He wants to finish Obummers plan of taking all our guns stickin us in FEMA CAMPS and mandatory abortions for whites! /s so fuckin' sad that.. poes law...
The formatting is great. Digestible information with an even simpler recap at the end. This is very helpful. Excited for more! On a side note, what do you mean by "abolishing the commodity form?" thx
Thanks! This means abolishing Exchange Value (Private Property), and instead producing entirely for Use (Personal Property). No more producing for profit, just producing what people need and want for our own personal consumption
@@Marxism_Today Would that be something like community run multipurpose factories that produce goods that have no planned obsolescence? I mean cause without it "market" saturation would be reached pretty quickly and one factory would need to be able to produce a wide variety of small amounts of goods.
@@50733Blabla1337 Whatever factories exist within any community would produce items of use for society. That is why the means of production and distribution are owned socially by society as a whole. How that would work requires a central planning authority of production and distribution. Professor Paul Cockshott goes into detail on how that would work democratically without markets. Here is his video called "Communist Democratic Planning": th-cam.com/video/_jpuHM_k9CU/w-d-xo.html
@@Marxism_Today Literally all consensual exchanges are for gain/profit. Farmer Brown wouldn't exchange whatever amount of oats he exchanges for farrying services from farrier Smith unless he thought the farrying services were worth more than the oats he gave up, and the farrier wouldn't spend his time farrying Brown's horses unless he'd rather have the oats than the time he spent on Brown's horses, and that's self-evidently true by virtue of the fact that the exchange happened and was consensual. You don't even have to have currency involved in the calculus, which, by the way, is nothing more than a _medium_ of exchange, and not the actual end goal of an exchange. People don't sell things _just_ to sell them, or _just_ to literally horde money, but to use that money to buy goods and services.
Gotta take the little one for a check up when this premieres, but ya know I'm catching it on the replay! This is one of the first things I come up against when talking about socialism to someone who's been fed so much propoganda against it..."sure socialism....but I like stuff.." So frustrating! But, easily debunked at least!
Bro I swear my English teacher does not know what communism is. This is what she put: "society characterized by irrationality, collectivism and extreme socialism where the individual does not exist"
I'm not a communist, but this video is explaining how communists understand property and exchange 1000% better than any other resource I've seen. Thanks!
@@biouyb5828 I am imagining a mass of people lining up to red square in Moscow, and ten people at time vigorously shake their head against a 10 meter long toothbrush.... Lol
Question: What eventually happens to the individuals who have to continue to make said toothbrushes as they are worn out, or the people who have to still maintain the mechanisms behind the automation that produces the toothbrushes? How are they nessisarily compensated the system (since every individual could want something different for the results of their labor besides state provided necessities)?
Almost. There's definitely an overlap there, but it's not just about subsistence or necessities. Personal Property = That which we acquire to consume Private Property = That which we acquire to make profit E.g., the house I buy to live in is personal property, but that same house if bought by a capitalist who intends to renovate it and flip it for a higher price then it's private property. Of course, there are a lot more questions we can ask leading on from this question (e.g. "What if I buy a house, live in it for 20 years, then sell it to move somewhere else? Is this personal property or private property?"), which requires us to move beyond the basic analysis of personal and private property and start looking at Use-Value and Exchange-Value and how each commodity produced under capitalism has both qualities, and how this manifests depends more on how we relate to these items than anything else. Anyway, we could dive into that, but this rabbit hole runs deep lol If you'd like to learn more about this, the first three chapters of Capital go into it in more detail: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
@@Marxism_Today So if Destiny buys a house where he uses the living room for streaming (make profit) and the bedroom to bang Melina ("consume" lol), is the house simultaneously personal and private property? Has Destiny somehow bought Schroedinger's House?
If you found this useful, consider supporting the continuation of this series on Patreon: www.patreon.com/paulm_yt or a once-off donation on Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/paulm_yt
I just got an ad for this video from a property developer talking about how they made a few million quid on a housing development. It really helped your distinction between personal and private property sink in lmaooo
absolutely class. i consider myself a fairly seasoned tankie, but this clear delineation of personal/private has been missing in my life thank you comrade
@@foiredede sure if you fw western propaganda n shit. as a marxist leninist (ie "tankie" as the kids say now) myself and others simply recognize the necessity of utilizing the state apparatus to make the transition to socialism and then communism. i assume ur probably in the west where the tendency seems to be anarchism/"libertarian" socialism which if you ask me is basically on tier w like right wing libertarianism where "gubment bad!" i see where they come from, especially since the only government/state experience they have is beneath the western imperialist boot and being fed near constant streams of anti communist rhetoric and propaganda, but im not so idealistic to think that we can somehow sustain a revolution without organization at a state/government level. so yeah, idk about you but id rather be under the "authoritarian" dictatorship of the proletariat which serves the interest of me and the vast majority of my fellow citizens (and the world) than under this fascistic bourgeoisie "democracy" which obviously only serves to enrich the capitalist class.
Yep, but it'll be a while. Ideologies will be covered moreso in the intermediate Socialism 201 and the Advanced Socialism 301 series. Socialism 101 will be more focused on the basics of Marxism
@@monanoorch8699 it’s a common joke among leftists. We hear the same straw man from those who oppose socialism: “Nothing is truly yours under socialism. One doesn’t truly own anything.” They’re ignoring the distinction we draw between personal and private property. We don’t want individuals or private entities to be able to own productive apparatus, as control of the means to produce socially necessary goods/services gives massively disproportionate influence over society to too few people, but that isn’t an issue for such things as your house/car/bike etc.
My dear comrade, I hope you continue this series and that you will make the most accurate videos about socialism. These videos will be so useful for the future, to help future comrades grasp the knowledge of the immortal science!
found you from yugopnik, these videos have been immensely helpful in properly describing some concepts that were a bit vague to me. hope to see more in the future! :)
When I very rarely bring up the topic of socialism/communism with others, I typically get the reply that going for such a system would mean _"everyone wearing the same socks, because only one type will get made"_ . Where does this idea/fear come from, and how bullocks (or not?..) is it?
Mmhmm maybe state socialism? Like we give the state the means of production and then the bureaucrats come in and be like we will only produce one type of sock because that’s what the government approved. I mean it’s a bit nonsensical in that case as well. But part of the means of production being held in common is that you’d be able to go to the sock factory and make your own fucking socks if it so moves you. So the idea that you will be stuck with the same socks, is ludicrous. Even if the local sock factory only makes one sock for whatever reason. You and your fellow sock artisans will have tools to make your beautiful socks. This fear comes from the government being notoriously cheap bastards. So save on costs, they’ll make one color of the sock yarn and only have the machine to make one type of sock cuz that cuts down on time and cost. But that is a problem born from capitalism. Under socialism we can invest in beauty. Because it’s not all about maximizing profits and mass production to keep up with hyper consumption habits.
hey paul a little late here, but what if the people desire a different variation of a certain commodity? Such as a stripy hat instead of a checkered hat? Would they be able to acquire a stripy hat simply due to the fact that they have the means of production? And how does this demand affect the economy?
I would like to know your opinion on where you draw the line between private property and personal property that is used for making money. It is easy to understand the workers collectively owning the means of production I.e. Tools, land etc. but say after working at the collectively owned factory and earning my fairer wages I decide to buy a piano, I could use it for personal use I get that, but say I got good enough to be able to teach piano. Since I am not renting the piano out and becoming a piano lord by making passive income from people renting the piano but actually getting paid for my labor as a teacher (worker), wouldn't that mean I am the worker owning my means of production since I am the only one? And what about if I got tired of piano all together and decided to sell my personal property, would that turn it into private property because I would receive more money than I paid for it? I feel these difficult questions are important if we wish to win over the masses. I feel every worker is naturally a socialist and some are programmed to be capitalist sympathizers but I feel a communist is someone who not only believes in fairness but is willing to be giving and expect little in return. Kinda like Che :)
hi! i know it's been 4 months so hopefully i'm able to help out a bit if you bought a piano for the use of teaching piano lessons, and so are providing labour (the teaching) to your property (the piano) for money (lesson fees), it can be argued that the piano is collectively owned by all its workers, it just so happens to be owned by one person (yourself). it would become private property if you hired a piano teacher to teach other people using your piano, and then took your cut (the surplus labor value) out of the lesson fees and paid the teacher the rest, as the worker (the teacher) doesn't own the property, and it's use is to earn you that profit. the same is true for the sale of the piano. if you sell the piano, then it was sold by its "collective" owner, and so is collective. if you pay someone else to sell your piano, and extract surplus value, then it's private. it's a neat little distinction i find, but please do ask any more questions if you have then comrade
The use/exchange paradigm doesn't seem to work because I can't think of product that isn't made to be used. Perhaps not directly by the entity that makes them but even they use product made to be sold by another producer. I don't see what the problem is here especially when an individual is free to engage in this process at their own scale .
