DaysBefore posted:

*floating like Vivec after spending an entire day studying peasants* Zaphod Beeblebrox is a Trot

quote:

Any dumb rear end should know that a prime meridian does not just pass through the Greenwich point, but it also passes as a great circle through both poles, crossing the equator at 2 opposite points, dividing Earth into 2 halves of light and darkness, with each its own 24 hour rotation - in a single rotation of Earth. You should know that harmonic symmetry demands a second great circle meridian to create sunup and sundown corner quadrants? There are 4 simultaneous 24 hour days within a single rotation of the Earth. You may be too drat evil to accept it.

Rodney The Yam II posted:

Sadly, though perhaps not surprisingly, the epilogue of the illustrated Marx book goes into "China is capitalist actually, and bad" territory. The rest of the book is pretty good and it's nice that it tries to (briefly) cover all the points of Capital chapter-by-chapter. It's given me a lay of the land of the text, and I feel more motivated to read the original.

Al! posted:

they always love to illustrate how evil china is by showing almost spotlessly clean, well lit and organized factory floors. but look at how samey the workstations look!!!! everyones in identical ppe!!!

Al! posted:

they always love to illustrate how evil china is by showing almost spotlessly clean, well lit and organized factory floors. but look at how samey the workstations look!!!! everyones in identical ppe!!!

Tricky D posted:

I'd like to see you so-called philosopher historians argue with the truth:

Epic High Five posted:

edit - if you're trying to build toward some kind of ungainly Christian synthesis of economics and divinity tho you've got competition

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Oh look a theologian understands more about capitalism than the Dillbert guy or Hitchhiker guy or whatever,

Rodney The Yam II posted:

More geometry plz

plato posted:

