Cowbee
@Cowbee@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Can't believe its been 2 weeks 1 day ago:
I don’t see what you mean. The means of production and who own them are both political and economic inherently.
- Comment on Can't believe its been 2 weeks 1 day ago:
You too!
- Comment on Can't believe its been 2 weeks 1 day ago:
Decent, busy.
- Comment on Can't believe its been 2 weeks 1 day ago:
I mean the means of production and distribution.
- Comment on Can't believe its been 2 weeks 1 day ago:
No? Private ownership began to dominate society after feudalism. Turtles aren’t compelling others to labor for them through capital ownership.
- Comment on Can't believe its been 2 weeks 1 day ago:
Capitalism as a mode of production is only a few hundred years old. It’s essentially a mode of production where private ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and capital owners control the state. Before capitalism was feudalism, and before feudalism came slave societies, and before those came tribal communalism.
Human nature is incredibly malleable and depends most upon how we produce and distribute, how we live and how our environment shapes us.
- Comment on Can't believe its been 2 weeks 1 day ago:
The 100 million figure includes abortions and Nazis killed during World War II, so even that’s already horrendously off (not to mention the outright faked numbers).
- Comment on How to get attention around here. 1 week ago:
Sure, but before you get to communism there’s socialism, which has a worker state.
- Comment on Ladybugs 5 weeks ago:
I never mentioned South Africa, but either way I was simply extending the argument against the US to Canada itself. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable extension.
- Comment on Ladybugs 5 weeks ago:
I said:
To be fair, Canada is also a genocidal settler-colony and an active imperialist power.
I directly compared Canada to the US Empire, as a lesser imperial power and a similarly genocidal settler-colony. I think the fact that Canadians distrust the US Empire is a bit hypocritical, a progressive movement within Canada should also oppose the Canadian state.
I wasn’t really trying to “twist” what you were saying, more give you an alternate perspective. For all of the reasons you hate the US, you should also hate Canada. Both are bad, Canada just is lower on the imperial ladder.
- Comment on Ladybugs 5 weeks ago:
Imperialism is not “wages illegal wars,” imperialism is a process of wealth and resource extraction from the global south. Canada participates in this international system, headed by the US Empire, as a willing recipient of the spoils. Further, Canada is a member of NATO, which is a military coalition of imperialist countries designed to prevent backlash from the global south.
I assume you at least agree with the understanding that Canada is a genocidal settler-colony, and therefore should be abolished as a state alongside the US Empire, Israel, etc.
- Comment on Ladybugs 5 weeks ago:
Mild critique, there is no “American nation,” there are settler-colonists that do not form a nation, colonized indigenous groups, and semi-colonies of formerly enslaved peoples.
- Comment on Ladybugs 5 weeks ago:
To be fair, Canada is also a genocidal settler-colony and an active imperialist power.
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
I hope it will, so who knows!
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
I already answered this over on Late Stage Capitalism, so I’ll just copy and paste my response over here:
I’m sorry, but this just reveals that we aren’t on the same page when it comes to Marxism. Your primary error is with erasing all of the advances of historical materialism and scientific socialism from Marx, and returning it to the utopianism of pre-Marx socialists such as Robert Owen. Essentially, you are treating capitalism as “private property,” socialism as “public property,” and communism as “big socialism.” This is dogmatic, and erases that modes of production are NOT their finite parts, but instead are determined by which aspect of the economy is principal, ie dominant and rising, and which class controls the state.
When you say China is a “mix of capitalism and socialism,” this horrendously misrepresents what a mode of production actually is. In China, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy. Huge state industry forms the backbone of the economy, and governs the large firms and key industries. This is because public ownership and planning is more effective at higher levels of development.
The private property that exists in China is relegated to small and medium industries, and highly competitive ones. This is because of the key development in Marxism advancing it beyond utopianism: the form of production suits the level of development of the productive forces. Rather than taking the Utopian path, which was to “model build” and create a system outright, Marx observed that capitalism came from feudalism with the rise in industrialization, and that markets themselves were centralizing, in other words socializing production while keeping profits private!
