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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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

No? Not necessarily.

Yes, generally. There’s also transport.

Again, not necessarily.

Yes, again.

It does make his argument invalid. Per Marx: “If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour.” This is how you get to the LTV in the argument. Yet it’s just trivially wrong.

Wrt labor/raw materials, you can sell ideas. Commodities aren’t even necessarily material things. Now you could say that ideas require humans, and humans require human labor to be created and raised and nature to nourish them etc etc yet it’s an unjustifiable presupposition that ideas can then be reduced to a mechanical combination of these aspects.

Again, you’re trivially wrong. All commodities can be reduced to labor and raw materials, full-stop. Simply claiming that something is “trivially wrong” is not in fact enough to make it trivially wrong. As for “ideas” being sold, mental labor for research and development, etc. is in fact labor, and labor goes into training the skilled labor used for research and development. Again, the Law of Value is generally about the social inputs and social outputs of capitalist economies. Simply saying it’s an “unjustifiable presupposition” isn’t a counterargument.

No. Value itself is neither exchange-value (which is just a relation between two values) nor use-value (the particularities of which dissolve when considering value), when Marx refers to value he is referring only to the labor-time socially necessary to produce a thing. If you were speaking about specific use values then this is just nonsense in context because you were talking about “the value in a commodity” as what price orbits around, and then you have the category error I went over. You corrected yourself here by saying value can be reduced to just labor instead of being “reduced to labor and natural resources.” Just admit you made a mistake and don’t act like the mix-up is on me.

You can call it a mistake if you want, but I was clearly referencing the fact that call commodities are reducible to labor and natural resources. This is why Marx directly references labor and natural resources as the mother and father of all material wealth. Given that you haven’t yet made an actual critique of the Law of Value, this seems more like deflection than anything else.

Sure, and why should this floor be reflective of the amt. of labor required to produce that commodity? Well you can justify this abstractly but in terms of actually making it work, it doesn’t.

Because the price of labor-power is essentially regulated around what can be produced in a day of laboring, with the expectation that this is enough to reproduce a day of laboring. In other words, wages are kept around the level needed for workers to continue the production process in terms of means of consumption. This is reflected in the price of the commodities produced by the labor process.

This has to do with the prev. “mix-up,” you were talking about [[[prices]]] again; commodities as values are only representative of certain expenditures of abstract labor, that is the universal. Use-values are [[[particularities]]] and the entire point of the book is that insofar as they are considered in relation to each other and to the universal which is money (price!), their particular use does not matter (indeed, the particular form of labor employed and any other considerations do not matter), only that they are expenditures of the total abstract social productive capacity of a society.

Again, not a mix-up. Your original critique, if I am being as charitable as possible, is that use-values can be exchanged without having values. This is directly addressed by Marx, in the first chapter of the first volume of Capital.

I’m not anybody’s alt, not that it would matter if I was. I’d imagine if I had a longer history you would pick something else out to use, but this got me to look at your history and I found this post called “Dialectical Materalism: How to Think Like a Marxist” that I’m going to reply to so thx.

Correct, your argument would not matter if you’re an alt or not, it’s just highly strange that this would be your first comment, days into a thread, many comments deep into it.

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timdrake@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

Yes, generally.

So not necessarily. I don’t know why you’re standing your ground on this absurd position that natural resources necessarily need to be extracted, refined and produced, or even transported to be exchanged.

Yes, again.

Right except that just isn’t true. It’s not necessary, all you need is an agreement. In terms of generalizing this exchange, that’s a different question. But I already explained why that doesn’t matter.

All commodities can be reduced to labor and raw materials, full-stop.

Simply claiming that something is true is not in fact enough to make it true.

Simply claiming that something is “trivially wrong” is not in fact enough to make it trivially wrong.

I was under the impression that you acknowledged that “there are so many qualities commodities share besides being products of labor” [-me] but that “this does not make his argument invalid, though” [-you]. It doesn’t make sense for you to say this otherwise. So why would I have to list those qualities? I guess you changed your mind upon seeing the quote, but you should’ve just admitted this. The thing is, even if there weren’t these qualities, you would still be wrong because conceptually this would still make the argument invalid.

Regardless of specific use values, commodities all have the quality of existing in time, being comprised of matter for Marx, have the quality of being use-values in being exchange-values (that is, their use for the seller is always to be exchanged, regardless of their specific use for the buyer), I think this is enough.

Again, the Law of Value is generally about the social inputs and social outputs of capitalist economies.

I already responded to this:

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.

research and development

Not necessary.

Simply saying it’s an “unjustifiable presupposition” isn’t a counterargument.

Right, because I’m not countering an argument; a presupposition isn’t an argument.

You can call it a mistake if you want, but I was clearly referencing the fact that call commodities are reducible to labor and natural resources. This is why Marx directly references labor and natural resources as the mother and father of all material wealth.

Right no I got that, it’s just that it makes no sense to reference that here, as I explained. There’s no way this isn’t a mistake, and there’s no way the confusion is on me. “You can call it a mistake if you want” is a funny response though.

Because the price of labor-power is essentially regulated around what can be produced in a day of laboring, with the expectation that this is enough to reproduce a day of laboring. In other words, wages are kept around the level needed for workers to continue the production process in terms of means of consumption. This is reflected in the price of the commodities produced by the labor process.

