timdrake

@timdrake@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨.ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ 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.