Housing is a product that is made to be sold. The actual use of the house is not a factor. This is why nearly 10% of the United State's housing market consists of vacant houses - because housing is not being made or provided to people based on need, but rather based on the incentive for profit. In reality, housing is required for a human to survive and thus should be a fundamental human right.
Paul yer doin' gods' work here! Clear, digestible, approachable, and humorous - yet with a soul of steel. Absolutely brilliant work, very excited for the rest and more advanced series! 😁
I don't get it, if there is no money... How can you get to own a house? How do you buy it? Is it just given to you? Do you have to get it through a goods exchange? How does that work?
Housing is provided to you as it is a fundamental human right (because it is something you require to live) The exact house and its specifications will depend on your needs and location. Ideally, our society would not have houses that were inefficient in their land use (like mansions) and detached single-family housing would be reserved to more rural locations, combined with proper land-use and public infrastructure (both of these are elements being worked on by some Europeans nations and China). A prime example of good urban planning is the development of Chinese cities, which are based off of transit like trains and prepared before an expected population will live there, resulting in what western media calls a 'ghost city' for a few years before the area becomes populated, allowing the new residents to be fully set up with completed infrastructure. These are the types of systems that are possible when money is no longer a consideration, and property is state-owned (China has mostly state-owned property)
@@phoenixcraft9940 You said, "Housing is provided to you as it is a fundamental human right (because it is something you require to live) The exact house and its specifications will depend on your needs and location." So, I get to decide what I need, right?
I wish I could ask you a complex question regarding operating a farm as an individual in an ideal socialist society. This is one of the only areas where I can’t reconcile socialist principles with my own. Would a land owner, such as myself, have his mode of living drastically changed if placed in a social, de-commodified, marketplace? I am economically left wing, but have a hard time seeing my place in this hypothetical socialist collective. I have grown very comfortable in my modest lifestyle as a small farmer; I wonder if a belief in socialism contradicts my current economic condition.
If most people said “I don’t believe in private property so I don’t have to BUY this land/house” but a rich man says “since he doesn’t believe in private property I’m BUYING the land he lives on and he has to move!” Which then forces the first man to say “ok, I’ll buy my land just so that rich man can’t kick me off.” We’re forced to BUY land so the few rich can’t say they’ve bought ALL LAND and no one can live on it! But there should be EQUAL WEALTH WORLDWIDE to be FREE!
As someone who’s newer to the idea of communism, I think I’m mostly understanding the personal vs private property argument but what about houses? Under communism, can someone have an exclusive right to that house and the land it is on or is the house collectively owned by the public?
Yes, you can own your own home, that's no problem. You'll notice if you look at the list of countries with the highest home ownership rate, that the highest ranking countries all have, or had previously, nominally socialist governments, such as Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, China, the former Eastern Bloc countries, former Yugoslavia, etc.: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
Genuine Question (I don’t know if this is answered in another video) but If I own a house/apartment and rent out a room, via Airbnb for example, whilst still living there,has my house transitioned from personal to private property? If so, am i now a capitalist member of the bourgeoisie?
Question, if we abolish private property how will things get built. For example my house wouldn’t have been built without someone thinking they would be making a profit, would I have to build my own house for myself?
No of course not if you are doing your part then everyone else will do their’s, which includes house building if I build houses and you make say windows then I benefit by building a house for you of course on a large scale you can just be making coffee which still is part of production, the motive is not greed but mutual aid
I'm confused. CMC makes sense. MCM makes sense. But because it's a cycle, both can be written AS MCM and CMC. I don't really understand how a capitalist isn't also engaging in CMC. He is using his commodities, his product, paying your money, and reinvesting in his business. As it's a cycle, as in cmcmcmcmcmcmc, whether its CMC or MCM is merely a matter of where in the cycle you start reading. So why is this distinction correct?
It's not MCM, it's M-C-M' M' meaning that it's a different quantity of the original M (if it's higher that means he made a profit and if it's lower that means he lost money) The workers use their C (labor) to exchange for M (money) which they then exchange for C (goods and services) And that's it, they then don't exchange those goods and services for money, they just consume them. That's why it's CMC and not just CM or CMCM, because it's not a cycle of exchanges, they stop exchanging it once they get what they want. Which is the use values of the commodities they buy.
Hey I was wondering when does the hat become private property instead of personal property? Is it just when someone decides to sell their hat? Or is it just when selling hats becomes a business? What if the person owns 1000 hats and wants to sell them all? Can they even sell them? If they can, is there ideally a Central Planning institution that determines how much they can sell it for? I’m just trying to figure out what this looks like in practice.
but like, what if i actually sold you my hat cause you offered me great deal of money for it, would it then become private property (like for me it would become private when i sold it while it would become personal for the person buying it?)? I am still confused about, whats the difference between the two..
if you decide to sell your hat its primary purpose for you becomes exchange not use however it's not particularly problematic in the sense that you didn't produce the hat with the intention of selling it for profit and accumulating wealth for yourself in the same way a capitalist would. however to answer your question it would temporarily become private property
means of production for self employment are personal property then, right? Because it's purpose is to get used and it's not turning out any profit because without wage labour there is no surplus value, right?
Why would it be bad for a person to make profit? I mean dont we all profit from working - the workers getting a wage they can then spend, and the capitalist getting our work for their proje t? (Asking as I can imagine a lot of people who dont know marxism may have this thought come into their heads, peace and solidarity!)
Good question. Keep an eye out for a video on "The Labour Theory of Value" in a few weeks where we'll look into the process of the exploitation of labour
19 seconds in and just to inform you: I am not wearing a hat, in fact I am not even wearing a shirt because the water from my pot noodle splashes on it and makes it look dirty. Can diametrical materialism be applied to this contradiction? I am still a noob when it comes to marxist science
So, I’m fairly new to these ideas and just trying to understand. I just bought a house. However, I had to get a loan from a bank to do it. Is my house both my personal property and the bank’s private property? Also, once I pay off my loan but I still have to pay property taxes, is my house private property of the state that I am using as personal property?
I guess these theories were build in industrial age with clean distinction of factory heavy machinery and small personal items. Nowdays the line is very blurry and often doesnt make good sense.
Isn't it the banks property, i.e. private property, until you've paid off your loan/mortgage? Therefore it's private property until you've bought it outright, then becomes yours, i.e. personal property. Under capitalism the bank can seize your property from you if you default on your loan/mortgage.
How Can I obtain the "private property" without somebody selling it to me prom his "personal property"? Will there be a waiting list for everything? unless you own Startrek replicator you really are yout of luck to give everybody "acording to their needs", some people have extraordinare needs. Any answer to this?
If you sell personal property then its a commodity making it private No not unless its hard to get/we’re in struggling times And theres already enough produced to take care of everyones needs its just locked away because of capitalist profit motive the change would be that workers now control the work place it wouldn’t change how much is produced unless we’re currently making far too much which we currently are most food goes to waste in a time where theres huge amounts of starvation
@@222sundae problem of foodwaste and starvation is logistics, not supply/demand. When people will starve in front of fully stocked shops then its a problem of capitalism. And your ideal world only works with overabundance of everything, a lot of things can work with limitless resources, your problem is that people tend to find things that are not overabundant and making those into luxury items that other envy them. And the narative of today is "Earth is not limitless", so how this fits into your "everything for everyone" scheme, unless your idead is for everyone to have only designed bare minimum to live?
