Is Marxism dead?

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asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Triple A posted:

lol @ anyone taking Marx seriously in 21st century

Well generally if you find yourself overly concerned with what one guy said/did/wrote a century+ ago you have some sort of problem.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2014 20:55

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:05

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Wheeee posted:

lol @ anyone not taking Marx seriously in the 21st century

Nobody uses Keynes' models anymore as we have more accurate ones available, but broadly speaking he was generally right. Same with Marx; he was right more than he was wrong, but it doesn't matter because all that's ever focused on is the poo poo he was wrong about.

Marxism is outdated and in need of a modern overhaul utilizing the advanced economic models and sociological data we now have access to, but it was and is built on a pretty solid foundation and there is no legitimate means of outright dismissing it. There is a substantial difference between an economist saying that Marx provides nothing useful to the mechanics of modern economic study and someone responding to the question of Marx's relevance with "lol" or equivalent: The latter is utterly without merit and the individual stating it can be safely dismissed for being as useless to serious discourse as an Ayn Rand novel.

When you say Marx was "right more than he was wrong" do you mean anything beyond "capitalism has problems" or "classes exist"? Which way are you scoring the Asiatic mode of production?

Second there is a difference between actually being relevant today and being a historical figure. Evolution is relevant today, Darwin and The Origin of Species are history.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2014 16:08

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

It's really not exactly the point. It may be, to you, an important point, but Marx clearly, clearly thinks that human beings are suffering under alienation, that it is problematic in and of itself not just because it is destabilizing. Why are you ignoring what he writes about species-being, fulfillment of human nature, etc--and that capitalists are also alienated? Furthermore, Marx does not predict revolution when class reproduction becomes impossible--to 'save' their families--but instead from awareness of their conditions of alienation and exploitation.

You never answered before when I asked you who these writers are who separate Marx the early philosopher from Marx the later social scientist. I'm very curious about this because I don't see any curtailing, at all, of Marx as a philosopher later in his career. Das Kapital is the only work I can think of that fits that, but there are plenty of other works in that time period that are highly philosophical.

That's still not necessarily morality though.

Morality here is: "capitalism is wrong". That's a moral judgement.

Observing the faults of a system even including "everyone is alienated" isn't a moral judgement, it's an observation. Analyzing or observing something where the outcome has moral implications ("the bridge is going to fall down") isn't necessarily a moral judgement itself.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2014 20:59

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Bob le Moche posted:

USEFUL GLOSSARY of Marxist terms to help people CRITICIZE MARX better while sounding SMART and KNOWLEDGEABLE about the subject:

- Exploitation:
Let's say there's a firm that produces a product, it sells this product on the market for money. It then uses the money to pay the employees who made the product. If there is still money left for the owners of the company after paying the employees then "exploitation" is happening: simple! You can think of it as a different way of saying "profit".

- Alienation
Why and how do you work? If you work because the outcome of your work is something that you desire to create, and if you are in full control of how you work, then congratulations you are not alienated!
If you work creating something that you only care about because you get money for it that you need to survive, and if someone else tells you how to work, then sorry you seem to be alienated my friend :/

- Class/Proletariat/Bourgeoisie:
How do you pay for your livelihood? Is it by owning shares in a business? Rent from landed property? Ownership of private assets in general? If this is the gist of it then congratulations you win at capitalism and you are part of the bourgeoisie!
Is it by entering a contract with an employer where you sell your labor to them in exchange for a wage? Then sorry you are a proletarian You do things like produce things for the bourgeoisie at your job, pay rent to them so you have a place to live, and pay interest to them on your debts.

- Ideology
Careful: it does not mean "political opinions" in Marxism. Ideology is the set of assumption that we as a culture have about society that we're often not even aware of because we think of them as being "natural" or "universal" or "common sense" or "how things work". For example "hard work will be rewarded by success" is an example of an ideological belief. "women need to be protected" is another. "my country deserves respect" is another. The sphere of ideology is usually contrasted to the "material", which means: what is actually happening in the real world in practice.

- Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie / Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Today, in practice, the state represents the interests of the bourgeoisie and essentially works for them. The "dictatorship of the proletariat is an hypothetical situation where the state would instead represent the interests of the workers and work for them. If you use the term to mean "Stalinist totalitarianism" Marxists will be able to tell you don't know what you're talking about.

- Class Struggle/Antagonism
"Exploitation" as defined above, meaning "profit" is what the bourgeoisie, who own everything, relies on to keep existing as a class. The money a company makes that goes to the owners is money that doesn't go to the employees. This means that the interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are in opposition with each other. In times of crisis this manifests itself in harsh ways and often leads to state violence being used against the proletariat.

Hope this helps! Feel free to quote this at people who use those terms without understanding them in the future!

Here are massive problems:

Marx makes distinctions based on how you make your money - this distinction doesn't matter. You can be a filthy rich laborer.

Marx makes distinctions between whether you're exploited (his definition) or not - it's irrelevant. You can be a dirt poor owner.

Marx claimed capitalism was doomed to failure. It isn't. It's the dominant mode of production.

The hilarious thing to me is that Marx was a smart guy. His main problem was that he was writing 150+ years ago when these distinctions seemed to make sense. But since his death we've had Marxist states rise and fall, seen capitalist states invent the middle class as we know it and we've seen capital ownership become as accessible as a Big Mac.