SOCRATES: Tell me now, boy, you know that a square figure is like this?—I do.
SOCRATES: A square then is a figure in which all these four sides are [c] equal?—Yes indeed.
SOCRATES: And it also has these lines through the middle equal?5—Yes.
SOCRATES: And such a figure could be larger or smaller?—Certainly.
SOCRATES: If then this side were two feet, and this other side two feet, how many feet would the whole be? Consider it this way: if it were two feet this way, and only one foot that way, the figure would be once two feet?—Yes.
[d] SOCRATES: But if it is two feet also that way, it would surely be twice two feet?—Yes.
SOCRATES: How many feet is twice two feet? Work it out and tell me.—Four, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Now we could have another figure twice the size of this one, with the four sides equal like this one.—Yes.
SOCRATES: How many feet will that be?—Eight.
SOCRATES: Come now, try to tell me how long each side of this will be. [e] The side of this is two feet. What about each side of the one which is its double?—Obviously, Socrates, it will be twice the length.
SOCRATES: You see, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything, but all I do is question him. And now he thinks he knows the length of the line on which an eight-foot figure is based. Do you agree?
MENO: I do.
SOCRATES: And does he know?
MENO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: He thinks it is a line twice the length?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Watch him now recollecting things in order, as one must recollect. Tell me, boy, do you say that a figure double the size is based [83] on a line double the length? Now I mean such a figure as this, not long on one side and short on the other, but equal in every direction like this one, and double the size, that is, eight feet. See whether you still believe that it will be based on a line double the length.—I do.
SOCRATES: Now the line becomes double its length if we add another of the same length here?—Yes indeed.
SOCRATES: And the eight-foot square will be based on it, if there are four lines of that length?—Yes.
[b] SOCRATES: Well, let us draw from it four equal lines, and surely that is what you say is the eight-foot square?—Certainly.
SOCRATES: And within this figure are four squares, each of which is equal to the four-foot square?—Yes.
SOCRATES: How big is it then? Is it not four times as big?—Of course.
SOCRATES: Is this square then, which is four times as big, its double?—No, by Zeus.
SOCRATES: How many times bigger is it?—Four times.
[c] SOCRATES: Then, my boy, the figure based on a line twice the length is not double but four times as big?—You are right.
SOCRATES: And four times four is sixteen, is it not?—Yes.
SOCRATES: On how long a line should the eight-foot square be based? On this line we have a square that is four times bigger, do we not?—Yes.
SOCRATES: Now this four-foot square is based on this line here, half the length?—Yes.
SOCRATES: Very well. Is the eight-foot square not double this one and half that one?6—Yes.
SOCRATES: Will it not be based on a line longer than this one and shorter than that one? Is that not so?—I think so. [d]
SOCRATES: Good, you answer what you think. And tell me, was this one not two-feet long, and that one four feet?—Yes.
SOCRATES: The line on which the eight-foot square is based must then be longer than this one of two feet, and shorter than that one of four feet?—It must be.
SOCRATES: Try to tell me then how long a line you say it is.—Three [e] feet.
SOCRATES: Then if it is three feet, let us add the half of this one, and it will be three feet? For these are two feet, and the other is one. And here, similarly, these are two feet and that one is one foot, and so the figure you mention comes to be?—Yes.
SOCRATES: Now if it is three feet this way and three feet that way, will the whole figure be three times three feet?—So it seems.
SOCRATES: How much is three times three feet?—Nine feet.
SOCRATES: And the double square was to be how many feet?—Eight.
SOCRATES: So the eight-foot figure cannot be based on the three-foot line?—Clearly not.
SOCRATES: But on how long a line? Try to tell us exactly, and if you do [84] not want to work it out, show me from what line.—By Zeus, Socrates, I do not know.
SOCRATES: You realize, Meno, what point he has reached in his recollection. At first he did not know what the basic line of the eight-foot square was; even now he does not yet know, but then he thought he knew, and answered confidently as if he did know, and he did not think himself at a loss, but now he does think himself at a loss, and as he does not know, [b] neither does he think he knows.
MENO: That is true.
SOCRATES: So he is now in a better position with regard to the matter he does not know?
MENO: I agree with that too.
SOCRATES: Have we done him any harm by making him perplexed and numb as the torpedo fish does?
MENO: I do not think so.
SOCRATES: Indeed, we have probably achieved something relevant to finding out how matters stand, for now, as he does not know, he would be glad to find out, whereas before he thought he could easily make many [c] fine speeches to large audiences about the square of double size and said that it must have a base twice as long.
MENO: So it seems.
SOCRATES: Do you think that before he would have tried to find out that which he thought he knew though he did not, before he fell into perplexity and realized he did not know and longed to know?
MENO: I do not think so, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Has he then benefitted from being numbed?
MENO: I think so.
SOCRATES: Look then how he will come out of his perplexity while searching along with me. I shall do nothing more than ask questions and not [d] teach him. Watch whether you find me teaching and explaining things to him instead of asking for his opinion.
SOCRATES: You tell me, is this not a four-foot figure? You understand?—I do.
SOCRATES: We add to it this figure which is equal to it?—Yes.
SOCRATES: And we add this third figure equal to each of them?—Yes.
SOCRATES: Could we then fill in the space in the corner?—Certainly.7
SOCRATES: So we have these four equal figures?—Yes.
[e] SOCRATES: Well then, how many times is the whole figure larger than this one?8—Four times.
SOCRATES: But we should have had one that was twice as large, or do you not remember?—I certainly do.
SOCRATES: Does not this line from one corner to the other cut each of [85] these figures in two?9—Yes.
SOCRATES: So these are four equal lines which enclose this figure?10—They are.
SOCRATES: Consider now: how large is the figure?—I do not understand.
SOCRATES: Within these four figures, each line cuts off half of each, does it not?—Yes.
SOCRATES: How many of this size are there in this figure?11—Four.
SOCRATES: How many in this?12—Two.
SOCRATES: What is the relation of four to two?—Double. [b]
SOCRATES: How many feet in this?13—Eight.
SOCRATES: Based on what line?—This one.
SOCRATES: That is, on the line that stretches from corner to corner of the four-foot figure?—Yes.—Clever men call this the diagonal, so that if diagonal is its name, you say that the double figure would be that based on the diagonal?—Most certainly, Socrates

dead gay comedy forums posted:

my friend, for causing my eyebrows to arch so drat fast as if it was a spasm due to reading the term "trinitarian economics", here's some Christian redemptory duty for you: along with whatever bs report you are tasked with reading for your job, gimme a report on The German Ideology (Theses on Feuerbach is just two pages to get you started and almost every edition includes it).

