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SKULL.GIF posted:It's fiction, but the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is both an entertaining read while also presenting a large variety of "What could non-capitalist societies look like?" ideas. When I read them as a teenager, I'd never previously realized that society could be structured any differently than the current American capitalistic version. The books were pretty eye-opening on that front. Theory and all that are great, but Robinson shows what it's like to live in one of these societies created on Mars, what engaging with politics and government might look like, how a money-free economy might work, the impact that great advances in technology could have on both capitalist and non-capitalistic societies. When trying to reach out to some people, I find that sometimes they might agree with the policy and philosophical points of what they're reading, but have trouble envisioning or imagining what life would look like or what the transition might entail -- so I recommend that they read Red Mars. KSR is an anticapitalist and one of my favorite authors. oh man, i'll totally second that. the mars trilogy was probably the single most influential thing i read as a tween. ...i was probably too young to be reading those books that young, but i digress his science in the capital trilogy is also good, though maybe more grounded in the time it was written and not quite as radical. i think it got recently repacked as one book. green earth? i haven't had a chance to go through it yet.
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Sep 26, 2017 01:55
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Jizz Festival posted:Pricing is more complex than "just" labor, but the price of something is not usually equivalent to its value. Supply and demand and a whole bunch of other bullshit affects how value is translated into a price for a commodity. Yes, I realize that. I think icantfindaname and AriadeThread kind of alluded to the idea that there really isn't a realistic valuation principle for Marxian theory, and reading the wikipedia page for it gives me that notion as well.
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Sep 26, 2017 01:55
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The U.S. would not be able to afford it unless everyone were still paid the same (or better) wages, worked the same amount of hours, and collected the same amount of revenue. Would there be any political will or economic reason to do that? Here is an easier version for you: If I have 5 apples and 3 friends, then I can give each friend one apple and still have one left over. If I do this every day, and then one day for some reason (the tree produced slightly fewer apples than estimated last year, one of my friends dropped their apple, I was only able to reach the bottom branches to collect the apples, or my friends are very hungry today and wants two apples) I have only 3 apples, then what should I do? And would my friends be okay with a scenario where they don't pack a lunch because I provide them apples, but then one day (and it may only be one day out of the week) I can only give out 3 apples?
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Sep 26, 2017 01:55
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Boon posted:Yes, I realize that. I think icantfindaname and AriadeThread kind of alluded to the idea that there really isn't a realistic valuation principle for Marxian theory, and reading the wikipedia page for it gives me that notion as well. Out of curiosity, what problems do you have with determining value (the quantity we use to compare commodities when exchanging them) using labor?
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Sep 26, 2017 01:57
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The U.S. would not be able to afford it unless everyone were still paid the same (or better) wages, worked the same amount of hours, and collected the same amount of revenue. Would there be any political will or economic reason to do that? i dunno man apples give me indigestion got any peaches?
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Sep 26, 2017 01:57
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SKULL.GIF posted:It's fiction, but the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is both an entertaining read while also presenting a large variety of "What could non-capitalist societies look like?" ideas. When I read them as a teenager, I'd never previously realized that society could be structured any differently than the current American capitalistic version. The books were pretty eye-opening on that front. Theory and all that are great, but Robinson shows what it's like to live in one of these societies created on Mars, what engaging with politics and government might look like, how a money-free economy might work, the impact that great advances in technology could have on both capitalist and non-capitalistic societies. When trying to reach out to some people, I find that sometimes they might agree with the policy and philosophical points of what they're reading, but have trouble envisioning or imagining what life would look like or what the transition might entail -- so I recommend that they read Red Mars. KSR is an anticapitalist and one of my favorite authors.  Also Hellblazer should read Molecular Red by McKenzie Wark. I have a stupid number of other recommendations in this vein but I don't want to bore.
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Sep 26, 2017 01:57
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AriadneThread posted:oh man, i'll totally second that. the mars trilogy was probably the single most influential thing i read as a tween. ...i was probably too young to be reading those books that young, but i digress Yeah, it's good but feels dated even though he was able to go back and revise heavily for the reprint. Still worth reading if you're a KSR fan.
