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Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this

Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

This is nonsense, the only part you got correct is that those who read through Capital generally have an interest in a better world. Neither Marx nor Lenin advocated “doing the opposite” to get to communism, both argued for the establishment of a worker state to gradually collectivize all of the means of production and distribution. Historically, this method has been enormously beneficial for the working classes, while breing quite scary for landlords, capitalists, slavers, and fascists.

I’m also not at all understanding what you mean by Marx being “convincing with his way of argumentation (at least if you’re a bit stupid).” What would an intelligent person, by your estimation, take fault with in Marx?

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Lehmuusa@nord.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

What would an intelligent person, by your estimation, take fault with in Marx?

The dictatorship of the proletariat was a horribly bad idea. It’s a dictatorship. And brings the consequences of a dictatorship with it. I would dare to blame Lenin and also Marx for that crap.

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- Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The dictatorship of the proletariat is a democratic state for the proletariat, and dictatorship against capitalists, fascists, landlords, and slavers. It’s the socialist equivalent to liberal democracy, which de facto is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
  
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timdrake@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

What would an intelligent person, by your estimation, take fault with in Marx[‘s Capital]?

Capital rests on the argument ~that the fact qualitatively different (in terms of use values) commodities are exchanged for each other in different quantities requires a quality they share in common which only differs in quantity from one commodity to the next, and Marx posits that the only quality this could be is being products of labor. Yet this is very clearly not something that all commodities have in common, and that a thing’s status as a commodity and its ability to be exchanged for other commodities has nothing to do with its being a product of labor. The only way Marx’s argument can be accepted is if you start with the presupposition that commodities are valued by the labor required to produce them.

How this happens that commodities are exchanged at their “value” is a complete mystery by the way, since Marx says it has nothing to do with the conscious considerations of either the buyer or the seller.

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- Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Yet this is very clearly not something that all commodities have in common
  
  This is not clear at all. Elaborate, please.
  
  and that a thing’s status as a commodity and its ability to be exchanged for other commodities has nothing to do with its being a product of labor
  
  Why not? Are you saying that the utility of a commodity to someone does not change whether or not it was made with labor? This doesn’t really matter, though, the point of the Law of Value is that commodities are socially produced, and socially distributed, which normalizes their price around their values. Arguments like the “mud pie” don’t apply, because mud pies are neither useful nor difficult to make.
  
  The only way Marx’s argument can be accepted is if you start with the presupposition that commodities are valued by the labor required to produce them.
  
  Incorrect, the exchange-value that price fluctuates around is representative of the value in a commodity. Another way to look at it is that the value of a commodity is the sum of its inputs, which can be reduced to labor and natural resources.
  
  How this happens that commodities are exchanged at their “value” is a complete mystery by the way, since Marx says it has nothing to do with the conscious considerations of either the buyer or the seller.
  
  Marx is correct, though this is no mystery. Commodities are social products, and are socially exchanged. What’s universal to goods bought and sold is that they require natural resources and human labor to create them, thus capitalism in being a social process acts as a price-finder for commodities, all based on inputs and outputs.
  
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  - timdrake@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    This is not clear at all. Elaborate, please.
    
    All you need for commodity exchange is for people to accept something is yours and be willing to exchange something they own which you desire in return for it. That thing being a product of labor is not necessary. You can own land based on agreement without taking any trouble to cultivate or defend it, and exchange it for other things based on agreement. You can exchange naturally occurring things without rendering them ~crystallizations of social labor.
    
    Marx’s argument is invalid in another way because there are so many qualities commodities share besides being products of labor.
    
    Now, I know that the law of value is supposed to come specifically with highly developed industrial society with large scale social production which makes the abstract real etc etc however the issue is that this then messes with Marx’s argument I went over in the prev comment where he tries to prove the LTV by going over the concept of commodities/commodity exchange as such without regard for this.
    
    Arguments like the “mud pie” don’t apply, because mud pies are neither useful nor difficult to make.
    
    The argument only doesn’t apply for the first reason. There’s no necessity even for Marx that commodities be arbitrarily “difficult” to produce.
    
    Incorrect, the exchange-value that price fluctuates around is representative of the value in a commodity.
    
    How is this a response to what I said?
    
    Another way to look at it is that the value of a commodity is the sum of its inputs, which can be reduced to labor and natural resources.
    