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" so perfect! Too bad I have no ability to work because I'm lazy and weak AF. I am sure someone else will pick up the slack with 0 complains. When all the people's toothbrushes are spent, I wonder who's gonna be the selfless (definilty not forced by the state) that's going to build it for us unabled workers. It would jsut be easier to redefine peoples needs... who the fuck needs a toothbrush anyway? I sure it's just a capitalist perversion
Hello! Very good and clear video. I have a question regarding the M-C-M and C-M-C models that divide proletariat from bourgeoisie. I feel like there's a grey area there... and that I might fall in it. What about self employed people, like plumbers or electricians? I feel like they could fall on either formula. C-M-C = they sell their labour force to whoever's buys it, gain money and then use that to get more commodities. But it could also be M-C-M. With some previous capital, they invest in education and tools and then use their labour force to get more money. I am a Spanish teacher, and I teach US students via Zoom classes. I used money I had previously (loans) to invest in a computer and English education. I now sell this commodity I have (Spanish language knowledge) and get more money out of it. I feel like I might be a secret bourgeoisie... a wolf in sheep skin...
I'm wondering this also. If you save money from working a 9-5 office job, get a loan and buy property for another form of income. You'll then start making more money each month no longer being lower economic class. Using that income to pay off your loan +mortgage + renovation costs. Owner of two properties. You may do it again reinvest in another property for 2 incomes. You're not the bourgeoise though.
@@Easilyshown If you are able to buy more than one property i would definitely call you bourgeoisie thought... you become a land owner and start charging rent to people. That by definition makes you bourgeoisie and it's no longer the grey area I was talking about.
It is actually pretty easy and either way nothing to be afraid of. I, for instance, will be bourgeoisie in the future because I will inherit additional property besides the one Im living in right now. You first need to understand that inside of a capitalist world you CANNOT live outside of capitalism. So being bourgeoisie on paper is not inherently something evil if I rent my property out I can still decide to actually rent to people that need it and still provide repairs etc and thus keeping this property at least from the hands of investment giants or others that have not this intention. That could be compared to "good" bosses that actually pay wages that are comparable to their own income and riches. Now to the real point. I was freelancer myself and it is actually pretty easy, you still work the job that generates the wealth and own the means of production. Period you are not bourgeoisie and even that doesnt mean that you are "evil". Now if you would expand and would go away from actually teaching and more into a role of owning a school or something this would change this. This is still all very simplified and I am not the harbinger of truth so this could very well be "false", altho this is all theory and depending on interpretation anyway. I hope I could help you with your struggle. :)
Self-employed people or service workers can be neither bourgeoisie nor proletariat. If one is selling a service and not their labor-power (ie if an electrician works for a homeowner) they are engaging in simple exchange, operating outside of the capitalist mode of production. If, on the other hand, they are selling their labor power (for instance, if an electrician works for a boss or for a house-seller), then they are creating surplus value that someone else consumes. Small business owners with a few employees can be capitalists in some ways but not fully so. As they extract surplus from workers they are capitalists. However, for production to be truly capitalist it must be expansive- that surplus must then in part be reinvested and the enterprise must grow. Often some small businesses do not do this. If you are a landlord in a capitalist system you are a capitalist in at lest some respects. There's certainly some qualitative differences between small landlords and the large ones, similarly to the differences between small bosses and large ones, but they're definitely capitalists in some respects. It can become a little confusing when broken down into these details (and contradictory- with something being capital in some aspects and not in others, or with the hegemonic nature of capital subsuming non-capitalist relations into capitalist production) which is why Marx sets most of this aside at first and examines the essence of capitalist production through abstractions. Being a "good" boss is not possible long-term or in general under capitalism. The interests of capitalists are not only different from the interests of workers, they are in direct contradiction.
On the following rambling I'm trying to make sense of how a world with no commodity form or exchange values would work, I don't know if you'll acknowledge this in future videos but as of right now I don't quite get it. First thing, awesome video. The general formula of Capital makes it very easy to see the differences between the relations with commodities of the workers and the owners. The proletarian buys commodities to use them and the burgeois buys commodities to exchange them for a profit. But here's what I don't get, both of them need to exchange some form of commodity to survive, the proletarian exchanges their labor as a commodity in exchange for other commodities that they need. So how do we abolish the commodity form? As in everything should be created for someone to use instead of for someone to exchange. Does the commodity form include labor? Should the proletarian not exchange their labor for other commodities? What would they do instead with their labor? The division of labor and specialization is something necessary because it's more efficient at creating lots of material goods. Therefore people inevitably need to keep exchanging what they can mass produce for what they need to use. Otherwise people would be making tons of beautiful hats for themselves until they die of starvation. I think that to be able to abolish exchange value, people either need to be able to make themselves everything they need or they need to be able to acquire all of what they need in exchange for nothing. The first option requires automation to do most of the work, if not all of it. And the second option either also requires machines to do all the work, or it requires society to have some other way of encouraging people to create the necessary wealth needed for everyone, since they no longer need to exchange their labor for access to anything that they need. So under a fully developed socialism, which is, a mode of production where private property is completely abolished so no one interacts with commodities like this: M-C-M' And instead everyone interacts with commodities like this: C-M-C The commodity form in that scenario still cannot be abolished (yet) because people still produce their specialized labor for it's exchange value and not for it's use value. For no one needs to use so many hats. So abolishing private property =/= abolishing the commodity form and exchange values. They seem to be two separate issues (although deeply interconnected) Is that right? Am I completely off? As a baby Marxist, this concept of abolishing the commodity form is new to me, I had only heard it once before when I heard leftists online criticizing the USSR and Cuba for not being as leftist as they would like them to be.
My entire point is based on the idea that the labor power itself is a form of private property that the proletarian owns and then exchanges it as a commodity for other commodities (or exchanges the fruits of their labor as commodities). If that's the case then the phrase "abolishing private property" doesn't just mean abolishing the ownership of land, factories, and material commodities which only hold exchange value to the owner, it also means abolishing the ownership of all of the labor power that's not directly used to create use values for the worker itself. As in me who makes hats, can't own the labor used to make the hats that I don't need, and if I don't like hats and never use them, then I own not a bit of my labor, so I own nothing of what I create. (Then why bother making anything?) So, immediately abolishing (all types of) private property and (all instances of) the commodity form doesn't seem like a good thing under our current productivity and labor specialization levels.
I think the problem with your analogy and mostly the root cause of your doubt is the fact that you took "abolishing the commodity form" too literally. Abolishing the commodity form doesnt mean abolishing commodities all together. It only stands for abolishment of private property. Basically, no goods that are produced could be sold for more than what their use value is. Basically when you get rid of exchange value, you get rid of private property. Labour cannot be a private property owned by the proletariat. Organised labour could be private property owned by the bourgeois, purchased by them to create commodity which makes more money for them using an exchange value. We get rid off this exchange value. Under socialism organised labour is self regulated and an autonomous body that produces commodities according to needs alone. There is no purpose for it to be exchanged with anything for profits as such.
@@tofolcano9639 as in you who make hats, will make hats for personal needs of others and not yourselves. Your labour produces commodity only for its use value. It doesnt matter if you like hats or dont, if you're a hat maker and people need hats, you make them according to the need and sell it at it's use value.
I'm going down the list of videos one by one. Great series so far. I'm having issues with the different value types discussed in this video. Imagine, if you will, an honest pizza delivery guy. Bicycle riding pizzas to the local neighborhood, working for the local pizzeria. He's already trading his time and effort for money. He uses that money to buy a car, allowing him to make more money because he can make more deliveries. Is the car he bought expressly to make more money private or personal property? What makes either different here?