You evidently do not understand what I’m asking.

Again, not a mix-up.

Again, there’s no other explanation. Which is why you just transition to a different point in the next sentence.

Your original critique, if I am being as charitable as possible, is that use-values can be exchanged without having values. This is directly addressed by Marx, in the first chapter of the first volume of Capital.

He can address it all he wants, it contradicts his argument I went over in the first place, that exchange of use values necessitates the presence of value. Forget everything else, this is the argument.

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- Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  You haven’t explained any of your arguments, even given any examples. You’ve simply made claims equivalent to “it’s absurd,” without actually contesting Marx’s positions. Either way, since you yourself said to forget everything else, I’ll narrow it down to what you believe is the key point:
  
  He can address it all he wants, it contradicts his argument I went over in the first place, that exchange of use values necessitates the presence of value. Forget everything else, this is the argument.
  
  Marx’s argument is not contradictory in the slightest. Land, for example, has no “value” but has a price, which is capitalization on rent. Natural resources, for example, have to be processed into a sellable form, which requires land, tools, and labor. Marx’s chief argument isn’t that use-values exchanging means they must have an underlying value alone, it’s that the prices in an economy are not random, and so must be the result of their common elements, as can be exchanged for the universal commodity, money.
  
  Commodity production is a social process, and commodity exchange is also a social process.
  
  I’ll also requote your original comment:
  
  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,
  
  This is not at all “very clear,” and you have not given a single example disproving this. Again, simply saying that something is clear is not in fact a counter.
  
  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.
  
  Again, incorrect. Commodities are social products, and all are produced via labor. The commodity market itself relies on the differences between price and value to re-allocate labor, capital itself is a control system. You cannot divorce a commodity from the very fact that commodities of its type are made by labor, even if you could magic a widget into existence, its price would still be that of the rest of the widgets, because widgets are socially provided in a given socially necessary abstract labor time.
  
  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.
  
  Again, wrong. Marx’s argument is an observation of how labor and capital is allocated, and how capitalist economies function in reality. Marx is not concerned with idyllic, fantasy conditions where wizards can conjure infinite objects, Marx is talking about the concrete world where goods are produced, bought, and sold on a market in a non-random manner.
  
  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.
  
  Again, no capitalist is going to calculate SNALT, they are going to notice the cost of production and sell above that, meeting the market roughly where similar commodities are sold. Supply and demand therefore regulate price to value, and when this diverges, labor is re-allocated out of less profitable commodities and into more profitable ones, creating a social average. This is the driving force. It isn’t intentional on any one capitalist’s part, it’s capital itself playing the market regulator.
  
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  - timdrake@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    You repeatedly say I never made an argument or gave examples despite me doing both, you just reassert things in opposition to these arguments and examples which you deny the existence of and then in the same breath say that ~“simply saying things is not in fact a counter.” You are the one that doesn’t know the difference between making an argument and just saying things.
    
    You insist that naturally occurring things need to be “processed” before they can be sold despite anyone with a functioning brain knowing that’s not universal. Do we even live on the same planet? At a certain point all I can do is say it’s obvious.
    
    Marx’s chief argument isn’t that use-values exchanging means they must have an underlying value alone, it’s that the prices in an economy are not random, and so must be the result of their common elements, as can be exchanged for the universal commodity, money.
    
    The problem is that I’ve read his argument and know for a fact that it goes exactly how I described it, that Marx does not establish prior in the argument that prices in an economy are not random, with the common element notion following from this; in fact, this is a conclusion he gets to simultaneously with the conclusion that exchange-values are a reflection of this third thing, these are actually the same conclusion. You can’t read what I’ve said, you can’t read what Marx said, what else can I do? This is the start of the argument:
    
    Hence exchange value appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange value that is inseparably connected with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. Let us consider the matter a little more closely.
    
    A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c. – in short, for other commodities in the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange value, the wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y silk, or z gold &c., each represents the exchange value of one quarter of wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly, exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.
    
    Again, no capitalist is going to calculate SNALT, they are going to notice the cost of production and sell above that, meeting the market roughly where similar commodities are sold. Supply and demand therefore regulate price to value
    
    You don’t need to reiterate that it isn’t intentional twice in response to my message where I acknowledge Marx says it isn’t intentional. And you just assume value = SNALT again.
    
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    Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Again, no examples provided for natural resources that don’t need to be processed in any way, shape or form, including transport, as the average way to get them. No, it isn’t obvious at all that there are natural resources that involve no processing or transport yet are sold this way on average, and you continue to refuse to provide an example for something so “obvious.” Very unserious.
    
    Regarding Marx on value, you’re confusing how Marx builds up his argument, proceeding from the most basic element upward and outward, and developing a many-sided view, with the totality of the base of his argument. Marx is specifically referencing how prices appear “random” at first, as prices of each commodity is itself different, but that they can all exchange for each other in consistent ratios through the universal commodity, money, and that this all proceeds from how we produce and distribute, ie labor. This naturally also includes natural resources, which themselves have no “value” alone.
    
    In other words, prices are not actually random, despite first appearances, and they all reduce down to their constituent elements, the basic block of value being labor-time as this is the basic input in production from which all else flows. Capitalism is a control system for the distribution of labor, and works to accumulate as much capital as possible.
    
    None of this is based on “assumption,” it’s based on clear observation of how capitalism functions.
    
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