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Sep 26, 2017 01:58
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https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/912477905447473152 Lol bannon is coming
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Sep 26, 2017 02:00
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The U.S. would not be able to afford it unless everyone were still paid the same (or better) wages, worked the same amount of hours, and collected the same amount of revenue. Would there be any political will or economic reason to do that? You realize that the way that money and the economy works and the prices of things are all fairly arbitrary, right? You understand that capitalism isn't a natural law like gravity, right? I feel like this is a real stumbling block for people.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:01
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Mr Hootington posted:https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/912477905447473152 All I heard was [garbled].
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Sep 26, 2017 02:02
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Mr Hootington posted:https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/912477905447473152 What if Bannon starts leaking GOP dirt that was intercepted by the Russians
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Sep 26, 2017 02:03
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Hey so I think I'm like a dozen pages late but things move fast, Can someone explain to me, or point me to an article, explaining Marcon and his lovely ways? Like I see enough of the same complaints, that his party has deified him, neoliberal poo poo, all that good stuff. But as an American with very little understanding of French politics, I can't really qualify any of those statements. Educate me please
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Sep 26, 2017 02:05
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Jizz Festival posted:Out of curiosity, what problems do you have with determining value (the quantity we use to compare commodities when exchanging them) using labor? Well. Where do you even start with a question like that - it's very broad in what it may ignore. You correctly point out that value and price are not the same but just off the top of my head without going into scarcity 1. It ignores differentiation. A buyer may value unique attributes in a product more than other products. 2. It ignores bundling and complements. A buyer may perceive increased value in a larger, overall purchase/benefit (think of this as 1 + 1 = 3). 3. The more substitutes available the less value any individual product may have. 4. Two individuals may not perceive the same value in a given item (how much do you value your dog vs how much your neighbor values the same dog?) 5. Branding, loyalty, and trust (have you experienced a specific producer's product previously and had a good experience? Do you value that experience and history over time?) DrNutt posted:You realize that the way that money and the economy works and the prices of things are all fairly arbitrary, right? You understand that capitalism isn't a natural law like gravity, right? You're going to need to elaborate on that, I think. Boon fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 02:07
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DrNutt posted:You realize that the way that money and the economy works and the prices of things are all fairly arbitrary, right? You understand that capitalism isn't a natural law like gravity, right? lol Are you under the impression that price elasticity or costs associated with distribution or scarcity are problems that did not exist until capitalism?
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Sep 26, 2017 02:07
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US Foreign Policy posted:Hey so I think I'm like a dozen pages late but things move fast, The incredibly short and dumbed down version is: He wants to make French Labor law moderately more liberal than U.S. labor law by weakening unions and implementing a 40-hour work week. Since French labor law is currently much more liberal than U.S. labor law, taking it to "moderately more liberal than U.S. labor law" would be a large change.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:09
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Hellblazer187 posted:While we're talking about the difference between liberalism and leftism (are we still there? I lost power from 12-5 today so I missed a lot of the thread) I just finished reading Utopia for Realists, which I liked a lot. The book advocates UBI, shorter workweeks, and open borders. Is this liberalism or leftism? I feel like it's leftism, but I wanna check. It sounds kinda socialisty, and if that's the case, then I guess I'm pretty socialisty, too, because I want all those things very much. Um, are there any books the leftists can recommend to me on more socialist theory? I'd really like to know the actual difference between socialism and communism. It depends whether someone considers a social democracy to be leftist. I personally prefer to keep it limited to ideologies that actually involve giving workers "ownership over the means of production" in one way or another, so basically as a catch-all for different varieties of socialism, communism, etc. I think some of the people on this forum kinda misuse the term and just act like it refers to everything to the left of the current Democrats, including regular left-liberal stuff. It's definitely true that "leftist" has become a bit of a catchphrase for anyone who dislikes the Democratic Party from the left (the same goes for "centrist" when used to refer to regular liberals sometimes). So the term does have a reasonable meaning, but it's misused so often it can be hard to keep it straight. edit: Probably the best example I can remember of it being misused is when people call Randy Bryce a leftist. Like, the guy seems pretty good for a Democrat and I'd vote for him if I lived in the relevant location, but he isn't really a leftist by any stretch. By all accounts he just seems like a normal left-liberal. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 02:15