A car used to make money is private. A car used to drive to visit family is personal. And I think there is an argument that if you use your car to drive to and from work, it is also private property. Hense why public transit is so important, it collectivizes one important aspect of the means of production, getting people to workplaces
Who will buy the materials, have passion for and have learned a difficult skill to make that beautiful hat, if they are to paid the same as the alcoholic/drug addict who is living off the state or maybe digging a ditch.
5 people in our house 2 bathrooms but 2 bathroom is better than 1 bathroom but its also not 5 people to 3 bathrooms. tax season means i get kicked off my personal computer and my parents use their family account on my computer to do their taxes. that is why microsoft renamed windows 11 from my computer to this computer. my data and their data are still private under different account but on one shared computer, family tv means i have to watch my programming at a different time slot than parents..different time slots are one way of sharing one device. 5 people in our house each have 5 iphones private property....5 people 5 tooth brushes each tooth brush is private property. 5 people instead of 5 cars 4 cars 1 car is shared.
Loving your videos a lot btw got quite interested in ideas of socialism and communism because of a friend and also after reading this essay by Einstein called "Why Socialism?". I got the idea of personal and private property but i had a question, who will produce toothbrush here lets say if they dont see any profit from it? Or like why will people improvise the already created products if they dont see any profits from it? Would love if anyone explain it to me🐅
I like your explanation of C-M-C and M-C-M. It ironically reminded me of something I believe in. “If you want to get rich, you gotta use your money to make more money!” I do have to question why you actually want to “abolish” private property. Like yeah, I know you’re “not going to take my toothbrush,” but it’s kind of a strawman when you’re instead going to “take my entire toothbrush business!” Like I would RATHER you take my toothbrush I use for PERSONAL use (since I can just buy a new one) than take my entire livelihood. But yeah, if you abolish “commodities” and remove the ability to sell things, then how will the people who make, and then sell, those things make their living? Like what if we just took all the food from farmers, telling them “you can make food for yourself, that’s okay, since that food is PERSONAL property, but if you grow food to sell to make money, that’s bad! And we’re coming for it!” Do you actually not see anything wrong with this? Don’t farmers/toothbrush-makers/whatever deserve to make a little money while they provide an essential resource to society?
The point is not to destroy businesses. The point is to bring them under collective ownership. So a toothbrush factory would be owned by all of those who work at it, rather than some detached capitalist who has nothing to do with the day-to-day workings of the factory but earns all the profits that it produces. The workers themselves become the collective owners of the factory, and production of goods in that factory continues, but now there is no longer a detached capitalist siphoning off profits, so all of the wealth is now going directly into the workers' hands themselves.
@@Marxism_Today But then the collective workforce is still owning private property for the purpose of making a profit. The business would effectively be functioning as a partnership. I can kinda see what you’re proposing. You want to merge the concepts of working at a place and owning it, so that one becomes the owner of whatever wealth they create (effectively causing “everyone to become petty bourgeois”). The problem is that mainstreaming the idea that “private property is bad” might cause self-identified communists to be against the idea of starting their own business (fearing of becoming “class traitors” or whatever), even though doing so is a way to advance that goal of “not having to sell your labor for a wage.”
@@AlecSoDthe workers who own the business (aka the partnership members to use your terminology) would simply make more $ so that everyone had enough (in theory). At what point does one have enough? How much does one actually need? No one needs to be a multi-billionaire. I don’t think this system is saying you can’t have wealthy people? We just don’t need/want wealthy people being able to “get over” on (ie exploit) other people.
@@AlecSoDabolishing private property is kinda simplification of Marxism. What we really want is to abolish capitalist property relations, collective ownership of MOP over individual ownership basically. And we do not want everyone to “become petty bourgeois” we want to abolish the commodity form entirely, we want to working class to have control over what it produces but not to make a profit because that’s just gonna end up going back to capitalism. Instead of being produced for exhange things are made to be used. Housing built for the use value of it being somewhere to live not as an investment.
”Under socialism you never actually own the things you have!” Okay capitalists, could you then explain why the concept of repossession of private property exists exclusively in the capitalist system?
Its not so much exclusive. Socialism just use different word for it, like nationalization, collectivation or just governamnet come and take it without any excuse.
What? What do you think happened in the Soviet Union when farmers were thrown off their farms and their land "repossessed" by government? What on earth do you think was their rationalization for doing this?
@@captainphoenix Property that is used to produce for the common good should not be controlled for personal gain. Your personal house and toothbrush serve only you so therefore it makes sense for you to own and manage it yourself
Is he saying that the proletariat doesn't have private property because they are not currently selling it? I may not be selling my hat at the moment but there may be a time and price for which I would trade my hat. I think a better distinction is inherent value, what can be done with it, and market value, what someone else is willing to trade for it.
No. You own a house to use it. Someone renting out their house to someone else is not owning that house to use it, they are owning it to make profit. The concept of 'selling' the house to move is one that would only exist in a capitalist infrastructure that required citizens to make money in order to move and survive. As previously iterated in my other comment, housing would be provided based on need. A bunch of babies were born? Great, that means we need some more houses for the future, and plan our current housing system to ensure population centers can handle the increase. Anyways, if you sell your house to afford to move into a new one, the house you just sold didn't have its sole purpose as making money - you lived in it up until you sold it.
Socialism is when Biden Nationalizes my backyard and steals my iPhone.
TRUE AND BASED!!! HAIL TO THE IMMORTAL SCIENCE OF MARXISM-LENINISM-BIDENISM!
why would he want your iphone, it is a capitalist phone, he would go for a Huawei, a real commnunist phone!
He wants to finish Obummers plan of taking all our guns stickin us in FEMA CAMPS and mandatory abortions for whites!
/s
so fuckin' sad that.. poes law...
AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! RUNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you mean that communism is when right wing politician on the left wing party does something.
Mashallah daddy Paul has uploaded.
These sorts of comments convince me that yugopnik hakim and paul have the exact same people as their fanbases
@@Andrew-qi1bw given that all three are Marxists I'd imagine so too comrade.
These have been the most educational pieces of information relating to communism I have ever encountered
Wow! That's a hell of a compliment. Thanks
You talk about videos like it’s a Pokémon
“A wild based socialist video appeared!”
@@Marxism_Today Face the wall, chud.
@@Marxism_Todayhows cultural appropriation & capitalism connected?
He talks to you like you're a child it's cause you are if you believe this stuff.
I won't be able to watch this video right away, but I will as soon as I have wifi again
The formatting is great. Digestible information with an even simpler recap at the end. This is very helpful. Excited for more!
On a side note, what do you mean by "abolishing the commodity form?" thx
Thanks! This means abolishing Exchange Value (Private Property), and instead producing entirely for Use (Personal Property).
No more producing for profit, just producing what people need and want for our own personal consumption
@@Marxism_Today Would that be something like community run multipurpose factories that produce goods that have no planned obsolescence? I mean cause without it "market" saturation would be reached pretty quickly and one factory would need to be able to produce a wide variety of small amounts of goods.
@@50733Blabla1337 Whatever factories exist within any community would produce items of use for society. That is why the means of production and distribution are owned socially by society as a whole. How that would work requires a central planning authority of production and distribution. Professor Paul Cockshott goes into detail on how that would work democratically without markets. Here is his video called "Communist Democratic Planning": th-cam.com/video/_jpuHM_k9CU/w-d-xo.html
@@Marxism_Today Literally all consensual exchanges are for gain/profit. Farmer Brown wouldn't exchange whatever amount of oats he exchanges for farrying services from farrier Smith unless he thought the farrying services were worth more than the oats he gave up, and the farrier wouldn't spend his time farrying Brown's horses unless he'd rather have the oats than the time he spent on Brown's horses, and that's self-evidently true by virtue of the fact that the exchange happened and was consensual. You don't even have to have currency involved in the calculus, which, by the way, is nothing more than a _medium_ of exchange, and not the actual end goal of an exchange. People don't sell things _just_ to sell them, or _just_ to literally horde money, but to use that money to buy goods and services.
i had subscribed to you because of your hair, but this is nice too
Gotta take the little one for a check up when this premieres, but ya know I'm catching it on the replay! This is one of the first things I come up against when talking about socialism to someone who's been fed so much propoganda against it..."sure socialism....but I like stuff.." So frustrating! But, easily debunked at least!
