Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Defining exploitation with reference with reference to the labour theory of value is "hardly just Marxian"? I challenge you to find one non-Marxist who would agree with it.

(People being idiots, you'll probably find one if you look a bit, but the challenge sounds good. )

Read the dictionary.

Anyway, the point isn't about exploitation, but about the utility of the concept of "value" in the Marxist sense. Saying that the Marxist definition of exploitation rests on it won't cut it unless you can give some independent motivation for that.

Again, the idea of value is not just Marxian. Everyone else seems to agree with me about what value is. My argument is about what creates it. So do you have an argument about what creates value?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Kid knows better than me if I'm being exploited.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Since that's not a real situation I don't see how it matters really if we disagree. In the real world the worker gets paid the same whether he has the tractor or not.

kid since when do you care about how things actually work in the real world ?

Isn't what I said completely in agreement with previous discussions where you stated

1. It does not matter if a worker makes more money, it can still be exploitation

2. The true value which a worker is entitled to might not be possible for the capitalist to accurately ascertain


Then you turn around and say that everyone should get a "fair wage" which seems to divorce a worker from the value of their own labor.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Read the dictionary.

The AHD gives no less than ten nominal definitions of "value":

1. An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return. 2. Monetary or material worth: the fluctuating value of gold and silver. 3. Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit: the value of an education. 4. A principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable: “The speech was a summons back to the patrician values of restraint and responsibility” (Jonathan Alter). 5. Precise meaning or import, as of a word. 6. Mathematics An assigned or calculated numerical quantity. 7. Music The relative duration of a tone or rest. 8. The relative darkness or lightness of a color. See table at color. 9. Linguistics The sound quality of a letter or diphthong. 10. One of a series of specified values: issued a stamp of new value.

Nothing about labour here that I can see ...

Again, the idea of value is not just Marxian. Everyone else seems to agree with me about what value is.

Really?

My argument is about what creates it. So do you have an argument about what creates value?

I'm not seeing any reason to think that the Marxist and capitalist concepts of value refer to the same thing, nor any reason to care about either.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I'm saying that the value that it gets from goods and services produced with a high school diploma is the same. If if doesn't get as much value from one good as the other even though they took the same amount of labor then it is allocating labor inefficiently.

That's nothing short of insane. You're saying that society derives the exact same value from everything that takes X man hours to produce, regardless of what it is, assuming they all require the same level of education to produce. You're also necessarily implying that if we find a more efficient way of producing something, then society automatically values it less.

[Whaleboy]

I think I've hurt Kid's feelings

Copycat threads

[Whaleboy]

It seems he's trying to defribulate the thread with lemons

[Whoha]

Re: Re: Re: Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere?

Originally posted by Kidicious


But what people pay for an item doesn't determine it's value either. The price is just a mechanism to atract or detract supplies. If there is a shortage the price will be higher, but no value was created. There is only a situation were buyers will bid up the price.

it tells what they think at the item is worth to them. that is what value is. If an individual can not make a decision about value, then neither can a society, which is just a collection of said individuals.

[Kidlicious]

I have to spend my time more wisely.

[Berzerker]

U aint alone

[Last Conformist]

I'd appear to be forced to conclude that Kid can't or won't answer my question coherently.

Any capitalist who'd like to try for their side?

[Whaleboy]

I'd just end up repeating myself from the other thread.

[Last Conformist]

That's why we've got copy'n'paste.

[Dinner]

Most of the anti-capitalist commies love to do drive by threads like this using outragous claims. Once educated people disect their claims and start to prove them false they run for the hills and you don't see them talk about it for a few weeks.

[Last Conformist]

You're implying I'm a commie?