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Boon posted:Well. Where do you even start with a question like that - it's very broad in what it may ignore. You correctly point out that value and price are not the same but just off the top of my head Once again, that difference between price and value. In this situation, the producer of a commodity that is perceived as being unique would have a monopoly on that commodity. Boon posted:2. It ignores bundling and complements. A buyer may perceive increased value in a larger, overall purchase/benefit (think of this as 1 + 1 = 3). I don't even know what you're talking about here. Boon posted:3. The more substitutes available the less value any individual product may have. Not entirely sure what you mean here. Do you mean different brands of the same product? Because in that case you're once again conflating price with value. Boon posted:4. Two individuals may not perceive the same value in a given item (how much do you value your dog vs how much your neighbor values the same dog?) Is this dog being exchanged as a commodity? Because if not you're not using value in the same way that I am.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:16
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Bill Cassidy: "Everyone at this stage can agree that the health care system as we have it now is broken" loving bullshit it is NOT broken, YOU ARE loving BREAKING IT. Important difference. edit: ok I think Bernie is laughing because Graham is making his argument for him about insurance companies edit+: YEP hahahaa berserker fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 02:17
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Hellblazer187 posted:Fundamentally, if the means of production are taxed heavily and the taxes are redistributed, is that functionally very different from them being seized? It isn't really the same IMO unless you actually tax wealth, not just earnings. Taxing income just slows down the rate at which someone gains wealth, but taxing wealth actually "seizes" their existing wealth. Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:This also assumes no negative effects on economic growth, wages, hours worked, or tax collection. To be fair, you also aren't assuming any positive effects from people having more money to spend, since taxing and redistributing money from wealthier Americans to less wealthy ones would result in a greater portion of that money actually being spent on goods/services. I think you could reasonably assume that any sort of tax on the top 20% or so that was redistributed to the bottom 80% would result in a net positive economic effect. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 02:20
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Hellblazer187 posted:Fundamentally, if the means of production are taxed heavily and the taxes are redistributed, is that functionally very different from them being seized? Yes, unless you're taxing and redistributing 100% of the profits, the workers are still being exploited so the owners can accumulate profits. Just having the government seize them doesn't necessarily change this, either, as the government could continue to exploit the workers and give the profits to some other class of people.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:26
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Jizz Festival posted:Once again, that difference between price and value. In this situation, the producer of a commodity that is perceived as being unique would have a monopoly on that commodity. I don't know what you mean here. Price can be thought of as the quantification of the sum of all factors affecting value or willingness to pay. Jizz Festival posted:I don't even know what you're talking about here. A classic example is the razor and the handle. Individually the two have a certain value, but together they have an altogether different value greater than the sum of their parts. A much more complex example, heart mapping systems - in simple terms, to map the electrical signals of the heart you thread a catheter with electrodes in its tip into the vascular system and to the heart. A separate system interprets and displays those recorded signals to provide a map. These individually are not of the same value as they are together. Further, each product individually can decrease the value of the two together if one or the other is of poor quality. Jizz Festival posted:Not entirely sure what you mean here. Do you mean different brands of the same product? Because in that case you're once again conflating price with value. If you're thirsty, and you walk up to a counter where there are 30 different types of thirst quenching liquids, the value you place on any of them is going to be limited by the next best substitute. Jizz Festival posted:Is this dog being exchanged as a commodity? Because if not you're not using value in the same way that I am. It could be, the point is that there are human factors to value. You may value that watch that your grandpa handed down through the generations far more than what someone not in that hereditary line would value the same watch. Boon fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 02:27
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AriadneThread posted:oh man, i'll totally second that. the mars trilogy was probably the single most influential thing i read as a tween. ...i was probably too young to be reading those books that young, but i digress I don't know whether it's because the science has changed or if he's simply acknowledging that there are differing theories about the topic, but I really liked how in Aurora the idea of terraforming Mars was viewed as an incredibly long-term project that the Martians knew would likely take millennia to achieve (And how this need to think and plan on such a timescale became part of their worldview and informed them further).
