Exegesis - Cap/Com-ist

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I understand all of it. It is very direct and clear. Very little room for interpretation actually. The question is how do you understand it.

You really do dwell in a bizarro universe, don't you? Just as you say, it's very direct and clear. How do you not see the same thing as the rest of us?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Spiffor

If you pay students as much as you pay ditch-diggers, pretty much everybody will be a student (and not that many will stop their studies, because being a student is far more interesting than having a job)

You previously said that people would not become doctors if they didn't get paid more. Did you mean they wouldn't become doctors if their education was fully paid and they still didn't get paid more? That's what we're talking about.

[Flubber]

Oh and I liked Spiffor's answer as well. The people that really like being a student will always find one more program or issue to study. Are some central planners going to decree that that the doctoral thesis must be done in 18 months-- After all the professors will always support continuing study since if they have no students prehaps they don't get to keep being a professor

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kontiki


You really do dwell in a bizarro universe, don't you? Just as you say, it's very direct and clear. How do you not see the same thing as the rest of us?

Why the hell can't you understand it? What is wrong with you?

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Spiffor

We must have not had the same experience of college.

The objectively lazy person you are talking to (i.e. myself) is a student . A colleague of mine, who studies the very same thing and is even more lazy than I, worked once as a bartender, and clearly told me "never again"

You clearly have no idea what post graduate work is like. Or at least, business, law and medicine - altough I'm sure other fields are just as rigorous.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Why the hell can't you understand it? What is wrong with you?

Why does EVERYONE see things differently than you? Does it EVER occurr to you that maybe you are misinterpreting things??

Not once eh?? Just as I thought.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kidicious
O M G!
I can not support you in any kind of political pursuit that you have. You have no justification for overthrowing the current rulers just so that you can set up your own little rule. You scare me.

No, I have a different justification for overthrowing our current rulers, which is that they misrule. If they were capable of providing a stable economy and a decent standard of living for all without the periodic crises to which capitalism is subject, there would be no point in overthrowing them. This is the fundimental core of Marxism. It is not the capitalism is unfair, it is that capitalism is insane.

Ah, no. It would be the same as it is today. They would vote with their pocket book.

Society would vote, not the doctors. Presumably we'd have people like you providing data for us to make an informed decision as to how we should reward them.

As shocked as I am that you can misinterpret Marx, maybe you don't like Orwell because it would be harder to fit your own desires into it, and use it for political propaganda purposes.

As for Orwell, I didn't say I didn't like him. I think he's a fine author and I like his work, at least until he began ratting out other leftists, and 1984 is still pretty good. Be that as it may, he doesn't supplant Marx and Lenin and others.

Yes, we have already agree upon that. You were going to show me where Marx said that doctors should be compensated beyond the cost of their education. You haven't done that.

I think part of your problem is the fact that I didn't sufficiently distinguish when I was writing about socialism and when I was writing about communism. In socialism, many of the market's mechanisms will still be in operation. Thus during this period, docotors will still be compensated according to supply and demand, in addition to the increased cost of their labor due to their training. In The State and Revolution, Lenin limits wage differentials to five times the lowest pay scale. When inheritence taxes are included, this prevents the rise of a new class.

When society becomes so productive that wages become meaningless, we will have reached communism. Doctors will still probably recieve greater social rewards for their labor, but it won't take the form of money.

His argument is a MORAL argument.

Ah, no. His argument is that capitalism is irrational and unplanned and that it is insane for humans to be the slave of a mechanism they created (the market). While he makes moral arguments, they are to support his philosophical argument. You put the cart before the horse when you make moral arguments your chief arguments.

[Kidlicious]

It is the cost required for the maintenance of the laborer as a laborer, and for his education and training as a laborer.

Therefore, the shorter the time required for training up to a particular sort of work, the smaller is the cost of production of the worker, the lower is the price of his labor-power, his wages.