If you think for a second that Marx would have witnessed these things and not significantly re-evaluated his positions then you think less of Marx than I do.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2014 23:32

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Bob le Moche posted:

This is true! Both of these things happen sometimes. However they are very rare exceptions which really don't matter when you take a step back and study the economy in the grand scheme of things. You'll find that the two examples you use are so rare in practice as to be non-significant if you look into it.
A dirt poor owner is not very likely to stay an owner for very long. A filthy rich laborer is very likely to retire early by acquiring capital.

They're not rare.

The middle class also retires on acquired capital.

Defend the utility of this distinction:
Corporate Lawyer: Exploited
Half starving subsistence farmer: Not Exploited

quote:

Not just Marx claimed that, even Ricardo and most other liberal capitalist theorists made the exact same claim. It's pretty incredible to me that anyone would be so assured that any economic system is bound to last forever. What makes capitalism so special as to be the one final mode of production for human civilization when every other system has been replaced? Believing this sounds like quite the act of faith! During its entire existence capitalism has also been a lot more unstable and faced more frequent crises than any other mode of production. Today we're facing ecological collapse, unprecendented inequality, and instability all over the globe so it's undertandable that many people see in these things a reflection of the unsustainability of capitalism.

Less stable than socialism or feudalism? Nope.

The world is more stable and less violent today than ever. Get your facts straight.

quote:

The cool thing about Marxism is that it didn't end with Marx, and Marxists economists who witnessed all these things have been having debates and coming up with new theories to attempt to explain those things and understand them better the whole time. In contrast the theoreticians of liberal economics are holding onto to the very same tenets without empirical basis as they were decades ago despite the historical record proving their theories wrong over and over again. Any political economist worth its salt will tell you that while Marxism may not be the perfect economic theory to describe how capitalism works, it's certainly a better fit than anything out there - the more "mainstream" economic theories are typically primarily interested in coming up with justifying narratives for why the current system is good, while marxist economics focus on critique and deconstruction.

The left exists independently of marx. But marxist are marxists for a reason.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 00:46

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Bob le Moche posted:

Look at any capitalist country which enjoys a "high standard of living", look at what the citizens in that country consume, look at where the stuff they consumed is actually produced, look at whether the people who do this production enjoy a "high standard of living".
I should have added "Imperialism" to the glossary I think.

Heh capitalists employing and paying poor people is a bad thing. Better to lay them off and forget them so we can sleep better at night right? "Don't worry about this medical or industrial equipment we used to ship you in trade, trust us, you're better off not being exploited"

Socialism has literally zero economic answers for global poverty.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 04:25

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Bob le Moche posted:

What the hell are you talking about? Socialism has plenty of answers for global poverty (what do you even think socialism is about???) and this is why Marxist movements are strongest and most influential in the third world while the only place where they are demonized to the extent they are in this thread is the Western world.

You know how American presidents say that what they're doing is for "democracy" and "freedom" because this is what americans believe in? In the rest of the world political leaders talk about "socialism" in the same way when implementing their own bullshit policies

Poor countries need capital. Socialism doesn't help them get it. Even marx recognized that capitalism was good at building out capital.

HorseLord posted:

I don't think you understand very much of anything. It's them that ship you everything. Even the stuff "made" in america is mostly taken from a box china sent you and bolted to something out of a box taiwan sent you.

If chinese-american relations, for example, were to break down tomorrow, you'd be boned way worse than they would be. They're the ones that actually make stuff, and they don't need you sending order sheets for it to happen. Not that "employment and medical equipment" is a valid excuse for the united fruit co poo poo you pull in reality, or worse.

"we built you railroads" will never ever wash.

As for economic answers for poverty, have you tried not making poo poo up? Socialism has done nothing but lift people out of poverty. The removal of socialism quite famously drops them back in it, as can be observed by looking at 90s Russia beyond that one poo poo police academy movie they made there.

So the sovereign nation of China builds stuff, puts it on boats and sends it to the U.S. why exactly?

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Nov 4, 2014

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 04:38

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

HorseLord posted:

I don't think you understand very much of anything. It's them that ship you everything. Even the stuff "made" in america is mostly taken from a box china sent you and bolted to something out of a box taiwan sent you.

If chinese-american relations, for example, were to break down tomorrow, you'd be boned way worse than they would be. They're the ones that actually make stuff, and they don't need you sending order sheets for it to happen. Not that "employment and medical equipment" is a valid excuse for the united fruit co poo poo you pull in reality, or worse.

"we built you railroads" will never ever wash.

As for economic answers for poverty, have you tried not making poo poo up? Socialism has done nothing but lift people out of poverty. The removal of socialism quite famously drops them back in it, as can be observed by looking at 90s Russia beyond that one poo poo police academy movie they made there.

This actually warrants it's own reply.

The U.S. is a close #2 to china in manufacturing and skews heavily towards advanced manufacturing, heavy industry etc. Basically - stuff that's hard and few other countries can make.

Yeah the U.S. would hurt for toasters and TV's for a little while but I promise we can figure out how to make them (we design them and make much of the advanced manufacturing equipment already).

So absolutely if we broke off relations with China today we'd be far better off comparatively than them. Not to mention they'd be pissed that all those saved up dollars they planned on spending some day were now worthless to them.