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Sep 26, 2017 02:35
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US Foreign Policy posted:Hey so I think I'm like a dozen pages late but things move fast, Here is a decent article from a fairly mainstream source: https://www.thenation.com/article/the-false-promise-of-macrons-labor-reforms/
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Sep 26, 2017 02:42
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Boon posted:I don't know what you mean here. I mean that if there's 20 brands of smartphones but one brand is perceived as being unique from the other ones, the producer of that phone essentially has a monopoly on a unique product. Boon posted:A classic example is the razor and the handle. Individually the two have a certain value, but together they have an altogether different value greater than the sum of their parts. A much more complex example, heart mapping systems - in simple terms, to map the electrical signals of the heart you thread a catheter with electrodes in its tip into the vascular system and to the heart. A separate system interprets and displays those recorded signals to provide a map. These individually are not of the same value as they are together. Further, each product individually can decrease the value of the two together if one or the other is of poor quality. You're conflating use-value and value. For Marx, the usefulness of an object is its use-value. In order for an object to have value, it must also have use-value; it needs to be useful to somebody else in order to be exchanged. A normal consumer will not just want to buy a razor handle with no razor, as that has no use-value to them. Likewise your heart mapping system isn't particularly useful without the system to interpret and display the signal. One wouldn't be made as a commodity without the other existing as they would have no use-value. Bundling them together as a unit doesn't change the amount of labor that went into producing them. Boon posted:If you're thirsty, and you walk up to a counter where there are 30 different types of thirst quenching liquids, the value you place on any of them is going to be limited by the next best substitute. I still don't get what you mean. If I'm super thirsty I might be more willing to pay a higher price, yes, but once again we get to the difference between value and price. Boon posted:It could be, the point is that there are human factors to value. You may value that watch that your grandpa handed down through the generations far more than what someone not in that hereditary line would value the same watch. That watch is not being exchanged as a commodity. If you exchanged it as a commodity, the meaning it has to you, its use-value to you, would be meaningless to the potential buyers.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:46
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Jizz Festival posted:I mean that if there's 20 brands of smartphones but one brand is perceived as being unique from the other ones, the producer of that phone essentially has a monopoly on a unique product. This is the perfect combo of misunderstood economic terms and bizarre conclusions.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:51
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Mr Hootington posted:https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/912477905447473152 I really want the
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Sep 26, 2017 02:52
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Peachfart posted:This is the perfect combo of misunderstood economic terms and bizarre conclusions. Feel free to actually point out those specific errors and have a discussion.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:52
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Ytlaya posted:It depends whether someone considers a social democracy to be leftist. I personally prefer to keep it limited to ideologies that actually involve giving workers "ownership over the means of production" in one way or another, so basically as a catch-all for different varieties of socialism, communism, etc. I think some of the people on this forum kinda misuse the term and just act like it refers to everything to the left of the current Democrats, including regular left-liberal stuff. It's definitely true that "leftist" has become a bit of a catchphrase for anyone who dislikes the Democratic Party from the left (the same goes for "centrist" when used to refer to regular liberals sometimes). So the term does have a reasonable meaning, but it's misused so often it can be hard to keep it straight. I mean, Social Democracy only has the same symbol as Socialists as coincidence. It's not like they have some sort of shared heritage at all, or some kind of umbrella organization that takes both. No sir.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:52
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Getting some real deja Vu vibes from this Jizz dude. I think his next go to line is to complain about having to read a link to educate himself.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:53
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We're not talking in the same language when it comes to value and I do not think we have the same understanding on the relationship between price and value. I'm having a very difficult time trying to bridge that divide. While it's clear to me that you have a different understanding of value which I think I can follow, it is not clear to me that you understand the relationship between value and price or that I do not understand your understanding of it, which causes the translation to go sideways. E: It seems to me that your definition of value is synonymous with 'cost' Boon fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 02:54
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I would like to give a big shoutout to the boon jizz discussion for being a discussion and not a shitfest!
