method of redefining contextually and questioning and structuring the use of terms is essential for essentially any deep work.
@@a.e.m.1452 Can you give me a concrete example of this in operation. For instance how would he ascribe value to a car? Although my example is obviously hyperbole, the point remains. In an attempted exchange of goods and services something that is inherently unwanted has less value than it's constituent parts. Does Marx ever actually define what his version of a "commodity" is? Honestly, he was never trained in economics and I seriously doubt he actually knew what a commodity is.
@@Travis-wn1xc Exactly what mechanisms show that smashing the pots is not socially useful? What is the mechanism that tells the makers to supply the pots unsmashed? Sure there was social value in the pottery up until it was smashed? Why should it still not be socially valuable just because it is destroyed? What does this tell us about the value of social value as a method of determining real value?
@@RobWickline I'll take a subprime mortgage collapse over a Holodomor 10/10 times, thank you very much. Have fun whining about capitalism on your phone made by cheap Chinese labor on an app developed by the largest internet software conglomerate in the world. Lmfao
One of the biggest weak points of the implementation of Marx's ideas came about in the form of centrally planned societies versus the market based ones . Politburos of central planners wasted huge amounts of resources trying to figure what should and shouldn't be produced. The mechanism of price it turns out carries huge amounts of information from one actor in a market to another thereby eliminating waste and over or underproduction in a way central planning couldn't. Much more efficient and need satisfying goods and services for all trough the market with dozens or hundreds or even thousands of participants involved in a commodity than by a small contingent of supposedly more knowledgeable overseeing bodies. In the Soviet Union huge amounts of one thing would be overproduced while others would be well underproduced. This lead to scarcity and ultimately starvation . Always will too. The followers of Marx today are either ignorant of this or just zealot almost religious like devotees of a system that will always lead to chaos. Can see the Epicurean influence in Marx's thinking here.
What if we were able to automate the central planning process via computers, would that potentially mitigate that problem found in soviet-style centrally planned economies?
Already all corporations and monopolies are guided by the plan. The days of Adam Smith are long gone. Only stupid believe in "nevidimyy hand of the market", but for some reason don't see 6 Navy , podderzhivaya it ).
What about some of the fundamental criticisms of capitalism that Marx gave, too? They are absolutely correct; Capitalism is an incredibly inefficient system for happiness
@@oopster889 In relation to feudalism, capitalism was progressive. There was a historical need. Since then, capitalist production and its contradictions (such as social production and private-capitalist appropriation) are already in a reactionary stage, let's pay dearly to progressive - communism.
no, full communism has a different mode of production and technology form primitive communism. Primitive communism is to state that humans are naturally cooperative and capitalism is against human nature.
PrimoMagazine We needed class to get to industrial technology. After that point it becomes a liability. Now all the bourgeoisie do is hang out with Jeffery Epstein, and buy magic healing crystals. Workplace democracy makes companies more efficient. Just look at Germany. The bourgeoisie aren’t producing any more. They are clinging to power.
@@wearealreadydeadfam8214 What was Marx's greatest flaw? Drum roll...He never worked those jobs he so hated. I have. And, yes, I hated them. But others did not. If Marx got his hands dirty and worked in a book binding plant and metal pipe factory as I did (to help pay for college), he would have realized that more than half the people liked those jobs. It might not be for you and me or Marx.... But for others, it was great. All they had to do were mundane tasks that paid for their homes, cars, food and clothing for their kids. No meetings. No lengthy reports. No office politics. No 8 years of college or grad school. Just lift levers, assemble the parts. Arrive at 9 and leave at 5. Two coffee breaks and a lunch.
PrimoMagazine One of the cornerstones of Marxism is Alienation. He believed work is what makes us human. He called labor our species essence. The entire reason he believed a Communist mode of production was possible, is because humans evolved to work together. We are a social species. Capitalist pretend humans are like pirañas. We love working. We hate being exploited. We hate dip shit bosses. Not working. And I agree with that concept. It’s not utopian. We would all benefit from a building a decent society. Society is shit now for the benefit of the few. Capitalist ideology beats it into our brains that we are too stupid to work together. We can only understand instant gratification. Nonsense. My granddad spent his life savings raising cattle that weren’t profitable. Because he saw him self in those cattle. I have done both manual labor. And college. Writing papers is work. Writing Das Kapital took a lot of work. Even if you disagree with it. Saying Marx didn’t work is silly.