It's amusing to me that you think China ships us stuff out of goodwill, and not because they want the stuff they're getting in return. It's also amusing that in a capitalist relationship between a very rich country and a poor country you're arguing that the poor country has the upper hand.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 04:50

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Ytlaya posted:

The problem with the way you view capitalism (and the way most people with views similar to yours do) is that you look at a place like the US or France or something and say "this quality of life is the result of capitalism." While that's more or less true, you're ignoring the fact that this same quality of life is subsidized by poor labor in third world countries. You have to look at the world as a whole to get a feel for the results of capitalism as an economic system. A very small portion of the world is what we would consider middle class and a very, very, very small portion owns a significant amount of capital.

Poor countries are poor because they have no capital. Not because the first world is stripping them of their wealth. If they had wealth they wouldn't be dumb enough to give it away.

Your problem is that you judge the real world against a reality that exists nowhere except your imagination.

Whether you understand it or not, the thing you want to happen is for rich countries to give tons of free stuff to poor countries. History doesn't give an example of this ever happening, socialism has literally nothing to do with making it happen and by far the closest we've come is modern globalized capitalism.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 18:53

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

During that same time period, China has super-hosed its environment. Those gains weren't made without costs. And as been pointed out, the Western nations profited hugely, more than China did, from China's industrialization. It is a really difficult calculation to figure out who benefited 'more', but in strict economic terms, first-world/third-world interactions almost always profits the first-world more, for reasons very, very similar to why in capital/labor relations, the interaction almost always profits the capitalist more.

To put it into the simple analogy, if a chemical company employs 100 people at a cost of $100/hr, and they all make $110/hr worth of product for the company, the company owner makes $1,000 an hour. The wealth disparity between them increases with every hour that any one of those laborers works. If the next year the owner pays the people $150 an hour, but the worth of the product is now $160 per worker/hour, the owner is still making $1000 an hour. Collectively, the workers make 'more', but unless that amount of money allows them to buy capital (which it almost certainly doesn't) the real, observable effect is that the wealth disparity between the classes grows.

This same thing is observable between first-world and third-world nations. You see the improvement in poverty rates, in literacy, in other standards of living, but in terms of economic power between the countries, the first-world makes more. One reason that China has been able to do a bitter better than the average in this regard is because of their zesty, nonchalant attitude towards stealing any and all intellectual property ever and not giving a poo poo. Another reason is that they're even more creative with their banking than we are. But right now they're on the cusp of a huge housing bubble that may really, really choke them down, and they've been really foolish with a lot of their long-term investments; they've failed to actually establish a good higher educational system.

Worldwide inequality isnt going up.

E: nations really? Europe is in recession again. Literally any country with a growth rate of 0 or above is catching them.

Many big developing economies have been outpacing the first world for decades.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Nov 4, 2014

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 19:05

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

Yes, it is. Are you referring to Milanovic's paper?

I'm putting Horselord on ignore, because gently caress that guy.

I'm referring to every time I've looked it up. I don't recall the specific papers. Take a look.

The rich have grown but the growth of the worlds poor is no joke. It's broad and deep and offsets the top percentiles.

Note that inequality within countries doesn't tell you worldwide inequality.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 19:24

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

I have.

I assume you're completely leaving out all future environmental costs, right?

This includes two papers:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/11/world-inequality-is-down.html
So have at it. I hate being wrong but if I am I like to know ASAP

Environment: what about it?

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Nov 4, 2014

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 19:45

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

The fact that you're actually citing single corporations is telling - trade volumes have increased drastically since containerization.

Yes we've imported things like tea for centuries but we got on this from the claim that the first world wealth rested on 3rd world exploitation - it doesn't and the impossibility of trading at sufficient volumes to actually support this is great evidence of that.

So yeah we imported some bananas, it doesn't explain US prosperity in the 60's.

So let's call it "systems relying on capitalist production" and then just call that "capitalism" for short.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 21:14

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

And this is the straightforward economic history of what happened: During that time period, there was widespread and systematic exploitation of undeveloped countries, especially in regards to raw materials like copper, tin, lumber, rubber, fruit, etc.

It's not just that we imported copper. We imported a ton of stuff. As I listed. And the conditions that those raw materials were produced in were exploitative.

This is among the dumber of derails.

Whether we imported stuff isn't terribly important. The claim being made was a vague notion that first world wealth is actually attributable to 3rd world work/resources/whatever - it's not.

Even in outright colonialism the wealth of any particular nation always ties back to what it has internally - its capital, its resources and the skills of its workforce (you can't be a colonial power unless you're already rich and trade in the age of sail wasn't terribly high volume anyway).

So no, the U.S. wasn't rich because it was importing bananas, and south America wasn't poor because the U.S. was taking them, the US was rich because it had a more skilled and better educated population using lots of capital. That's the primary reason it was rich, and the need to import copper doesn't change that equation (no country has every natural resource).

The fairness of paying market rates (exploitation according to you) for copper is separate. And even if some higher rate was paid for some reason it wouldn't really change the actual situation.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 23:50

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

There isn't one. The capital-rich company is always going to be able to profit more off the trade than the poor country. If you're just fretting about the word 'exploitation', what is meant by that is that the capital-rich country profits more from the trade in absolute terms than the capital-poor country does. And again, this is very similar to the way that the capitalist benefits more from the laborer's labor than the laborer does.

So to be clear, do you think that it isn't true that a capital-rich country profits more off the import of raw materials than a capital-poor country profits off exporting those materials? If so, why do you think that?

Or are you just upset at the word 'exploitation'?