Someone please tell me how this says that a laborer should be paid for more than his labor and his training. I'm completely dismayed.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Flubber
I am a lawyer and get paid reasonably well to be one.

Well, presumably we'd have far less need for lawyers.

As far as the really ****ty jobs in society go, like coal mining or garbage collection, I imagine some kind of work sharing by the rest of society. Rather than have dedicated garbage collectors, we take turns, as part of our debt to society so that we can all spend more time doing the work we'd perfer to do.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Why the hell can't you understand it? What is wrong with you?

I can't see what's not there. Here's part of what Che quoted:

"Therefore, the shorter the time required for training up to a particular sort of work, the smaller is the cost of production of the worker, the lower is the price of his labor-power, his wages."

Where do you see something other than the more training required, the higher the wages?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kidicious

It is the cost required for the maintenance of the laborer as a laborer, and for his education and training as a laborer.

Therefore, the shorter the time required for training up to a particular sort of work, the smaller is the cost of production of the worker, the lower is the price of his labor-power, his wages.

Someone please tell me how this says that a laborer should be paid for more than his labor and his training. I'm completely dismayed.

You're also forgetting about the supply and demand part, which also operates in the market for labor.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kidicious
You previously said that people would not become doctors if they didn't get paid more. Did you mean they wouldn't become doctors if their education was fully paid and they still didn't get paid more? That's what we're talking about.

If their education was fully paid, many people would become doctors over manual labour. But there is the (strong) risk that the huge majority of people will avoid manual labour altogether, and study for the most interesting jobs, that will match their vocation. It will result in an overload of people in some kinds of job, while many other jobs will find very little people wanting to do them (repetitive unskilled manual labour, but also obscure or unattractive skilled jobs).

In France, where university is basically free and where most students are supported by their parents, we have this problem already, with some courses such as sports and psychology being overwhelmed. And still, France is a capitalist country where most students know they have to pick a cursus that will lead to an actual job, because of the financial pressure.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Spiffor

We must have not had the same experience of college.

The objectively lazy person you are talking to (i.e. myself) is a student . A colleague of mine, who studies the very same thing and is even more lazy than I, worked once as a bartender, and clearly told me "never again"

School was ok but I did not enjoy it-- I enjoyed the associated partying etc but that would have occurred at school or in the workforce anyway.

I liked bartending. It was busy work but good music and good looking girls everywhere made it fun. I would probably like it less now.

Ditchdigging-- I actually worked with a shovel digging a ditch in a historical area not accessable to machines. I actually figured I was getting paid to work out and the result was much more muscle. There was a lack of mental stimulii in the work but I could always banter with my co-workers about anything.

Even now I get a real sense of satisfaction out of building things. I enjoyed building my fence. There's actually a little bit of satisfaction with ever nail driven straight and true.


I agree that some people would love school and they would tend to try to stay there even more than they do now . . . But a lot of smart people will know what they really enjoy and if that involves no college, that is what they will choose.

personally I think that jobs at national parks, ski hills and golf courses will be in VERY high demand

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
As far as the really ****ty jobs in society go, like coal mining or garbage collection, I imagine some kind of work sharing by the rest of society. Rather than have dedicated garbage collectors, we take turns, as part of our debt to society so that we can all spend more time doing the work we'd perfer to do.

Actually, giving a good financial reward for the really ****ty jobs could be a good idea as well. In France, there is currently a lack of people willing to collect garbage. The answer to that problem was to raise these wages dramatically. Garbage collection is a pretty interesting job now, if you have no skill and want to have a middle-class wage. If I was on the dole, I'd probably consider it.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Where do you see something other than the more training required, the higher the wages?

He also has a problem with the part where I said that because society values the labor of a doctor more, that it would be compensated more. He forgets that labor-power is a commodity, and that as long as the law of value is in operation (which would be the case in socialist society to greater and lessor extents), society will treat it as such. Society will want to encourage people to become doctors and not limit themselves to digging ditches.