PrimoMagazine Dude there are office politics at any job. Worker’s co-ops are more efficient. And less political. Kissing the boss’s ass isn’t as effective. Our whole economy is based around ass kissing. Of course our government works the same way.
thanks for illuminating the key principles of this chapter. I find that in attempting to read the original text I get overwhelmed by the detail, and miss the forest for the trees.
listen at 75% speed, its much better
Good tip.
Thank you for the clear explanation.
this guy needs a glass of water
he needs to calm the fuck down
They covered about 1,000 pages of theory in maybe three hours. It's highly condensed but still an excellent primer I think
The critical issue which drives crisis in the commodity is that over time more and more "dead" labor is in the commodity and this is an increasing proportion of that commodity: less and less live labor which is the origin of all value. One need close reading of the first chapter of Capital and consider reading the "Preface to the Critiqe of Politial Economy."
Amazing 👏👏👏
I can't watch this because of that annoying thing you do with your mouth it's driving me insane.
OMG it's obnoxious
@@dominic5472 OMG you are
@Las Vegas Free Press I actually agree with the original commenter. I was genuinely trying to listen to the content, but his constant smacking/clicking noise is like a nail straight to my brain. I couldn’t fully appreciate the information for the format.
Why he is so fast?
he's nervous
Thanks you
Nah. All you need to understand about capitalism comes natural to everyone. It's who's giving the orders. Who's the ultimate boss. Who's preventing you from getting the full value of your labour. Who's exploiting you. Who's oppressing you. Who's living off your back without raising a sweat.
There are no "ratios" in commodity prices.
Why is he speaking so fast?
you can enable subtitles
@@KrishnaSharma-ii9vo thanks
Krishna Sharma how’s that?
@@seenaaalbaaj1188 how's what?
.75 speed
In socialism, will commodities exist?
No. The commodity is specific to capitalism. In socialism, we would have products of labor. Those products would have the same use values but wouldn't have a monetary value. In theory, those products would be distributed by the needs of the consumers
@@jorgemachado5317 that's the higher stage of Communism
@@rdevil5330 You are right. But i don't think it's possible to have a socialist era before communism. If the revolution don't bring up a communist society in 2 years it has failed. Marx's words. In that sense even socialism need to destroy the commodity form or it will maintain the same problem's of capitalism like China does
@@jorgemachado5317 so production will be based on planning needs ?
But how wolill we calculate the needs of people for different foods , i mean for exakple how much potatoes we need ?how much tomatoes we need ?
What is thr basic measure we use to know the needs of every person for different kinds of needs ?
Is there a video explain that or a book ?
@@georgesoap1733 "But how wolill we calculate the needs of people for different foods , i mean for exakple how much potatoes we need ?how much tomatoes we need ? "
How we calculate now? This problem of calculation is a red harring. We cannot calculate these things in either capitalism or communism. The best we can do is manage our resources by region using supply and demand measure. We need to engage in the planing - not only a bureaucracy but ALL the working class. We will commit mistakes and learn from them. Even today most of the market is planned by big corps. There is no market laws operating in oligopolies, monopolies, monopsonies and oligopsonies. The only thing that changes is the SOCIAL FORM in which we plan, not the CONTENT of the social planing.
"What is thr basic measure we use to know the needs of every person for different kinds of needs ?
Is there a video explain that or a book ?"
We can't possibly know this in capitalism either. We need to produce and demand in order to discover our needs and possibilities. That's not given. You are just supposing we will change the content of human life (which is a product of your lack of understanding about the critique Marx did). We will not change the content of human life. A communist society would change the social relations in it. The SOCIAL FORM would be the major change
stop smacking with your lips, after every sentence
there are other channels that explain Capital way better than this obnoxious soyboy
Its awful.
He speaks too fast
he's nervous
Play it at 75% speed
Your ennunciation does not meld well with my ADD, and there aren't any real subtitles for this video. Just some feedback so your future videos may hopefully appeal to a wider audience
what does this even mean , he is speaking in the og english accent xD
Why such a fetish with ancient communal living? Isn’t it romanticizing the past to say that everyone in communal societies had equal access to goods? Wasn’t there a social hierarchy? Isn’t it demonstrable that people at the top of the hierarchy had disproportionate access? The chief got first dibs or a lion’s share, or at least the cream of the crop?