Oh, and do you have any explanation for where you got the bizarre 'take everything that's not nailed down' accusation? I'm assuming you're just going to kind of embarrassedly drop that because it was spectacularly weird.

Got it. This makes lots of sense.

I always thought we had the upper hand trading Justin Beiber toothbrushes for medical equipment. Now I understand why this must always be true regardless of any other possible variable.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 03:11

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

This isn't the concept of 'Marxist exploitation', it's just a literal economic fact. It's not a tool. You make very little sense.

Since you dodged it again, it's really dumb and lovely of you to pull random rear end bizarre crap like me wanting to take everything not nailed down in the capital-rich companies and ship it off to the capital-poor countries. You seem really, really angry about those drat commies, though.

Neither Justin Bieber toothbrushes or medical equipment are raw materials.

Maybe read it again?

It really doesn't matter what you call it. You can call it schoop-wabba-wabba if you want. You really are just upset at the word. So drat weird.

Ok so I can pay workers x for toothbrushes and then sell the toothbrushes for more than x and it's not exploitation because it's not a raw material? Or is it not exploitation because we traded prosthetic limbs for the Beiber brushes and because obviously the poorer country profited far more from the transaction?

I'm confused because I thought the definition of exploitation made distinctions between none of these things.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 03:26

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Berk Berkly posted:

Holy poo poo. Obdicut putting on a clinic on how to pull the straw out of bad arguments by the handful.

I'm biased in my pro-socialism views but last page has been honestly very nice seeing the bullshit squared and shrugged off.

Heh so which part of the definition of exploitation do you find useful? The part where it defines literally every market transaction as exploitation regardless of outcome.

How about the distinction between those earning money with capital (Indonesian shop cart owner) versus those earning money with labor (corporate lawyer). You find that insightful?

Or is it the real world predictions stemming from these observations: time to buy EU stock because capital=growth.

And wages should go down:

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Nov 5, 2014

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 04:54

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

icantfindaname posted:

I can't tell whether you're actually too dense to understand three line posts or if you're just shitposting

excuse me, all transactions between actors with varying amounts of capital

Or to put that another way: every market transaction.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 05:05

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

It doesn't.

It's not about being 'insightful'.

And the corporate lawyer doesn't labor for the indonesian shop cart owner. I don't think you've really grasped this concept.

What the hell are you talking about?

I'm sorry, but when you make sense, you're saying something wrong, and when you don't make sense, well, you don't make sense.

It is about being insightful because that's what analysis is. Making up terms with random definitions is something anyone can do anytime. I can't claim that your definition of exploitation doesn't exist because you made it up such that it trivially applies to tons of situations. That your made up a definition exists is utterly irrelevant. The entire question is whether your definition is useful for understanding the real world: exploitation as defined by Marx isn't.

It isn't useful because it tells us nothing about outcome.

Likewise the distinction between sources of income: capital or not, is similarly useless.

In Marx's defense when there were clearer dividing lines it made more sense. But today there are orders of magnitude of inequality across the globe between capital owners and other capital owners and laborers and other laborers. Today the distinction is irrelevant.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Nov 5, 2014

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 05:14

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

HorseLord posted:

You'd get a home, rent free, for life, a summer home, rent free, for life, free education, all the way up to the highest levels, for life, free healthcare, an actually useful public transport system, TV and radio with no commercials on it, a job right out of school, job security so good you could skip work unannounced and not get fired...

Wait free summer home too? Why didn't you say so all along?

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 15:12

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

No, I'm drawing distinction between the market utility of the goods and their real value. That's what I mean. An investor may decide to invest in cigarettes, say, or an advertising company, or something else that produces stuff of negative or no real value in use terms.

No, again, that is not the role of the capitalist. That might be the role of a CEO, or a manager, or the Chairman of the board, but the mere act of investing does not influence--as I pointed out, investment normally isn't at the start of a company, it's just buying stock. you're treating 'investment' as though it is always starting off a company. Furthermore, even when someone does savvily invest in a business with a lot of foresight, very quickly the initial investment doesn't matter, the revenue stream of the company takes over.

Once you recognize the value of management in general you no longer have any clear differentiators between management and ownership. Owners are just the top of the management chain.

Ask yourself for example why the CEO or the Chairman are doing productive work (you recognize they do) and the answer goes back to ownership. CEO's would happily collect paychecks for doing nothing if they could get away with it right?

Why is the CEO working if it's not because of pressure from ownership? And didn't ownership chose them? The relationship between owner(s) and CEO is basically identical to that of any manager to the people below them.

Note also that it's completely uncontroversial among this audience to recognize the potential hazards of ownership and profit incentive - recognizing that means you recognize the influence of ownership over company behavior. This influence is responsible for productive outcomes as well.

As for the idea that trading stock has no influence on existing companies - it's dead wrong. An increasing stock price opens up a whole range of potential benefits for an existing company including increased access to loans, the potential for new share issues and stock based acquisitions.

And to attack this issue from another angle let's assume for a second that ownership wasn't productive, and therefore profit was basically parasitic. It's reasonable to assume that if this was true companies would recognize it right? So if I'm a large profit seeking company who recognizes that ownership is parasitic the most profitable business tactic would be to avoid doing business with other parasitic companies, to own my own capital and manage as much of the supply chain as possible.

We don't see this.