e: I am sure it is going to be a breath of fresh air and relief considering so many of your complaints about what you are tasked to write about and bs to deal with. Think of it as a spiritual breather, nourishment for the soul, etc

Maximo Roboto posted:

reading theory and learning a lot from the replies

https://twitter.com/notpotbol/status/1763704002477478089?s=46

quote:

The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities’1; the individual commodity appears as its elementary form. Our investigation therefore begins with the analysis of the commodity.

quote:

The usefulness of a thing makes it a use-value. But this usefulness does not dangle in mid-air. It is conditioned by the physical properties of the commodity, and has no existence apart from the latter. It is therefore the physical body of the commodity itself, for instance iron, corn, a diamond, which is the use-value or useful thing. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities.

...

The use-values of commodities provide the material for a special branch of knowledge, namely the commercial knowledge of commodities.

quote:

Let us now take two commodities, for example corn and iron. Whatever their exchange relation may be, it can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron, for instance 1 quarter of corn = x cwt of iron. What does this equation signify? It signifies that a common element of identical magnitude exists in two different things, in 1 quarter of corn and similarly in x cwt of iron. Both are therefore equal to a third thing, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange-value, must therefore be reducible to this third thing.

...

This common element cannot be a geometrical, physical, chemical or other natural property of commodities. Such properties come into consideration only to the extent that they make the commodities useful, i.e. turn them into use-values. But clearly, the exchange relation of commodities is characterized precisely by its abstraction from their use-values. Within the exchange relation, one use-value is worth just as much as another, provided only that it is present in the appropriate quantity.

quote:

If then we disregard the use-value of commodities, only one property remains, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour has already been transformed in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use-value, we abstract also from the material constituents and forms which make it a use-value. It is no longer a table, a house, a piece of yarn or any other useful thing. All its sensuous characteristics are extinguished. Nor is it any longer the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason or the spinner, or of any other particular kind of productive labour.

With the disappearance of the useful character of the products of labour, the useful character of the kinds of labour embodied in them also disappears; this in turn entails the disappearance of the different concrete forms of labour. They can no longer be distinguished, but are all together reduced to the same kind of labour, human labour in the abstract.

Let us now look at the residue of the products of labour. There is nothing left of them in each case but the same phantom-like objectivity; they are merely congealed quantities of homogeneous human labour, i.e. of human labour-power expended without regard to the form of its expenditure. All these things now tell us is that human labour-power has been expended to produce them, human labour is accumulated in them. As crystals of this social substance, which is common to them all, they are values – commodity values [Warenwerte].

quote:

We have seen that when commodities are in the relation of exchange, their exchange-value manifests itself as something totally independent of their use-value. But if we abstract from their use-value, there remains their value, as it has just been defined The common factor in the exchange relation, or in the exchange-value of the commodity, is therefore its value.

The progress of the investigation will lead us back to exchange-value as the necessary mode of expression, or form of appearance, of value. For the present, however, we must consider the nature of value independently of its form of appearance [Erscheinungs form].

A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because abstract human labour is objectified [vergegenständlicht] or materialized in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? By means of the quantity of the ‘value-forming substance’, the labour, contained in the article. This quantity is measured by its duration, and the labour-time is itself measured on the particular scale of hours, days etc.

quote:

‘As exchange-values, all commodities are merely definite quantities of congealed labour-time"

quote:

A thing can be a use-value without being a value. This is the case whenever its utility to man is not mediated through labour. Air, virgin soil, natural meadows, unplanted forests, etc. fall into this category. A thing can be useful, and a product of human labour, without being a commodity. He who satisfies his own need with the product of his own labour admittedly creates use-values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values for others, social use-values.

quote:

(And not merely for others. The medieval peasant produced a corn-rent for the feudal lord and a corn-tithe for the priest; but neither the corn-rent nor the corn-tithe became commodities simply by being produced for others. In order to become a commodity, the product must be transferred to the other person, for whom it serves as a use-value, through the medium of exchange.)

quote:

To sum up, then: the use-value of every commodity contains useful labour, i.e. productive activity of a definite kind, carried on with a definite aim. Use-values cannot confront each other as commodities unless the useful labour contained in them is qualitatively different in each case. In a society whose products generally assume the form of commodities, i.e. in a society of commodity producers, this qualitative difference between the useful forms of labour which are carried on independently and privately by individual producers develops into a complex system, a social division of labour.