Asking 4 A Friend its using the past communal societies as an example not really basing it on any sort of past society. During the time of marx there was no real examples of socialism or communism now, we have more of an idea of how communism works and how socialism works.
In order to be able to produce commodities ,serves had to be freed , form the land . The very essence of capitalism is wage laborer and commodity production. without landless masses, " proletariats "There couldn't bc capitalism..
To each according to their need. What determines need? He talked about briefly the distribution of commodities based on need. This might work based on known commodities but what of unknown products. Most products would fit under this unknown definition. I need bread because I'm hungry. We all must be given bread based on our need. But bread didn't always exist it was developed and crafted. So suggesting we need bread no longer makes sense. Ultimately our needs are limited to food, shelter, air, water and in only the most basic forms. Bread is a luxury and the need is for food. Because Marx pushes the concept of need it really doesn't apply to the vast majority of commodities. Under capitalism the market decides what is wanted or needed and people work to meet that demand. We don't rely on a government dictate to determine what our needs are. The simplicity of the free market beats the rationing of the communist one.
> _The simplicity of the free market_
> _free market_
There's no such thing.
> _Under capitalism the market decides what is wanted or needed and people work to meet that demand._
Nope. People decide what is wanted or needed. The market then gives it to *people who can afford to buy it,* not to people who demand, want or need it. People work (in capitalist conditions) so that they can be among those who can afford to buy, not because of demand for what they make. Lots of people create worthless garbage for which demand needs to be artificially created.
Bread is not luxury, it is merely a more efficient way of meeting the need for food.
Marx never said that the government should dictate what need is. He said that the government, money, and the class system aught to be destroyed. I don't agree with everything Marx said, nor do I understand all of it -- after all, I'm watching a Marxism 101 video. Even with my limited understanding however, I can tell that Marx didn't advocate for government control of people's lives. That's called State Capitalism and it's the system of present day China and of the USSR. It's not Communism.
@@georgepantzikis7988 There has never been a stateless socialist country that has lasted. So socialism usually involves the state controlling everything.
@@Ronni3no2 LOL. You really don't understand the market. Bread is a luxury. If the goal is just substance then pretty much anything edible could be substituted for bread. People are the market. The market demands are really the people's demands.
People have to work in any system and the goal is anyways the same. They work in order to survive. At least under capitalism their labor can receive the greatest rewards. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system.
@@SociallyTriggered As far as I can tell the only Socialist country to ever exist has been Cuba; and, despite the embargo, they're still around. As for Communism (the point of socialism) it has never existed in human history, so we can't make statements about whether or not it "really" works.
I may be mistaken but it appears to me that this interpretation of value contradicts itself. This is because, on the one hand, it is claimed that value is a socially constructed property of commodities, yet is, at the same time, a property which can be analysed in terms of the commodity itself. If it is socially imposed then we cannot look for its justification in any of the inherent properties of the commodity; we can only look at the society. This lack of logical continuity causes problems with Marx's model. The example of land that the speaker presents is a very good one: if land has no labour put into it how can it then be valuable? The answer he gave did not, in the least, satisfy me. This is not because it is untrue, but because it goes against the Marxist model. This is because, if scarcity of land in the market is what gives it it's value, then why would you assume that a different mechanism is at play for all the other cases? Also, the fact that he calls these other cases "fringe" is quite telling: just because something isn't commonly traded among a general populace, doesn't mean that it is a fringe case. It means that it serves a purpose that isn't usually required or facilitated for.
In summary, it appears to me, that it's not the labour that gives something it's value. It is the amount of Will that people exert towards it. This Will can be private (what an individual wants) or public (the average of all the private Wills) but, in both cases, the value is determined purely by the society while the commodity itself has none of it.
> _This is because, on the one hand, it is claimed that value is a socially constructed property of commodities, yet is, at the same time, a property which can be analysed in terms of the commodity itself._
One is _exchange,_ the other is _use._ As for things that have no labour put into them being sold, their usefulness has nothing to do with utility and market principles, but with the force of hierarchichal institutions (such as the state, church etc). You can only sell land if you have the EXCLUSIVE right to it, and exclusive means everyone else who tried to use it would get hurt. You can certainly create a market of worthless pieces of paper that say _"The state won't hurt me if I do X",_ but that's not an argument against Marx. Marx deals with freely reproducible and tradable commodities.