Companies, even very large ones routinely position themselves so they're completely dependent on other profit seeking companies. Walmart sells stuff but doesn't make a single thing (at most it uses it's own labels). Apple designs phones but contracts Foxonn to build them. Alcoa produces aluminum, but then sells it all to other firms who mark it up before it reaches any end-customer. Businesses routinely outsource huge chunks of their operations (supply chain, shipping, IT, accounting, engineering) to other companies.

Much of this is voluntary (obviously so when the players have names like Apple and Wal-Mart), and the only explanation is that these businesses think their partner's profit is roughly in-line with the value delivered. If it wasn't, they'd go elsewhere or do it themselves. If that was the case, the entire structure of the economy would be vastly different.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Nov 6, 2014

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 06:26

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Mans posted:

hmmm yes the problem with Angola,Mozambique and Congo is the ~~~~bad government~~~~, not entire decades of brutal imperialist repression of anti-colonial movements and then some more decades of foreign financing of terrorists and bribes to to the local upper class and governments until economic policies that pleased the west could be implemented.

Past acts of imperialism are actually pretty terrible at explaining circumstances today.

If you want great examples of imperialists completely ravaging other countries you can't do much better than what western europe did to itself for example. They actively beat the poo poo out of each other for centuries and are still all rich.

It took all of 20 years for Germany to go from devastated WWI loser to steamrolling it's previous conquerors with an army of modern tanks. Then it lost again and was back on its feet in another couple decades (half of it anyway).

Imperialism sucks but there are reasons to look elsewhere to explain contemporary problems.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 06:44

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

JeffersonClay posted:

And Marx recognizes this explicitly:

Jefferson what's your take on this though? Marx obviously recognizes the productive results of capitalism generally but as you said earlier rejects the contributions of capitalists categorically (hence exploitation).

Is there further clarification of that? Or is that just it?

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 19:07

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

The profit motive, combined with cultural stuff, inspires people to try to make lots of money, and competition means that they're going to be hugely productive. That doesn't meant that a capitalist, by investing, is participating in the labor. What he wrote above about the relationship between labor and capital is pretty clear.

You're making a category mistake, and saying "Well, capital is important, therefore capitalists are important". You can do big projects with lots of capital without having a capitalist involved; they're not a necessary part of productivity, but capital is. What the profit motive, combined with the class breakdown that removed aristocratic privilege, did was create the motive for people to make buttloads of money.

Do factories build themselves?

The profit motive only exists for the capitalist. If profit motive explains behavior then it automatically means the capitalist was "involved".

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 19:31

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Friendly Tumour posted:

I don't think Marx's call to "kill the rich" has much of a future in a century where everyone and anyone can act as a capitalist.

With the money and tools they receive from the hated capitalists.

No, not even. Workers built the tools too.

But the choice to allocate capital to build the factory, the choice to make CD's instead of records, the location of the factory etc all trace back to the capitalist and their motive for profit.

These choices and their impact (good or bad) are collectively made by capitalists in a capitalist society.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 19:52

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

This isn't true. Those choices don't have to be made by capitalists, as I already showed. They are almost certainly never made by a capitalist alone. You seriously think that the shareholders of Apple get together to decide where a factory is built?

Sure, there can be a capitalist who also makes all the big decisions on their own, but they are really, really uncommon, and almost always supplanted after a short period of time, if the business is successful, by a professional staff.

Owners pick the managers. Managers pick the managers below them and so on down to the workers.

Either you acknowledge that evaluating and choosing people "below" you is a productive task, or you're invalidated the value of management in general (because this is often all managers do).

In the case of a business, owners (collectively) are managers in this sense.

Note that I would loosely separate the tasks of capital allocation (should I invest in Apple or Microsoft), from management but they overlap heavily. Owners can't just own a business or own capital. They're responsible for putting management in place to run it or decide how to productively use it. If they (collectively) don't do these things they don't get any profit.

Also you have to understand that this is a general statement. Obviously there can be lazy owners. But that's not an argument. There are lazy laborers too. The Marxist assumption that workers necessarily produce a surplus also only works as a generalization.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 20:32

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Bob le Moche posted:

Even if one was to concede the point that a guy who inherited land with a mine on it is somehow working harder than the miners, the crucial difference is still that by virtue of being the owner he is the one who gets to claim the surplus from their labor.

Let's say you have this small business which is made up of a bunch of people who each get the same salary per hour and have the same productivity. After selling the product and paying the wages there is a profit, and that profit belongs to only one of these people because they legally own the firm. That person is the capitalist.

Ok let's take this and see if we can further agree.

1) Fair or not, the pizza shop owner is ultimately responsible for choosing and/or managing the employees (probably both in this case)
2) Fair or not, some amount of choice exists in the decision to operate the pizza shop instead of putting the capital it represents somewhere else

Do you agree?

The fact that these two responsibilities go along with ownership (again, fair or not) is all I've been recently trying to get across.

Mans posted:

btween my imaginary GF amd asdf32 i think someone is developing some pretty good bots and releasing them on SA

A bot would probably be able to spell and punctuate though wouldn't it?

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 21:32

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

Owners don't, in general, pick the manages, no.

Managers are workers.

Except they're usually not. Even if they are, the amount of 'work' that is

If you invest in Apple--or more likely, invest in a mutual fund investing in Apple--you aren't going to exercise any managerial control, in general.

This isn't true. I own stock> it makes me money. I do gently caress-all to manage the companies I own stock in.