To return, your position that “the more communist you are, the more you dogmatically collectivize, regardless of level of development” is distinctly anti-Marxist, and moreover was already tried by China! Under the Gang of Four, there became a fetishization of equality in poverty. They were dogmatic in trying to collectivize as much as possible, with little regard for the level of development. Reform & Opening Up was a return to more classical interpretations of Marx, and thus saw a stablization and slight acceleration in development. This strategy and understanding is reflected in Cheng Enfu’s diagram, here:
When Marx and Engels wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party, their basic advice to any successful revolution is to nationalize the large firms and key industries, develop the productive forces as rapidly as possible, and gradually nationalize the rest of the economy as it develops. This reflects the exact path the PRC is charting, right now. This is why it’s important to read and understand theory, as if you became a leader of a new socialist country with your current understanding, you’d likely commit the same mistakes as the Gang of Four.
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
I already said the concept of communism predates Marx. I am not redefining communism to Marxism. OP is asking about socialism and communism as they actually exist and are understood, and further “primitive communism” as described by Marx is misleading and instead is better described as “communalism.”
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
“Religious communism” is not a thing, and early communalism exists in micro-pockets. Neither is the same as what is understood as communism, the theoretical mode of production that predates Marxism.
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
Not a single one of the ideologies listed on that page has successfully established socialism except for the derivatives of Marxism-Leninism, such as Juche. The closest is Zapatismo, but Zapatismo does not consider itself communist, nor socialist, nor anarchist, and instead is a primarily indigenous ideology related to the Chiapas region.
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
The fact of the matter is that Marxism-Leninism is what communism means for 99.9% of historical practice. Someone trying to describe sharing as “communism” when OP is talking about actual modes of production and distribution is missing the forest for the trees. Marx didn’t define communism, he created an ideology that better understands how to actually achieve it and why it is historically compelled, what gives him validity is that the only socialism that has actually existed at scale in real life has come from Marxism-Leninism.
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
Socialism is a mode of production and distribution where the working classes control the state, and public ownership is the principal (rising and dominant) aspect of the economy. Communism is a post-socialist mode of production and distribution where the entire economy is collectivized and planned, and there is no longer a state, class, or money. See Cheng Enfu’s diagram:
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
Entirely wrong.
Socialism is a mode of production and distribution where the working classes control the state, and public ownership is the principal (rising and dominant) aspect of the economy. Communism is a post-socialist mode of production and distribution where the entire economy is collectivized and planned, and there is no longer a state, class, or money. See Cheng Enfu’s diagram:
The government in socialism does not “step aside.” Instead, the working class state collectivizes all production and distribution, at which point classes no longer exist and all that remains of the state is administrative duties, which are socially necessary. Many states have developed socialism, but communism is global and post-socialist.
- Comment on What's the difference between socialism and communism? Is there one? Or are the terms interchangeable? 1 month ago:
Socialism is a mode of production and distribution where the working classes control the state, and public ownership is the principal (rising and dominant) aspect of the economy. Communism is a post-socialist mode of production and distribution where the entire economy is collectivized and planned, and there is no longer a state, class, or money. See Cheng Enfu’s diagram:
- Comment on Has anyone else noticed the strong pro CCP and anti-west vibes here? 2 months ago:
Where are you getting 3.3 million killed in the purges? The number of sentencings to death was 799,455, and we know many were canceled as the purges went beyond what was expected.
- Comment on Has anyone else noticed the strong pro CCP and anti-west vibes here? 2 months ago:
Lemmy was made by communists, seeking to build an alternative to Reddit where communists will not be able to be fully censored. Federation also is similar to how the USSR was federated, and FOSS attracts the left. As such, many areas on Lemmy are going to be pro-CPC (and supportive of socialist states in general).
This isn’t the case on every instance, though. Each instance has its own political leanings, some very anti-China and anti-communist in general. It depends on the moderation, federation practices, and focus of the instance itself.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 2 months 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.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 2 months 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.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 2 months 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.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 2 months 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.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 2 months ago:
I have never once said states and revolutions are the same thing, only that the only way to create a leftist state is revolution, and that states themselves are inherently violent towards the non-dominant class. Regimes are just scary words for states in common lingo, so please explain what a regime is.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 2 months ago:
I’ve been talking about both revolutions and states, which you call “regimes” to sound scary.