I like that the hat used looks like Lenin's hat.
i can debunk this whole video rn. i’m not actually wearing a hat..
Lol, based proletariat.
Bro I swear my English teacher does not know what communism is. This is what she put: "society characterized by
irrationality, collectivism and
extreme socialism where the
individual does not exist"
Never thought of the distinction between houses in capitalism(built for profit/exchange value) and in socialism(built for use). Pretty interesting
I'm not a communist, but this video is explaining how communists understand property and exchange 1000% better than any other resource I've seen. Thanks!
Say what you want about personal property, I will be confiscating every single toothbrush for the state. That's socialism, right?
We will all be sharing one large tooth brush.
Yes.
Lol.
@@biouyb5828 I am imagining a mass of people lining up to red square in Moscow, and ten people at time vigorously shake their head against a 10 meter long toothbrush....
Lol
HAND OVER TOOTHBRUSH
Question: What eventually happens to the individuals who have to continue to make said toothbrushes as they are worn out, or the people who have to still maintain the mechanisms behind the automation that produces the toothbrushes? How are they nessisarily compensated the system (since every individual could want something different for the results of their labor besides state provided necessities)?
Yes, after the government confiscated all the worn-out toothbrushes for the state to recycle them, the government gives you back new fresh ones
can't get over the production quality lol
this actually clarified things a lot, thanks mate
Your best video yet in the series, Paul. Good stuff.
Personal property = means of subsistence, private property = means of production (?)
Almost. There's definitely an overlap there, but it's not just about subsistence or necessities.
Personal Property = That which we acquire to consume
Private Property = That which we acquire to make profit
E.g., the house I buy to live in is personal property, but that same house if bought by a capitalist who intends to renovate it and flip it for a higher price then it's private property.
Of course, there are a lot more questions we can ask leading on from this question (e.g. "What if I buy a house, live in it for 20 years, then sell it to move somewhere else? Is this personal property or private property?"), which requires us to move beyond the basic analysis of personal and private property and start looking at Use-Value and Exchange-Value and how each commodity produced under capitalism has both qualities, and how this manifests depends more on how we relate to these items than anything else.
Anyway, we could dive into that, but this rabbit hole runs deep lol
If you'd like to learn more about this, the first three chapters of Capital go into it in more detail: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
@@Marxism_Today So if Destiny buys a house where he uses the living room for streaming (make profit) and the bedroom to bang Melina ("consume" lol), is the house simultaneously personal and private property? Has Destiny somehow bought Schroedinger's House?
If you found this useful, consider supporting the continuation of this series on Patreon: www.patreon.com/paulm_yt
or a once-off donation on Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/paulm_yt
These keep getting better, keep it up comrade!
I just got an ad for this video from a property developer talking about how they made a few million quid on a housing development. It really helped your distinction between personal and private property sink in lmaooo
Jumped right into this video after listening to a reading of Engels Principles of Communism. Great stuff!
Great Video Paul. So professionals and clearly explained. Flawless!
Brilliant video as always! You fit so much in so quick yet so clear, loved the mcm cmc part
absolutely class. i consider myself a fairly seasoned tankie, but this clear delineation of personal/private has been missing in my life thank you comrade
Isn't being a tankie like, bad n stuff?
@@foiredede sure if you fw western propaganda n shit. as a marxist leninist (ie "tankie" as the kids say now) myself and others simply recognize the necessity of utilizing the state apparatus to make the transition to socialism and then communism. i assume ur probably in the west where the tendency seems to be anarchism/"libertarian" socialism which if you ask me is basically on tier w like right wing libertarianism where "gubment bad!" i see where they come from, especially since the only government/state experience they have is beneath the western imperialist boot and being fed near constant streams of anti communist rhetoric and propaganda, but im not so idealistic to think that we can somehow sustain a revolution without organization at a state/government level. so yeah, idk about you but id rather be under the "authoritarian" dictatorship of the proletariat which serves the interest of me and the vast majority of my fellow citizens (and the world) than under this fascistic bourgeoisie "democracy" which obviously only serves to enrich the capitalist class.
@@brewskimckilgore6796 I give your comment 1,000 thumbs up! Well said comrade!
Nice video thank you comrade.🚩
I'm attending as usual! Get the roll call Comrade Paul :)
Ok, paul, but what if I want my toothbrush to be public property?
?
@@monanoorch8699public property is like personal property but for multiple people, you know what is public school or public bathroom is right?
ewwwww
everything is public property or rather there is no property under communism. yes, that fucjing includes toothbrushes
Great vid cadre
Love the videos! will you later explain different left ideologies? just curious
Yep, but it'll be a while. Ideologies will be covered moreso in the intermediate Socialism 201 and the Advanced Socialism 301 series.
Socialism 101 will be more focused on the basics of Marxism
I’m so relieved that nobody is coming for my toothbrush.
??
@@monanoorch8699 it’s a common joke among leftists. We hear the same straw man from those who oppose socialism: “Nothing is truly yours under socialism. One doesn’t truly own anything.” They’re ignoring the distinction we draw between personal and private property. We don’t want individuals or private entities to be able to own productive apparatus, as control of the means to produce socially necessary goods/services gives massively disproportionate influence over society to too few people, but that isn’t an issue for such things as your house/car/bike etc.
I actually like your series so far, Paul. For this video, it helped made my fear of not owning a house under socialism fade away. Keep it up!
Uh~ next one is going to be a juicy one ~
very much looking forward to every new vid in this series. great work ⭐🌟⭐
It is amazing how well you explain complex notions. Thank you so much ✊
Thanks Lesya, I appreciate the support. Solidarity ✊
My dear comrade, I hope you continue this series and that you will make the most accurate videos about socialism. These videos will be so useful for the future, to help future comrades grasp the knowledge of the immortal science!
I'll certainly try my best. Thank you for the kind words. Solidarity ✊
found you from yugopnik, these videos have been immensely helpful in properly describing some concepts that were a bit vague to me. hope to see more in the future! :)
When I very rarely bring up the topic of socialism/communism with others, I typically get the reply that going for such a system would mean _"everyone wearing the same socks, because only one type will get made"_ .
Where does this idea/fear come from, and how bullocks (or not?..) is it?
Mmhmm maybe state socialism? Like we give the state the means of production and then the bureaucrats come in and be like we will only produce one type of sock because that’s what the government approved. I mean it’s a bit nonsensical in that case as well.
But part of the means of production being held in common is that you’d be able to go to the sock factory and make your own fucking socks if it so moves you. So the idea that you will be stuck with the same socks, is ludicrous. Even if the local sock factory only makes one sock for whatever reason. You and your fellow sock artisans will have tools to make your beautiful socks.
This fear comes from the government being notoriously cheap bastards. So save on costs, they’ll make one color of the sock yarn and only have the machine to make one type of sock cuz that cuts down on time and cost. But that is a problem born from capitalism. Under socialism we can invest in beauty. Because it’s not all about maximizing profits and mass production to keep up with hyper consumption habits.
hey paul a little late here, but what if the people desire a different variation of a certain commodity? Such as a stripy hat instead of a checkered hat? Would they be able to acquire a stripy hat simply due to the fact that they have the means of production? And how does this demand affect the economy?
So if I buy a second home as a vacation home, that I fix up and eventually end up selling, did it change from personal property to private property?