Your last sentence had nothing to do with anything else you said, I have no idea why you think it did. It's not about 'lazy' owners, either. You're really not getting this, though it's really simple. Ownership can be associated with management, but it doesn't have to be. The success of the stock system is exactly in divorcing ownership from management.

Well-put.

We're sort of at an impass here. Can we go back to a few basics?

Do capitalists "control capital"?

Who chooses a board of directors?

Who receives "profit"?

Do all laborers produce a surplus?

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 00:16

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

Sure.

Shareholders who have shares with voting rights vote on a board of directors. often, this vote is put into a proxy. Many shareholders don't vote. often, nominating committees determine who the shareholders can vote for.

Whoever owns the capital.

No. A competent laborer in a well-structure job does. If you hire a laborer to throw poo poo on the wall, no surplus is produced. If you hire a laborer for far more than they produce, no surplus is produced. if you hire an incompetent laborer, they won't produce a surplus.

Again, this kind of flailing, angry posting isn't really going to get anywhere.

Capitalist do have 'control' over their capital, as in, they own it and decide what to do with it. That does not mean that capitalists ever have to make any actual decisions involving the business they invest in. A capitalist can buy voting stock and not bother to vote, he can buy voting stock and ask someone else's advice, he can buy the stock through a managed fund, which means that the manager of the fund exerts his votes, he can buy non-voting stock, etc. There is nothing inherent in being a capitalist that means you also have to exert any sort of decision-making at all in the actual operations of the company. Again, this is completely common sense and is one of the big selling points of stock ownership.

So owners (via proxy's, mutual funds etc) are collectively responsible for choosing management right?

Capitalists are the only ones who receive profit, so whatever extent other people are motived by profit it's because they're motivated by the capitalists. You seem to agree that profit does explain behavior:

Obdicut posted:

No, the profit motive exists for everyone inside the capitalist system.

Between these two we can conclude that capitalists (collectively) are successful at securing control of their companies - controlling a company and directing it's behavior is management.

When companies produce useful outputs (no one contends they don't) it's ultimately because the capitalists directed them too via management and capital allocation choices.

Your major contention seems to be that capitalists "don't have to" do this work.

Capitalists are not always going to be good at this, or do their "job", but as you agreed above, neither are laborers. We can both agree that some capitalists like some laborers don't earn their keep, but while collectively laborers produce "everything", capitalists collectively allocate and manage. Both have productive and necessary roles.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 02:52

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Effectronica posted:

asdf32, do you really think that the CEO of a company is chosen by the shareholders collectively rather than a small group of professionals within the shareholders and the senior management of the company? Because your view seems inconsistent with how large businesses operate.

The people who chose management are owners or their representatives. Thus owners choose management.

Besides just pointing out this chain of control, I'm also citing results (companies seek profit). Maybe you'll agree that if CEO's could just collect a paycheck for literally doing nothing they would do so. The fact that they direct their company to seek profit (which goes to the owners) is because owners are managing them (yeah they often own shares too, in that case it's a combination).

Value:

Value is legitimately complicated and I think it's often best avoided in these types of discussions. Nothing, including the market, perfectly indicates value.

For example the market value of a good is always less than it's worth to any customer (the customers earns a consumer surplus).

The amount paid for labor is always less than what it's worth to a company (the company earns a surplus - "profit").

Both of these things help indicate the value, but none equals it exactly. Part of the problem is that value for any particular good is different for everyone. No intrinsic measure exists.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 04:04

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

No, when I buy stock it's not employed by some corporation. The money doesn't go to the corporation. You know that, right?

This is one of those things you keep repeating that's completely wrong. Yeah it's a big ocean and if you pour a glass of water into it you're not actually going to observe it rising. But that's the effect it has regardless and we know it. You keep hiding behind complexity or scale here in a disingenuous way.

To be clearer are you categorically denying that buying/selling stock is a potentially productive capital allocation activity?

quote:

Absolutely. Some capitalists do exert control, either directly or through influence. But Warren Buffets are rare. And in Buffet's case, he actually invests in companies he thinks have very sound fundamentals, rather than watching them quarter to quarter. He doesn't actually exert a lot of influence over what companies do.

Yes, market valuation is one way to determine the value of something. The example you gave is exactly why market value is only part of the description of value. The sandwich exists as a certain amount of nutrition and calories; it has an actual existence to it, that we could in some way measure the value of.

Those gold-plated monster audio cables weren't actually worth the money people paid for them. A new car is worth a certain amount, the minute you buy it it's worth less. The car is actually 'worth' a various amount of money depending on how good you are at haggling when you buy it. You can get two different people to pay two different prices for the same thing, so what is that thing's value? Etc.

This isn't saying market value doesn't have use, it does, but it is not an object, absolute, or the only way of valuing things, you have to be able to value things other than by market valuation, if only to talk about market valuation.

I love when people come into a value discussion and just start declaring values for things. Got it - audio cables are bad. That's great you think that (I agree but it doesn't matter).

quote:

But some of them are channeling resources to stuff that's less profitable than random assignment, right?

And you can empirically show that, in some areas, assigning capital through another means is more efficient. Our completely hosed health insurance system, for example. It would be a lot better if we had single-payer insurance.

Yeah, like I mentioned earlier, similar to laborers, some captialists are bad at what they do.

Further sometimes capitalist incentive structures don't line up with actual value for society. This isn't novel.