The value is indeed determined by society, but it is determined by deciding how much labour will be dedicated to the production of the good (which is a concrete thing, measurable in principle) and not by some sort of agregate of individual whims.
@@Ronni3no2 I see your point but would like further clarification on one point; that is, if Marx has addressed, to your knowledge, such an example. The example is that of something being valued purely due to its scarcity (a rare stamp for example) with the labour gone into it being rendered insignificant. Furthermore, this hypothetical stamp (if I continue the analogy) has value only to those individuals who are interested in stamp collecting, while for most of society it holds no more value than any other piece of paper. The point being that the *socially required time of production* remains the same within a single commodity while the same society by which the *socially required time of production* was determined doesn't have a clear unanimous consensus among its members about the value of said commodity (I know stamps may not be, in the strict sense of the word, commodities, but this may be applied to anything that is collected: from clothes to video games).
Does Marx provide an explanation to this phenomenon, and if not, could you as - I presume - a follower of Marx?
@@georgepantzikis7988 I'm not a "follower", I just think Marx had very good ideas and explained some things about the capitalist mode of production pretty well.
What you ask is kind of impossible without introducing anti-market elements. If a stamp is unique, cost 1 cent to make, lots of collectors want it and would pay $100 for it, why is there only one? There's no reason why I couldn't take the same paper and ink and print a thousand more... unless the state comes in and threatens to put me in jail for forgery or fraud. This again introduces "how much do you value not being in prison" into the equation so it's the state (i.e. the class that controls it) that is deciding that the price will be high, not "society". This is how things like patents, trademarks, copyright and IP work. Without this obstruction, there would be a consensus: it's just some cheap paper and some cheap ink put together. An even better example would be dollar bills - they are cheap to make. Society didn't decide that a dollar bill is worth $1. The state did that and you go to prison if you try to enter the dollar market as a supplier and take advantage of the inflated prices. :) If this weren't the case, a consensus would be reached very quickly.
If it is something that cannot be replicated, such as a Leonardo painting then it's simply monopoly pricing and sky's the limit. However, the same can be said of the labour required to reproduce it (you could even say it's infinite). "Socially required time of production" isn't the time that went into it, it's the average time it takes to make another one (and if you cannot make another one, be it because of force of state or force of nature, the concept breaks down).
@@Ronni3no2 Could you not, by that logic then, come to the conclusion that the manufacturing potential is much higher than we are currently producing, since a class is limiting production ability, and would thus conclude that capitalism is, in a way, eating at its own foundations? Because extrapolating the trend of being unable to produce at your maximum would require, by definition, the accumulation of the left over "potential" (I don't know how else to put it) by those placing the restriction. So, the system would get less and less efficient until, I guess, it collapses under its own weight.
@@georgepantzikis7988 Indeed, the potential is much greater, but there are other contributing factors. In a system such as ours, the state is often the only meaningful way to fight back (and it may or may not be "productive"). And it isn't just bans on productive activities, there's also activity producing useless garbage; e.g. marketing is a billion dollar industry of often very smart and talented people working whole day on something that doesn't need to exist. Making and using bombs also isn't particularly creative.
But it isn't the lower productivity compared to what could be that leads to the crash, it's lower profits. Capitalists must compete with each other to remain in the market and each one is trying to get an edge over the others. The way they achieve this harms workers - longer hours, worse conditions, no benefits, employing illegals, moving to a country with virtually no regulations etc. Another big one is paying people to invent better technology that will replace a large number of workers. In the short term, it gives a big advantage to the capitalist until his competitors catch up, but it hurts the workers who are fired (and in the long term, we benefit from having cheap microwave ovens). Other than the unemployment it causes, the consequences are concentration of capital, fewer players in the market, and lower returns on investment (which the capitalist might decide to compensate by squeezing the workers further).
The contradiction of capitalism is that the only people who produce value (labourers) are also the people to whom you must sell back what they produced. To beat competition, you want to do this at a highest possible price and you also want to give the employees the lowest possible wage. This idea has some obvious problems, which is why the whole system crashes regularly and needs the state to come bail it out. This cannot go on forever. People have a tendency to respond to certain things being done to them.
