Exegesis - Cap/Com-ist

[Kidlicious]

You guys are confusing parameters of productions with things that actually create value. Land does not create any value, and either does the capitalist. The capitalist doesn't deserve any compensation, for simply owning the capital, anymore than the land does.

[Kidlicious]

Maybe you guys want to compensate the consumer too. Doesn't labor need consumers too?

[Flubber]

He's Ba-ack !!


Seriously kid-- try building your product without any land to put your factory own.


As for consumers, they are necessary for pretty much anything to have value. You can labor for 10 years on a product but if NOBODY wants it, all that labor added no value at all.


Thats a fact that you always seem to want to ignore. Value of a product ( as determined by what people are freely willing to pay for it) often bears little correlation to the labor that went into it. Products have value to people based on their own properties.

As I pointed out to you before, 200 people have a hand in producing 200,000 barrels of oil a day . At $40 US thats 8 million in revenue a day. Do you think that maybe the billions that were spent to build the oil platform helped create that value?

[Kidlicious]

I don't read your posts.

[Kontiki]

Yeah, I just don't get this anal retentive adherence to capital doesn't add value. It's a necessary component of production, be it land, cash, or whatever. You don't want to categorize it the same as labor? Fine, have fun with definitions. It doesn't change the necessity of capital.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I don't read your posts.

[Agathon]

He doesn't create value in the land. The labour produces a certain amount of value, when the land is applied to it, it creates a larger amount of value. Thus we say the land creates the extra value.

Yes, but the owner creates none. It wouldn't matter if he didn't own it, the value would still be the same.

All I claimed is that the value of things like land is not created by human beings. Creation is an act, and requires labour of some sort. That's all I wanted to say as I found Vel's remarks puzzling.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Yeah, I just don't get this anal retentive adherence to capital doesn't add value. It's a necessary component of production, be it land, cash, or whatever. You don't want to categorize it the same as labor? Fine, have fun with definitions. It doesn't change the necessity of capital.

The capitalist is only necessary in the capitalist system insn't he. Sure you need some one to organize things in a communist system. But you pay him only for work.

[Kontiki]

At the end of the day, though, it's just semantic bull****. You can pull out your pocket knife and whittle at air all day and you have nothing of value. You have to have the wood to actually create something. It's the same thing with land. Take out your spades and plows and rake at air and see what kind of value you produce.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kontiki
At the end of the day, though, it's just semantic bull****. You can pull out your pocket knife and whittle at air all day and you have nothing of value. You have to have the wood to actually create something. It's the same thing with land. Take out your spades and plows and rake at air and see what kind of value you produce.

What's your point?

[Flubber]

Its somewhat freeing to know that kid has ceased to read my posts. It seems that he does that with anyone that persistently disagrees with him, since I challenge anyone to find anywhere that I have personally attacked or insulted him.

All I do is consistently challenge his base assumptions and refuse to answer his yes/no type questions where he redefines key parameters to be unrecognizable to anyone that has actually done business in the world as it exists today.

Apparently this approach is too much for kid to handle. But if there are any other communists out there that enjoy reasoned debate, don't hesitate to bring it on.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious


What's your point?

The same as yours, only you can't or won't see it. Labor in and of itself creates nothing of value, just like land or money. It has to be applied to something meaningful to create value.

[Agathon]

The same as yours, only you can't or won't see it. Labor in and of itself creates nothing of value, just like land or money. It has to be applied to something meaningful to create value.

Why can't I think up a new song, or a new joke. Those have value, yet I have not applied my labour to anything, since these are immaterial goods.

[Flubber]

I reject the base premise that labor creates all value.


Take a widget worth $10. I have one and then they stop making the particular widget. It is now worth
$20 as it is scarce. No labor whatsoever was applied to increase the value. In fact it was the LACK of labor building new widgets that led to the creation of value.

Ten people work tirelessly to bring a new product to market. Two days before project unveiling someone else releases a product that renders their product worthless. Lots of labor applied and no value.


So value can increase with no labor . . . and labor itself can create zero value even if diligently applied in good faith. So how again does labor create all value?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kontiki


The same as yours, only you can't or won't see it. Labor in and of itself creates nothing of value, just like land or money. It has to be applied to something meaningful to create value.

Of course. I'm not arguing otherwise. We are really talking about capitalists though. In the capitalist system they are paid this thing which is called many things. Arrian calls it incentive. I call it exploitation, and you seem to just identify it with some right to money for the simple fact of legal ownership of something. Now say all of us decided that we would not pay the capitalist that? How would that be wrong?