Socialism (theoretically) relies heavily on democracy - getting votes doesn't always line up with providing actual value either. Every system has a certain amount of "error".

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Nov 7, 2014

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 04:16

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

And that is nothing, nothing at all like what you said. Nothing. Not a drat thing.

Also, not something I said. That isn't the drive of the argument.

Do you think that it is possible that you actually haven't understood the arguments that have been made to you, due to your tendency to flip the gently caress out and flail around angrily?

Obdicut that implication follows from exploitation.

In all seriousness you've struggled to understand arguments this entire thread. Don't get me wrong, you know marx reasonably well. But you don't get the actual implications of what he says in terms of an actual economy, despite being able to repeat it.

Arguments being made here aren't exactly cutting edge, yet you don't seem to grasp where they're even coming from and half your posts involve some variation of "what are you saying" or "but why would you ask this?". After a while it's telling.

Look at the exploitation debate from earlier, you literally though that the arithmetic mattered, that we didn't understand the definition and repeated it several times - no one questioned the marxist definition of exploitation - we were challenging you on why it matters.

The thing that follows from exploitation, the thing that jefferson called you out on earlier (which you responded to in typical "where is this coming from?" fashion) is that if exploitation (Marxist definition) is exploitation (dictionary definition) then owners don't provide value. If owners provide value then profit isn't necessarily exploitation (dictionary definition). You literally don't seem to understand how these things connect and I'm still not sure you understand why I just had to specify the two different definitions.

Among many other stranded responses, this was something icantfindaname called you out on earlier:

Obdicut posted:

No, you can have varying amounts of capital and not have it be 'exploitative'.

Again, this is a really simple concept; In capitalism, there is a big benefit to being the capitalist. In examining countries, there is a big benefit in being technologically advanced with a big infrastructure.

That you guys are howling at this completely bone-dry, simple observation of reality is just nuts. Well, sometimes you're howling at it, sometimes you're saying "Oh, that's capital accumulation and it's fine" and then it's back to howling again.

At this point there's nothing more I can say. That in the relation between capital and labor, the capital has a huge systemic advantage in capitalism is observably true, uncontentious, and not Marxist, predating him by a very long time.

I'm going to go drink beer and watch Darkplace.

icantfindaname posted:

What's a situation where a capital-rich and a capital-poor country trade that you wouldn't call exploitation?

Obdicut posted:

There isn't one.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 04:55

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

Your red text is completely appropriate, as I observed earlier.

You can have two individuals with various amounts of capital and have them engage in trade that's not exploitative. Or two countries with various amounts of capital. You can't have a capital-rich and a capital-poor country engage in trade (assuming pure trade, not charitable trade) that's exploitative.

Speaking of things that dropped off the radar, can you explain why you think buying stock in a company benefits the company and how it's like pouring a glass of water into the ocean?

When I bought the stock that I last bought, I bought it for slightly under the trading value. What effect did that have on the company?

So it's not exploitative if the capital amounts are "various" but it is exploitative if it's "rich" trading with "poor". What does "various" mean?

Because it raises the stock price and raising the stock price benefits the company in several ways. If you want me to list them again let me know.

The detail you inserted that you bought it for less than trading value is basically irrelevant - if you didn't get that share someone else would have. You getting it meant that next guy had to buy at market price, hence it still benefits the company the same way.

I feel the need to take this point further - the impact of secondary markets on primary markets is well established. The secondary housing and car markets relate directly to the primary market for those goods. Likewise we outlaw the sale of things like ivory, even on the secondary market, because sales there drive up values and induce more poaching. Your caveat "I bought it under trading price" (whatever that means) doesn't matter, and the sale still has the same positive impact for the company.

I'd still like to know whether you're categorically denying that buying selling stock can be productive?

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Nov 7, 2014

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 05:16

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

icantfindaname posted:

If you wanted to replace capitalists with a central planning board that board would take over the role of deciding how to allocate capital. But that is a job that would still need to be done, the capital wouldn't just assemble itself by magic

Which is a great thought exercise here.

If we declared private ownership moot today, tomorrow we'd have to hire a huge number of people on salary to sit at desks and stare at financials, analyze the market, chose where to direct capital and hire/fire/manage leadership of every company (from the fortune 500 to the pizza shop) across the entire economy. That's what capitalists currently do.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 05:24

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Just as a total aside it's been amusing to watch this thread "devolve" from an deliberate troll into an actual D&D thread that's unironically arguing about kings allocating capital into churches.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 05:34

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

Okay. So the farmer back in 1302 isn't a capitalist, right?

This isn't a syntactic argument.

And again, you, out of nowhere, stupidly claimed Marx had invented the word capitalist, and that's why it was vague, because Marx was dumb. This was a clownishly weirdly stupid thing for you to do, and you could have prevented yourself looking like a moron with the barest minimum of research. I don't know why you thought he'd invented the word in the first place, but even so, you must know yourself and know you're not that great at the whole accurately remembering things deal, so why not spend a moment looking it up before you went ahead and farted that post out?

Can you explain what is at all odd about a king allocating capital into churches?

I never followed how you two got on that and would really prefer you respond to my posts above.

I don't generally see any problem comparing pre-capitalist acts to things like investment and allocation because I'd say those thing are universal to every economy, though they've been formalized in specific ways within capitalism. Certainly a major project like a church can be seen as an investment by the society that builds it.