Join the Epicurean anti-need movement
"How can something become less valuable but be just as useful?" The answer is: because on average throughout the whole world, the efficiency of production has gone up! In one industry with one product becoming able to be produced with half as much labour and then introduced to the economy will have the effect of of making every other object 0.000001% less valuable in order to compensate! Less valuable in order to compensate for the new lower price per square meter but only in relation, but the fact is that u have created value and so in fact everything on earth becomes 0.000001 more value and thus utility!
At 16:40 he lost all credibility.
how?
@@eyedentity1849 He clearly has a minimal (at best) understanding of what mainstream econ can and cannot explain. The distinction between use and exchange value is basically that between subjective value and price. Any talk about the amount of "labor" that is "congealed" within any good is either metaphor or metaphysics, but certainly not science.
Marx had some deep an important insights... but his overall economic framework was thoroughly refuted by Bohm Bawerk in the 1870's. (This is why he couldn't figure out how to finish the last 2 volumes of Das Kapital.)
Jeff G well I could disagree with you there because without labor nothing would get done. Supply and demand is way how that labor can be distributed however the underlining fact is that labor still forms the value of most things to an extent.
@@contracorpse2017 You've got things exactly backward: We don't like and value goods because we work to produce them. Rather, we work to produce goods because we value them. This is precisely why the labor theory is wrong. Nobody denies the importance of labor: but it is a means rather than an end in itself.
In a world where goods and labor are merely reproduced in the exact same quality and quantity - the labor theory would approximate that of marginalism in terms of describing the distribution of labor and wages.... But in a world of uncertainty and innovation, it simply fails.
@@macgarnicle Yeah but the final aspect of the labour theory is a plan or a community plan sure we still value those things but the value is determined by the needs and the value of the community. thats why economic planning and the labour theory of value work so well with each other. While the value of you work is determined by supply an demand in capitalist system in a communist the value of your work would be determined by how necessary it is to the community. Obviously within the confines of a capitalist frame work the labour theory of value doesn't work, but within a socialist setting it does.
i can go in extensive detail covering how all this would work but thats left up to you to decide if you even want to hear it.
I really wanted to hear what he had to say but I couldn't stand the lip smacking in between every sentence.
Why do left-wingers quote Karl Marx like he's left wing Jesus.😂
Stop the lip smacking, its revolting.
Economic gobbledygook.
Say I get a Potter to produce a bunch of pots then hire someone to smash them to dust.
Under Marx the social value of the dust is higher than the intact pots.
He confused commodities with products and values with costs.
smashing the pots is not socially useful labour
This is essentially the Mud Pie fallacy, which is just a problem of equivocation.
The point is to find the equilibrium value of a standardized commodity being produced, in which relative differences in Socially Neccesary Labour Time can be measured. This is only one of the different forms of "value" Marx analyzes, in a wider view of the motion of capital and its dynamics. He simply has a broader view of what "value" is.
Neo-classical and similar perspectives on economics Exchange Value is the chief focus in Supply-Demand mechanisms simply because capital has no concern in investigating from where value emerges, merely how its exchange operates and how to best manipulate it for a variety of ends, therefore Exchange Value often is mistaken for simply being "value", a shorthand definition that is carried over when trying to understand Marx's completely contextual and layered set of terms.
Marx doesn't deny this view of simple Exchange Value in Supply-Demand thought, but it's not helpful for what he's trying to analyze. Marx is looking at "value" through a perspective of equilibrium conditions, and trying to investigate how value exists with the removal of variables, not for the purposes of explaining Exchange Value, but for examining the roots of contradictions caused in the dynamics of capital between Exchange Value and other "unseen" forms of value and aspects of capitalist economy that lead to crises (think Boom-Bust cycle in simple terms)
Hope this helps,
This method of redefining contextually and questioning and structuring the use of terms is essential for essentially any deep work.
@@a.e.m.1452 Can you give me a concrete example of this in operation.
For instance how would he ascribe value to a car?
Although my example is obviously hyperbole, the point remains.
In an attempted exchange of goods and services something that is inherently unwanted has less value than it's constituent parts.
Does Marx ever actually define what his version of a "commodity" is?
Honestly, he was never trained in economics and I seriously doubt he actually knew what a commodity is.
@@Travis-wn1xc says who?
@@Travis-wn1xc Exactly what mechanisms show that smashing the pots is not socially useful?
What is the mechanism that tells the makers to supply the pots unsmashed?
Sure there was social value in the pottery up until it was smashed? Why should it still not be socially valuable just because it is destroyed?
What does this tell us about the value of social value as a method of determining real value?