Love the hat example/intro and narration. It was indeed a beautiful hat with a warm embrace. :)
I would like to know your opinion on where you draw the line between private property and personal property that is used for making money. It is easy to understand the workers collectively owning the means of production I.e. Tools, land etc. but say after working at the collectively owned factory and earning my fairer wages I decide to buy a piano, I could use it for personal use I get that, but say I got good enough to be able to teach piano. Since I am not renting the piano out and becoming a piano lord by making passive income from people renting the piano but actually getting paid for my labor as a teacher (worker), wouldn't that mean I am the worker owning my means of production since I am the only one? And what about if I got tired of piano all together and decided to sell my personal property, would that turn it into private property because I would receive more money than I paid for it? I feel these difficult questions are important if we wish to win over the masses. I feel every worker is naturally a socialist and some are programmed to be capitalist sympathizers but I feel a communist is someone who not only believes in fairness but is willing to be giving and expect little in return. Kinda like Che :)
hi! i know it's been 4 months so hopefully i'm able to help out a bit
if you bought a piano for the use of teaching piano lessons, and so are providing labour (the teaching) to your property (the piano) for money (lesson fees), it can be argued that the piano is collectively owned by all its workers, it just so happens to be owned by one person (yourself).
it would become private property if you hired a piano teacher to teach other people using your piano, and then took your cut (the surplus labor value) out of the lesson fees and paid the teacher the rest, as the worker (the teacher) doesn't own the property, and it's use is to earn you that profit.
the same is true for the sale of the piano. if you sell the piano, then it was sold by its "collective" owner, and so is collective. if you pay someone else to sell your piano, and extract surplus value, then it's private.
it's a neat little distinction i find, but please do ask any more questions if you have then comrade
The use/exchange paradigm doesn't seem to work because I can't think of product that isn't made to be used. Perhaps not directly by the entity that makes them but even they use product made to be sold by another producer. I don't see what the problem is here especially when an individual is free to engage in this process at their own scale .
Housing is a product that is made to be sold. The actual use of the house is not a factor. This is why nearly 10% of the United State's housing market consists of vacant houses - because housing is not being made or provided to people based on need, but rather based on the incentive for profit. In reality, housing is required for a human to survive and thus should be a fundamental human right.
Commodities have a dual nature. That of use value and exchange value. Read capital to learn more!
Paul yer doin' gods' work here! Clear, digestible, approachable, and humorous - yet with a soul of steel. Absolutely brilliant work, very excited for the rest and more advanced series! 😁
Are worker cooperatives personal property or private property?
I don't get it, if there is no money... How can you get to own a house? How do you buy it? Is it just given to you? Do you have to get it through a goods exchange?
How does that work?
Housing is provided to you as it is a fundamental human right (because it is something you require to live)
The exact house and its specifications will depend on your needs and location. Ideally, our society would not have houses that were inefficient in their land use (like mansions) and detached single-family housing would be reserved to more rural locations, combined with proper land-use and public infrastructure (both of these are elements being worked on by some Europeans nations and China). A prime example of good urban planning is the development of Chinese cities, which are based off of transit like trains and prepared before an expected population will live there, resulting in what western media calls a 'ghost city' for a few years before the area becomes populated, allowing the new residents to be fully set up with completed infrastructure. These are the types of systems that are possible when money is no longer a consideration, and property is state-owned (China has mostly state-owned property)
@@phoenixcraft9940 You said, "Housing is provided to you as it is a fundamental human right (because it is something you require to live) The exact house and its specifications will depend on your needs and location." So, I get to decide what I need, right?
Red Salute from India, Paul!
4:35 I see u zizek
Was waiting for someone to pick up on that
I wish I could ask you a complex question regarding operating a farm as an individual in an ideal socialist society. This is one of the only areas where I can’t reconcile socialist principles with my own. Would a land owner, such as myself, have his mode of living drastically changed if placed in a social, de-commodified, marketplace? I am economically left wing, but have a hard time seeing my place in this hypothetical socialist collective. I have grown very comfortable in my modest lifestyle as a small farmer; I wonder if a belief in socialism contradicts my current economic condition.
1. Do you sell your crops or do you eat all crops you grow?
If most people said “I don’t believe in private property so I don’t have to BUY this land/house” but a rich man says “since he doesn’t believe in private property I’m BUYING the land he lives on and he has to move!” Which then forces the first man to say “ok, I’ll buy my land just so that rich man can’t kick me off.” We’re forced to BUY land so the few rich can’t say they’ve bought ALL LAND and no one can live on it! But there should be EQUAL WEALTH WORLDWIDE to be FREE!
I actually learned a lot. Thanks
Interesting. Good to learn more.
How would this system work in practice?
It doesn't.
@@Adjacentred yeah, I know
Thank u for the explanation.
Glad that this video exists
As someone who’s newer to the idea of communism, I think I’m mostly understanding the personal vs private property argument but what about houses? Under communism, can someone have an exclusive right to that house and the land it is on or is the house collectively owned by the public?
Yes, you can own your own home, that's no problem. You'll notice if you look at the list of countries with the highest home ownership rate, that the highest ranking countries all have, or had previously, nominally socialist governments, such as Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, China, the former Eastern Bloc countries, former Yugoslavia, etc.: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate
@@Marxism_Today thank you!
Genuine Question (I don’t know if this is answered in another video) but
If I own a house/apartment and rent out a room, via Airbnb for example, whilst still living there,has my house transitioned from personal to private property?
If so, am i now a capitalist member of the bourgeoisie?
Question, if we abolish private property how will things get built. For example my house wouldn’t have been built without someone thinking they would be making a profit, would I have to build my own house for myself?
No of course not if you are doing your part then everyone else will do their’s, which includes house building if I build houses and you make say windows then I benefit by building a house for you of course on a large scale you can just be making coffee which still is part of production, the motive is not greed but mutual aid
I live my life using M-C-M formula and i love it.
Fuel for the algorithm fire
So what then is my incentive to produce something of value for others? Isn't it completely possible to take without giving back?
Very good stuff. As always. Good job, comrade.
I'm confused.
CMC makes sense. MCM makes sense. But because it's a cycle, both can be written AS MCM and CMC. I don't really understand how a capitalist isn't also engaging in CMC. He is using his commodities, his product, paying your money, and reinvesting in his business.
As it's a cycle, as in cmcmcmcmcmcmc, whether its CMC or MCM is merely a matter of where in the cycle you start reading.
So why is this distinction correct?
It's not MCM, it's M-C-M'
M' meaning that it's a different quantity of the original M (if it's higher that means he made a profit and if it's lower that means he lost money)
The workers use their C (labor) to exchange for M (money) which they then exchange for C (goods and services)
And that's it, they then don't exchange those goods and services for money, they just consume them.
That's why it's CMC and not just CM or CMCM, because it's not a cycle of exchanges, they stop exchanging it once they get what they want. Which is the use values of the commodities they buy.
@@tofolcano9639 thank you, I better understand it now.
Hey I was wondering when does the hat become private property instead of personal property? Is it just when someone decides to sell their hat? Or is it just when selling hats becomes a business? What if the person owns 1000 hats and wants to sell them all? Can they even sell them? If they can, is there ideally a Central Planning institution that determines how much they can sell it for? I’m just trying to figure out what this looks like in practice.
These videos are great!
but like, what if i actually sold you my hat cause you offered me great deal of money for it, would it then become private property (like for me it would become private when i sold it while it would become personal for the person buying it?)?
I am still confused about, whats the difference between the two..
if you decide to sell your hat its primary purpose for you becomes exchange not use however it's not particularly problematic in the sense that you didn't produce the hat with the intention of selling it for profit and accumulating wealth for yourself in the same way a capitalist would. however to answer your question it would temporarily become private property
means of production for self employment are personal property then, right? Because it's purpose is to get used and it's not turning out any profit because without wage labour there is no surplus value, right?
Lenin Is proud 👍
Excellent video
I know this is off topic, but have you ever watched Jason Unhru (Apologies if I’m spelling that incorrectly! )political commentator?
Why would it be bad for a person to make profit? I mean dont we all profit from working - the workers getting a wage they can then spend, and the capitalist getting our work for their proje t? (Asking as I can imagine a lot of people who dont know marxism may have this thought come into their heads, peace and solidarity!)
Good question. Keep an eye out for a video on "The Labour Theory of Value" in a few weeks where we'll look into the process of the exploitation of labour
@@Marxism_Today thank you! :) I'm reading through Wage-Labour and Capital and the video worked perfectly with what Marx is saying!