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Sep 26, 2017 02:58
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Boon posted:We're not talking in the same language when it comes to value and we do not have the same understanding on the relationship between price and value and I'm having a very difficult time trying to bridge that divide. I can try to help bridge that divide. A lot of the examples you're using (the dog and watch and poo poo) are of unique items where the relationship between price and value becomes wacky because there's no competition between producers to drive down the price of the item.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:59
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Jizz Festival posted:I can try to help bridge that divide. A lot of the examples you're using (the dog and watch and poo poo) are of unique items where the relationship between price and value becomes wacky because there's no competition between producers to drive down the price of the item. No, I edited my previous post because I went back to re-read your original question. It seems to me that your definition of value is synonmous with 'cost'. In which case, that's a whole different thing. To your point here, no. They are not necessarily unique items. It could be a mechanical pencil that for whatever reason you place a sentimental value in, it's not like any other mechanical pencil (even though it looks exactly the same, was made exactly the same, etc...) because any other mechanical pencil wasn't the one that you passed that landmark test with (or some such similar poo poo).
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Sep 26, 2017 03:02
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Boon posted:We're not talking in the same language when it comes to value Yeah, this is obvious. Jizz Festival is trying to explain Labour Theory of Value to you, which I'm pretty sure you kinda-sorta asked them to do (or at least, they implicitly offered to explain it to you, and you took them up on it by replying.) This requires you to actually try to engage with potentially new terms and their meaning within the framework of a particular theory, without bringing the baggage of what you think you understand about those terms. LToV has flaws, but if you're not going to engage with JF with an open mind, you should probably save everyone time and frustration and just say you don't actually want to learn about this stuff. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure this is the right thread for it, anyway. e: Boon posted:It could be a mechanical pencil that for whatever reason you place a sentimental value in 
Falstaff fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 03:04
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Mister Adequate posted:I don't know whether it's because the science has changed or if he's simply acknowledging that there are differing theories about the topic, but I really liked how in Aurora the idea of terraforming Mars was viewed as an incredibly long-term project that the Martians knew would likely take millennia to achieve (And how this need to think and plan on such a timescale became part of their worldview and informed them further). i think it's just as much if not more about considering different takes rather then revisiting a concept he devoted three whole books to something i've liked about robinson's work is that while the science trends towards the 'hard' it's still subservient to the thematic goals of the work. the terraforming of mars in the trilogy is more an analogy/backdrop for a theoretical transformation of a post-capitalist human society then just because it's really cool to think about terraforming mars AriadneThread fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Sep 26, 2017 |
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Sep 26, 2017 03:06
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Watching this healthcare debate. Amy Klobuchar is Democrat as hell and keeps parroting right wing poo poo like 'tax credits for small businesses' while carefully avoiding stumping for medicare for all.
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Sep 26, 2017 03:09
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Boon posted:No, I edited my previous post because I went back to re-read your original question. It seems to me that your definition of value is synonmous with 'cost'. In which case, that's a whole different thing. Not exactly synonymous with cost, since less value is spent by the capitalist to produce an item than is embodied in that item. This is the case because the capitalist pays the workers for their labor-power, rather than for however many hours of labor were worked. The value of labor-power is however much labor time is needed to produce all the things that the worker needs to keep on living. The actual number of hours the capitalist has the worker labor will always be over the value of labor-power. This additional labor time is the surplus-value that goes into the item, which is where the capitalist's profits come from. Boon posted:To your point here, no. They are not necessarily unique items. It could be a #2 pencil that for whatever reason you place a sentimental value in, it's not like any other #2 pencil (even though it looks exactly the same, was made exactly the same, etc...) because any other #2 pencil wasn't the one that you passed that landmark test with (or some such similar poo poo). But if you sold it, nobody would know that it was special to you. It would fetch the same price as any other pencil.
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Sep 26, 2017 03:09
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tekz posted:Watching this healthcare debate. Amy Klobuchar is Democrat as hell and keeps parroting right wing poo poo like 'tax credits for small businesses' while carefully avoiding stumping for medicare for all. she's pushing for a public option though, which is probably the best short term goal for healthcare
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Sep 26, 2017 03:11
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DC Murderverse posted:she's pushing for a public option though, which is probably the best short term goal for healthcare What does 'public option' entail?
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Sep 26, 2017 03:12
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tekz posted:What does 'public option' entail? allowing people to buy into (medicare/medicaid depending on bill). it's not single payer but it's definitely the first step on the way there.
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Sep 26, 2017 03:13
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