23:47 Talking about economic crises causing widespread misery in a video promoting socialism. Do you even irony bro? 😂😂😂😂
do you even propaganda bro? you need to crack open a history book and pay attention to the world around you.
@@RobWickline I'll take a subprime mortgage collapse over a Holodomor 10/10 times, thank you very much. Have fun whining about capitalism on your phone made by cheap Chinese labor on an app developed by the largest internet software conglomerate in the world. Lmfao
One of the biggest weak points of the implementation of Marx's ideas came about in the form of centrally planned societies versus the market based ones . Politburos of central planners wasted huge amounts of resources trying to figure what should and shouldn't be produced. The mechanism of price it turns out carries huge amounts of information from one actor in a market to another thereby eliminating waste and over or underproduction in a way central planning couldn't. Much more efficient and need satisfying goods and services for all trough the market with dozens or hundreds or even thousands of participants involved in a commodity than by a small contingent of supposedly more knowledgeable overseeing bodies. In the Soviet Union huge amounts of one thing would be overproduced while others would be well underproduced. This lead to scarcity and ultimately starvation . Always will too. The followers of Marx today are either ignorant of this or just zealot almost religious like devotees of a system that will always lead to chaos. Can see the Epicurean influence in Marx's thinking here.
What if we were able to automate the central planning process via computers, would that potentially mitigate that problem found in soviet-style centrally planned economies?
Already all corporations and monopolies are guided by the plan. The days of Adam Smith are long gone.
Only stupid believe in "nevidimyy hand of the market", but for some reason don't see 6 Navy , podderzhivaya it ).
And in what year in the USSR there was a famine? what about Marx?
The famine was only in the USSR and only because of Marx?
You're dumb as a cork)
What about some of the fundamental criticisms of capitalism that Marx gave, too? They are absolutely correct; Capitalism is an incredibly inefficient system for happiness
@@oopster889 In relation to feudalism, capitalism was progressive. There was a historical need. Since then, capitalist production and its contradictions (such as social production and private-capitalist appropriation) are already in a reactionary stage, let's pay dearly to progressive - communism.
So, let me get this straight: We are supposed look to our future economic model in primitive tribes????
no, full communism has a different mode of production and technology form primitive communism. Primitive communism is to state that humans are naturally cooperative and capitalism is against human nature.
PrimoMagazine We needed class to get to industrial technology. After that point it becomes a liability. Now all the bourgeoisie do is hang out with Jeffery Epstein, and buy magic healing crystals. Workplace democracy makes companies more efficient. Just look at Germany. The bourgeoisie aren’t producing any more. They are clinging to power.
@@wearealreadydeadfam8214 What was Marx's greatest flaw? Drum roll...He never worked those jobs he so hated. I have. And, yes, I hated them. But others did not. If Marx got his hands dirty and worked in a book binding plant and metal pipe factory as I did (to help pay for college), he would have realized that more than half the people liked those jobs. It might not be for you and me or Marx.... But for others, it was great. All they had to do were mundane tasks that paid for their homes, cars, food and clothing for their kids. No meetings. No lengthy reports. No office politics. No 8 years of college or grad school. Just lift levers, assemble the parts. Arrive at 9 and leave at 5. Two coffee breaks and a lunch.
PrimoMagazine One of the cornerstones of Marxism is Alienation. He believed work is what makes us human. He called labor our species essence. The entire reason he believed a Communist mode of production was possible, is because humans evolved to work together. We are a social species. Capitalist pretend humans are like pirañas. We love working. We hate being exploited. We hate dip shit bosses. Not working. And I agree with that concept. It’s not utopian. We would all benefit from a building a decent society. Society is shit now for the benefit of the few. Capitalist ideology beats it into our brains that we are too stupid to work together. We can only understand instant gratification. Nonsense. My granddad spent his life savings raising cattle that weren’t profitable. Because he saw him self in those cattle. I have done both manual labor. And college. Writing papers is work. Writing Das Kapital took a lot of work. Even if you disagree with it. Saying Marx didn’t work is silly.
PrimoMagazine Dude there are office politics at any job. Worker’s co-ops are more efficient. And less political. Kissing the boss’s ass isn’t as effective. Our whole economy is based around ass kissing. Of course our government works the same way.
The labor theory of value is simply wrong. Any source of energy can create value. Machines create value.
Talking too fast.