@@tomio8072 Richard Wolff also did a video on exploitation and surplus value on the Gravel Institute channel that's also worth checking out
19 seconds in and just to inform you: I am not wearing a hat, in fact I am not even wearing a shirt because the water from my pot noodle splashes on it and makes it look dirty. Can diametrical materialism be applied to this contradiction? I am still a noob when it comes to marxist science
My home was made to be affordable housing for students by the government and is now owned by private landlords and letting agencies
??
Nicely done
I watch this naked.
Lmao based
So, I’m fairly new to these ideas and just trying to understand.
I just bought a house. However, I had to get a loan from a bank to do it. Is my house both my personal property and the bank’s private property?
Also, once I pay off my loan but I still have to pay property taxes, is my house private property of the state that I am using as personal property?
I guess these theories were build in industrial age with clean distinction of factory heavy machinery and small personal items. Nowdays the line is very blurry and often doesnt make good sense.
Isn't it the banks property, i.e. private property, until you've paid off your loan/mortgage? Therefore it's private property until you've bought it outright, then becomes yours, i.e. personal property. Under capitalism the bank can seize your property from you if you default on your loan/mortgage.
Every time you say Hugh Jass I lose it, I'm literally a child 😭😭😭
How Can I obtain the "private property" without somebody selling it to me prom his "personal property"?
Will there be a waiting list for everything?
unless you own Startrek replicator you really are yout of luck to give everybody "acording to their needs", some people have extraordinare needs.
Any answer to this?
If you sell personal property then its a commodity making it private
No not unless its hard to get/we’re in struggling times
And theres already enough produced to take care of everyones needs its just locked away because of capitalist profit motive the change would be that workers now control the work place it wouldn’t change how much is produced unless we’re currently making far too much which we currently are most food goes to waste in a time where theres huge amounts of starvation
@@222sundae problem of foodwaste and starvation is logistics, not supply/demand. When people will starve in front of fully stocked shops then its a problem of capitalism.
And your ideal world only works with overabundance of everything, a lot of things can work with limitless resources, your problem is that people tend to find things that are not overabundant and making those into luxury items that other envy them.
And the narative of today is "Earth is not limitless", so how this fits into your "everything for everyone" scheme, unless your idead is for everyone to have only designed bare minimum to live?
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" so perfect! Too bad I have no ability to work because I'm lazy and weak AF. I am sure someone else will pick up the slack with 0 complains. When all the people's toothbrushes are spent, I wonder who's gonna be the selfless (definilty not forced by the state) that's going to build it for us unabled workers. It would jsut be easier to redefine peoples needs... who the fuck needs a toothbrush anyway? I sure it's just a capitalist perversion
Personal v private property Distinction without a difference 1:54
This is awesome, thank you!
Excellent work, Paul!
based content
Hello! Very good and clear video.
I have a question regarding the M-C-M and C-M-C models that divide proletariat from bourgeoisie. I feel like there's a grey area there... and that I might fall in it.
What about self employed people, like plumbers or electricians? I feel like they could fall on either formula. C-M-C = they sell their labour force to whoever's buys it, gain money and then use that to get more commodities.
But it could also be M-C-M. With some previous capital, they invest in education and tools and then use their labour force to get more money.
I am a Spanish teacher, and I teach US students via Zoom classes. I used money I had previously (loans) to invest in a computer and English education. I now sell this commodity I have (Spanish language knowledge) and get more money out of it.
I feel like I might be a secret bourgeoisie... a wolf in sheep skin...
I'm wondering this also. If you save money from working a 9-5 office job, get a loan and buy property for another form of income. You'll then start making more money each month no longer being lower economic class. Using that income to pay off your loan +mortgage + renovation costs. Owner of two properties. You may do it again reinvest in another property for 2 incomes. You're not the bourgeoise though.
@@Easilyshown If you are able to buy more than one property i would definitely call you bourgeoisie thought... you become a land owner and start charging rent to people. That by definition makes you bourgeoisie and it's no longer the grey area I was talking about.
It is actually pretty easy and either way nothing to be afraid of. I, for instance, will be bourgeoisie in the future because I will inherit additional property besides the one Im living in right now. You first need to understand that inside of a capitalist world you CANNOT live outside of capitalism. So being bourgeoisie on paper is not inherently something evil if I rent my property out I can still decide to actually rent to people that need it and still provide repairs etc and thus keeping this property at least from the hands of investment giants or others that have not this intention. That could be compared to "good" bosses that actually pay wages that are comparable to their own income and riches.
Now to the real point. I was freelancer myself and it is actually pretty easy, you still work the job that generates the wealth and own the means of production. Period you are not bourgeoisie and even that doesnt mean that you are "evil". Now if you would expand and would go away from actually teaching and more into a role of owning a school or something this would change this. This is still all very simplified and I am not the harbinger of truth so this could very well be "false", altho this is all theory and depending on interpretation anyway.
I hope I could help you with your struggle. :)
Self-employed people or service workers can be neither bourgeoisie nor proletariat. If one is selling a service and not their labor-power (ie if an electrician works for a homeowner) they are engaging in simple exchange, operating outside of the capitalist mode of production. If, on the other hand, they are selling their labor power (for instance, if an electrician works for a boss or for a house-seller), then they are creating surplus value that someone else consumes.
Small business owners with a few employees can be capitalists in some ways but not fully so. As they extract surplus from workers they are capitalists. However, for production to be truly capitalist it must be expansive- that surplus must then in part be reinvested and the enterprise must grow. Often some small businesses do not do this.
If you are a landlord in a capitalist system you are a capitalist in at lest some respects. There's certainly some qualitative differences between small landlords and the large ones, similarly to the differences between small bosses and large ones, but they're definitely capitalists in some respects.
It can become a little confusing when broken down into these details (and contradictory- with something being capital in some aspects and not in others, or with the hegemonic nature of capital subsuming non-capitalist relations into capitalist production) which is why Marx sets most of this aside at first and examines the essence of capitalist production through abstractions.
Being a "good" boss is not possible long-term or in general under capitalism. The interests of capitalists are not only different from the interests of workers, they are in direct contradiction.
On the following rambling I'm trying to make sense of how a world with no commodity form or exchange values would work, I don't know if you'll acknowledge this in future videos but as of right now I don't quite get it.
First thing, awesome video. The general formula of Capital makes it very easy to see the differences between the relations with commodities of the workers and the owners.
The proletarian buys commodities to use them and the burgeois buys commodities to exchange them for a profit.
But here's what I don't get, both of them need to exchange some form of commodity to survive, the proletarian exchanges their labor as a commodity in exchange for other commodities that they need.
So how do we abolish the commodity form? As in everything should be created for someone to use instead of for someone to exchange.
Does the commodity form include labor? Should the proletarian not exchange their labor for other commodities? What would they do instead with their labor?
The division of labor and specialization is something necessary because it's more efficient at creating lots of material goods.
Therefore people inevitably need to keep exchanging what they can mass produce for what they need to use. Otherwise people would be making tons of beautiful hats for themselves until they die of starvation.
I think that to be able to abolish exchange value, people either need to be able to make themselves everything they need or they need to be able to acquire all of what they need in exchange for nothing.
The first option requires automation to do most of the work, if not all of it. And the second option either also requires machines to do all the work, or it requires society to have some other way of encouraging people to create the necessary wealth needed for everyone, since they no longer need to exchange their labor for access to anything that they need.
So under a fully developed socialism, which is, a mode of production where private property is completely abolished so no one interacts with commodities like this: M-C-M'
And instead everyone interacts with commodities like this: C-M-C
The commodity form in that scenario still cannot be abolished (yet) because people still produce their specialized labor for it's exchange value and not for it's use value. For no one needs to use so many hats.
So abolishing private property =/= abolishing the commodity form and exchange values. They seem to be two separate issues (although deeply interconnected)
Is that right? Am I completely off? As a baby Marxist, this concept of abolishing the commodity form is new to me, I had only heard it once before when I heard leftists online criticizing the USSR and Cuba for not being as leftist as they would like them to be.