I don't know who I just agreed or disagreed with because like I said, I still don't know how you got on that and it doesn't seem important.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 05:41

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

My apologies, my eyes just skipped right over it. you're completely right, that sentence is still there.

Now:

Not only did I never say that quote, which is a lie in itself, I never said anything remotely like that.

It is possible, since you still think I'm a Marxist, that you just have something wrong in the old thinking machine, and you actually think you're being honest and upright by saying that.

If it's not a lie, then quote me saying anything that equates to "no capitalist ever makes decisions regarding how his capital is used".

You can't, because I didn't.

Are you just going to keep dodging this? It makes you look pretty pathetic.

No, for gently caress's sake, I'm saying that when you invest money in a company to start it up, that is very different from buying stock in an established company. In the first case, the company has more money after it. In the latter case, the company does not. Even your "Well, they could raise more stock if their price goes up" falls completely flat because buying stock in a company can cause the stock price to go down, too, because buying stock in a company also involves someone selling stock in a company. So the most you can say is that when someone buys stock in a company for a price higher than the market, then the company may be able to use that to float more credit, which may or may not actually be good for it. Yay.

Which also has almost no meaning in what we were talking about : actual business decisions at the company.

Woah I never saw this post. You're actually saying that buying a stock doesn't help drive the price up? You're completely wrong. I think what you're misunderstanding is that yes, there are two sides to every transaction. But every time an additional person becomes interested in buying a stock it has a positive effect on price. Umm literally every time. It can be part of a transaction that happens on the "down side" but buying the stock helps hold up the price.

Now I feel the need to repeat some of the reasons why a high share price benefits a company:

1) The company can always issue more shares and the current price directly corresponds to how much they make doing it. This relates to the second reason:
2) Access to loans and/or lower rates - lenders see stock price as an indicator of health and because of 1 it directly ties back to their ability to repay a loan. You've tried to insinuate that loans are bad but that's simplistic at best - loans are inevitable for a whole bunch of reasons.
3) A company can buy things with its stock. Ever heard of a stock only aquisition? They're really common. When a company's stock is worth a lot owners of another company may be happy to make a trade. Companies can buy other companies with stock alone.

Beyond this, share price also sends a signal to the whole market which other investors take as a signal that they might want to start a competing company or direct their company to enter that same market.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Nov 7, 2014

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 06:24

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

rudatron posted:

But the act of 'investing' does no work. Sowing the seeds, using the tools, adds value. That is, labor has increased the 'use-value' of the corn seeds into corn. Investing is providing the laborers with the capital and input goods you already own, either directly or as expressed in money for exchange at market price. The act of investing is not technically necessary as a part of growing corn, it is a social construction of a capitalist system. That is, investing is socially necessary because the class of workers themselves do not own the means of production, which would not exist without their own labor, but which does not belong to them, because their labor is expropriated through the ownership mechanics of capitalism.

asdf32 posted:

Which is a great thought exercise here.

If we declared private ownership moot today, tomorrow we'd have to hire a huge number of people on salary to sit at desks and stare at financials, analyze the market, chose where to direct capital and hire/fire/manage leadership of every company (from the fortune 500 to the pizza shop) across the entire economy. That's what capitalists currently do.

No, the things capitalist do are socially necesary.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 06:33

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

If I buy a stock at a lower price than the current ticket price it drives the stock down.

No, it doesn't. The way that stocks decrease in prices is a series of people paying lower prices than the ticket price for them, and often this is driven--these days algorithmically--by other people selling at that lower price.

How can you not grasp this?

You're not setting the price. Your only choice is to buy at this moment or not but at this moment. One drives the price up the other does't.

Obdicut posted:

It is not necessary that capitalists do them.

I assume you mean a different economy could have somone else doing the same things - absolutely.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Nov 7, 2014

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 06:41

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:05

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Obdicut posted:

Oh, you just don't know how stock-trading works.

Think about it, dude, if what you said was true, how would the price ever change? How do you think the price of stock is set?

When you see pictures of the guys shouting on the floor of the stock exchange, what do you think they're saying?

Am I really literally explaining Econ 101?

This is actually really really easy in this case because the brokerage companies literally keep ask/bid tables with prices that people have declared they're willing to buy or sell at. If you sell the brokerage just checks for the highest price on the bid list. If this was the last set of shares at that price then the market price moves down the next rung.

When you buy it's the opposite - the brokerage takes the lowest price in the ask list and so on.

What you also see here clearly is one thing you mentioned earlier - prices can change with no sales because people can change or retract their ask/bid prices without selling anything. This doesn't change the fact that selling always puts downward pressure on price and buying puts upward pressure.

It's also uncommon for any major stock to lack constant liquidity.

rudatron posted:

But their status as 'capitalist' has nothing to do with it: their ownership of the MoP is not necessary.

You keep moving goalposts and spewing out dumb little 'gotchas', but you can never seem to stick to one. Funny how that works.

Value can only increase through labor, but sure, you could do some labor that does not increase or decreases value. That's doesn't contradict that earlier statement though, because the direction of an if-then conditional actually matters. Marx called this distinction 'socially necessary labor'.

No it's not but you're confusing things. We don't need to declare one group owners of the means of production and decision makers on its behalf but the fact that we have, and your opinion of that reality, have no bearing on the necesary role that decision making plays in the economy.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Nov 7, 2014

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 07:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is Marxism dead?

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