    This is both incorrect (for Marx, value is entirely determined by socially necessary labor time) and doesn’t mean anything (this is like multiplying 3 apples by 7 pears, what does it mean that the value of a commodity can be reduced to labor and natural resources?; with value being determined by labor time you can reduce things to a certain quantity, but then you just add on a qualitatively different thing and you return to the original problem of needing a third equivalent, or a value to unite the components of value).
    
    Marx is correct, though this is no mystery.
    
    You forgot to explain how this actually occurs. You just say that capitalism does it.
    
    What’s universal to goods bought and sold is that they require natural resources and human labor to create them.
    
    You can sell ideas.
    
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    Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    All you need for commodity exchange is for people to accept something is yours and be willing to exchange something they own which you desire in return for it. That thing being a product of labor is not necessary. You can own land based on agreement without taking any trouble to cultivate or defend it, and exchange it for other things based on agreement. You can exchange naturally occurring things without rendering them ~crystallizations of social labor.
    
    Yes? Marx talks about natural resources. Land is covered more in volume 3, but nevertheless this is fully accounted for. Natural resources take extraction to refine and produce, and the concept of owning land requires a body to uphold that, the state, and the value of land itself is tied to how productive it can make you. All value comes from labor and natural resources, this is straight from Capital.
    
    Marx’s argument is invalid in another way because there are so many qualities commodities share besides being products of labor.
    
    This does not make his argument invalid, though. What’s common is that the makeup of commodities can be reduced entirely to the labor and raw materials that went into them.
    
    Now, I know that the law of value is supposed to come specifically with highly developed industrial society with large scale social production which makes the abstract real etc etc however the issue is that this then messes with Marx’s argument I went over in the prev comment where he tries to prove the LTV by going over the concept of commodities/commodity exchange as such without regard for this.
    
    No, you never disproved anything.
    
    The argument only doesn’t apply for the first reason. There’s no necessity even for Marx that commodities be arbitrarily “difficult” to produce.
    
    There is, though. A commodity’s value isn’t dependent on how much labor went into that individual commodity, but that commodity as a social product, ie on average. If someone spends 10 hours on a mud pie that takes 2 seconds to create on average, it’ll be just as close to worthless as the rest.
    
    How is this a response to what I said?
    
    Because you’re confusing the fact that prices reflect value with the idea that people independently think of that before purchasing.
    
    This is both incorrect (for Marx, value is entirely determined by socially necessary labor time) and doesn’t mean anything (this is like multiplying 3 apples by 7 pears, what does it mean that the value of a commodity can be reduced to labor and natural resources?; with value being determined by labor time you can reduce things to a certain quantity, but then you just add on a qualitatively different thing and you return to the original problem of needing a third equivalent, or a value to unite the components of value).
    
    You’re mixing up Exchange-Value with Use-Value. All use-value comes from labor and natural resources, but natural resources themselves can be reduced to the labor required to gather them and refine them, etc. All socially necessary labor time means is that it takes society on average a certain amount of labor to create something, and natural resources can be themselves reduced to labor. 3 apples and 7 pears both may take the same amount of labor on average to create them, and thus their prices naturally gravitate near the same value.
    
    You forgot to explain how this actually occurs. You just say that capitalism does it.
    
    Through the market. Buying and selling of goods, competition, all of this from the perspective of the capitalist confronts them as input costs and profits. Competition forces prices towards a floor, lack of competition brings in new competitors which then brings the price back to being roughly as profitable as the rest. Capital essentially functions as a control system.
    
    You should tell Marx this since he expressly says that he thinks the only universal is labor. You both happen to be wrong, though.
    
    You should actually read Capital, because Marx quite literally states this.
    
    Use-values like coats, linen, etc., in short, the physical bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements, the material provided by nature, and labour. If we subtract the total amount of useful labour of different kinds which is contained in the coat, the linen, etc., a material substratum is always left. This substratum is furnished by nature without human intervention. When man engages in production, he can only proceed as nature does herself, i.e. he can only change the form of the materials.[17] Furthermore, even in this work of modification he is constantly helped by natural forces. Labour is therefore not the only source of material wealth, i.e. of the use-values it produces. As William Petty says, labour is the father of material wealth, the earth is its mother.[18]
    
    Marx isn’t wrong, and neither am I, it seems you genuinely haven’t opened Capital because this is in the first few pages.
    
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