My entire point is based on the idea that the labor power itself is a form of private property that the proletarian owns and then exchanges it as a commodity for other commodities (or exchanges the fruits of their labor as commodities).
If that's the case then the phrase "abolishing private property" doesn't just mean abolishing the ownership of land, factories, and material commodities which only hold exchange value to the owner, it also means abolishing the ownership of all of the labor power that's not directly used to create use values for the worker itself.
As in me who makes hats, can't own the labor used to make the hats that I don't need, and if I don't like hats and never use them, then I own not a bit of my labor, so I own nothing of what I create. (Then why bother making anything?)
So, immediately abolishing (all types of) private property and (all instances of) the commodity form doesn't seem like a good thing under our current productivity and labor specialization levels.
I think the problem with your analogy and mostly the root cause of your doubt is the fact that you took "abolishing the commodity form" too literally. Abolishing the commodity form doesnt mean abolishing commodities all together. It only stands for abolishment of private property. Basically, no goods that are produced could be sold for more than what their use value is. Basically when you get rid of exchange value, you get rid of private property. Labour cannot be a private property owned by the proletariat. Organised labour could be private property owned by the bourgeois, purchased by them to create commodity which makes more money for them using an exchange value. We get rid off this exchange value. Under socialism organised labour is self regulated and an autonomous body that produces commodities according to needs alone. There is no purpose for it to be exchanged with anything for profits as such.
@@tofolcano9639 as in you who make hats, will make hats for personal needs of others and not yourselves. Your labour produces commodity only for its use value. It doesnt matter if you like hats or dont, if you're a hat maker and people need hats, you make them according to the need and sell it at it's use value.
Great video!
If you trade a product or service with is public or els privet. Aka no can trade ever
I'm going down the list of videos one by one. Great series so far.
I'm having issues with the different value types discussed in this video.
Imagine, if you will, an honest pizza delivery guy. Bicycle riding pizzas to the local neighborhood, working for the local pizzeria.
He's already trading his time and effort for money.
He uses that money to buy a car, allowing him to make more money because he can make more deliveries.
Is the car he bought expressly to make more money private or personal property? What makes either different here?
Private since he makes money off of it. It’s part of the means of production
A car used to make money is private. A car used to drive to visit family is personal. And I think there is an argument that if you use your car to drive to and from work, it is also private property. Hense why public transit is so important, it collectivizes one important aspect of the means of production, getting people to workplaces
Exchange IS its use.
paul this is revisionism, socialism is when stalin takes all the hats, smh
Oh... and here I thought Communism was all about sharing our underwear.
This is a good explanation ^_^ nice work!
Who will buy the materials, have passion for and have learned a difficult skill to make that beautiful hat, if they are to paid the same as the alcoholic/drug addict who is living off the state or maybe digging a ditch.
What makes you think they’d be paid the same?
Damn dude, well done
thanks for dropping some knowledge!
??
5 people in our house 2 bathrooms but 2 bathroom is better than 1 bathroom but its also not 5 people to 3 bathrooms. tax season means i get kicked off my personal computer and my parents use their family account on my computer to do their taxes. that is why microsoft renamed windows 11 from my computer to this computer. my data and their data are still private under different account but on one shared computer, family tv means i have to watch my programming at a different time slot than parents..different time slots are one way of sharing one device. 5 people in our house each have 5 iphones private property....5 people 5 tooth brushes each tooth brush is private property. 5 people instead of 5 cars 4 cars 1 car is shared.
Just discovered you and second thought.
I'm not sure if I'm communist or socialist, and how to join/help the cause.
Loving your videos a lot btw got quite interested in ideas of socialism and communism because of a friend and also after reading this essay by Einstein called "Why Socialism?". I got the idea of personal and private property but i had a question, who will produce toothbrush here lets say if they dont see any profit from it? Or like why will people improvise the already created products if they dont see any profits from it? Would love if anyone explain it to me🐅
I like your explanation of C-M-C and M-C-M. It ironically reminded me of something I believe in. “If you want to get rich, you gotta use your money to make more money!”
I do have to question why you actually want to “abolish” private property. Like yeah, I know you’re “not going to take my toothbrush,” but it’s kind of a strawman when you’re instead going to “take my entire toothbrush business!” Like I would RATHER you take my toothbrush I use for PERSONAL use (since I can just buy a new one) than take my entire livelihood.
But yeah, if you abolish “commodities” and remove the ability to sell things, then how will the people who make, and then sell, those things make their living?
Like what if we just took all the food from farmers, telling them “you can make food for yourself, that’s okay, since that food is PERSONAL property, but if you grow food to sell to make money, that’s bad! And we’re coming for it!” Do you actually not see anything wrong with this? Don’t farmers/toothbrush-makers/whatever deserve to make a little money while they provide an essential resource to society?
The point is not to destroy businesses. The point is to bring them under collective ownership. So a toothbrush factory would be owned by all of those who work at it, rather than some detached capitalist who has nothing to do with the day-to-day workings of the factory but earns all the profits that it produces.
The workers themselves become the collective owners of the factory, and production of goods in that factory continues, but now there is no longer a detached capitalist siphoning off profits, so all of the wealth is now going directly into the workers' hands themselves.
@@Marxism_Today But then the collective workforce is still owning private property for the purpose of making a profit.
The business would effectively be functioning as a partnership.
I can kinda see what you’re proposing. You want to merge the concepts of working at a place and owning it, so that one becomes the owner of whatever wealth they create (effectively causing “everyone to become petty bourgeois”).
The problem is that mainstreaming the idea that “private property is bad” might cause self-identified communists to be against the idea of starting their own business (fearing of becoming “class traitors” or whatever), even though doing so is a way to advance that goal of “not having to sell your labor for a wage.”
@@AlecSoDthe workers who own the business (aka the partnership members to use your terminology) would simply make more $ so that everyone had enough (in theory). At what point does one have enough? How much does one actually need? No one needs to be a multi-billionaire. I don’t think this system is saying you can’t have wealthy people? We just don’t need/want wealthy people being able to “get over” on (ie exploit) other people.
@@AlecSoDabolishing private property is kinda simplification of Marxism. What we really want is to abolish capitalist property relations, collective ownership of MOP over individual ownership basically. And we do not want everyone to “become petty bourgeois” we want to abolish the commodity form entirely, we want to working class to have control over what it produces but not to make a profit because that’s just gonna end up going back to capitalism. Instead of being produced for exhange things are made to be used. Housing built for the use value of it being somewhere to live not as an investment.
”Under socialism you never actually own the things you have!”
Okay capitalists, could you then explain why the concept of repossession of private property exists exclusively in the capitalist system?
Its not so much exclusive. Socialism just use different word for it, like nationalization, collectivation or just governamnet come and take it without any excuse.
What? What do you think happened in the Soviet Union when farmers were thrown off their farms and their land "repossessed" by government? What on earth do you think was their rationalization for doing this?
@@captainphoenix Property that is used to produce for the common good should not be controlled for personal gain. Your personal house and toothbrush serve only you so therefore it makes sense for you to own and manage it yourself
You need to distinguish between personal and private property
Can't repossess when the loan is paid off like my car
I just discovered your channel and subbed!
Is he saying that the proletariat doesn't have private property because they are not currently selling it? I may not be selling my hat at the moment but there may be a time and price for which I would trade my hat. I think a better distinction is inherent value, what can be done with it, and market value, what someone else is willing to trade for it.
No. You own a house to use it. Someone renting out their house to someone else is not owning that house to use it, they are owning it to make profit. The concept of 'selling' the house to move is one that would only exist in a capitalist infrastructure that required citizens to make money in order to move and survive. As previously iterated in my other comment, housing would be provided based on need. A bunch of babies were born? Great, that means we need some more houses for the future, and plan our current housing system to ensure population centers can handle the increase.
Anyways, if you sell your house to afford to move into a new one, the house you just sold didn't have its sole purpose as making money - you lived in it up until you sold it.
You're talking about my none-existent hat, meanwhile I really want to buy that damn fine haircut.