DaysBefore posted:

*floating like Vivec after spending an entire day studying peasants* Zaphod Beeblebrox is a Trot

Halser posted:

The bit at the end of Chapter 7 of Volume I is vicious. I like how it acquires a less "apathetic" tone when it really starts highlighting how workers are exploited. It's a nice touch.

dk2m posted:

So it's been 10+ years since I last read Capital. I thought it was time to re-read it again, starting with Capital Vol 1.

Maximo Roboto posted:

quote:

While Marx' analysis of the derivative and differential had no immediate effect on the historical development of mathematics, Engels' claim that Marx made "independent discoveries" is certainly justified. It is interesting to note that Marx's operational definition of the differential anticipated 20th century developments in mathematics, and there is another aspect of the differential, that seems to have been seen by Marx, that has become a standard part of modern textbooks -- the concept of the differential as the principal part of an increment.

quote:

Two things stand out in this presentation of Marx. One is his total rejection of the concept of the derivative as a ratio of infinitesimals. The other is his view that he is analysing a dialectical process, seen especially as a “negation of the negation.”

...

Indeed, Lombardo Radice has concluded: "More generally, there is no doubt that Marx gave so much attention and so much effort of thought in the last years of his life to the foundations of differential calculus because he found in it a decisive argument against a metaphysical interpretation of the dialectical law of the negation of the negation" (Lombardo Radice 1972, 275). As Marx himself wrote: "here as everywhere it is important to strip the veil of secrecy from science" (Marx 1968, 192).

gradenko_2000 posted:

I appreciate this

Capital Vol 1 posted:

However then productive power may vary, the same labour,
exercised during equal periods of time, always yields equal amounts of value. But it will yield, during equal periods of time, different quantities of values in use; more, if the productive power
rise, fewer, if it fall. The same change in productive power, which increases the fruitfulness of labour, and, in consequence, the quantity of use values produced by that labour, will diminish the
total value of this increased quantity of use values, provided such change shorten the total labour time necessary for their production; and vice versâ

dead gay comedy forums posted:

possibly relevant to this discussion: "mathy" philosophy -- the analytical school -- perched itself into a form of opposition to Marxism by natural consequence of the development of philosophy. They were deeply upset with Kant, but Hegel got them legit loving mad, because dialectics basically ruin the rational-analytic foundational premise. Bertrand Russell and others thought that they could bury Hegel (and thus Marx by association) by accomplishing philosophical programs, until Wittgenstein came up and did a demolition job very much like Hegel, but within analytical philosophy.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

its the exchange-value marx is talking about there. if it takes a whole working day to make a coat and then productivity rises so that a coat takes half a day, the amount of labor contained in each coat falls along with its exchange-value in proportion. on the other hand your material wealth in use-values has doubled even if the exchange-value of each coat has fallen by half

hubris.height posted:

ooooooohhhhh. the distinction between exchange value and use value in that section was lost on me, thank you. so you could make 2 coats with the same amount of labor, which would net you two uses (use-values) but if you were to exchange it for something of equal labortime cost, it would be worth less in exchange value by virtue of having the same amount of labortime involved in the production of 2?

hubris.height posted:

ooooooohhhhh. the distinction between exchange value and use value in that section was lost on me, thank you. so you could make 2 coats with the same amount of labor, which would net you two uses (use-values) but if you were to exchange it for something of equal labortime cost, it would be worth less in exchange value by virtue of having the same amount of labortime involved in the production of 2?

Orange Devil posted:

Ofcourse in capitalism somehow that increased overall wealth isn't quite enjoyed by all members of said society equally. Very curious. Wonder how that happens, maybe Karl M. has something to say about that later on.