Dhalgren
09-02-2009, 06:52 AM
I was wondering, earlier, why it was so important to understand this "economic stuff"; well now I get it. This is the most inhuman and inhumane system that can be imagined. "The Matrix" has got nothin' on modern Capitalism, baby...
What is Value?
Re: What is Value?
Kid of the Black Hole
09-02-2009, 07:36 AM
and the consider money. Does money share those properties? Is money a commodity?
09-02-2009, 07:36 AM
and the consider money. Does money share those properties? Is money a commodity?
Re: What is Value?
Kid of the Black Hole
09-02-2009, 08:01 AM
The "alienation" which "Young" Marx refers to is something like this:
Instead of seeing work as the production of your own live/livelihood -- ie as a PART and expression of your life -- instead your life is distorted to appear as only an expression of work. It is like saying "You must work to live" as opposed to "To live is to work" Work becomes the subject from which life is derivative.
The other part of alienation, which I suspect is the same thing in drag, is that we see the circulation of commodities AS the defining relations in society, but miss that they are truly the relations of man to man. This is because our own work -- our own LIFE -- now appears to be instead be a conglomeration of objects circulating around the globe governed by laws of their own and completely separated from ourselves..
Its another one of those things were Marx is very didactic but also a bit slim on the explanatory side. Sometimes he pops up with an epigram and you can't tell if that is his penchant for turning everything into a less than perfectly fitting epigram or if it is an actual enunciation of what he is really saying.
09-02-2009, 08:01 AM
The "alienation" which "Young" Marx refers to is something like this:
Instead of seeing work as the production of your own live/livelihood -- ie as a PART and expression of your life -- instead your life is distorted to appear as only an expression of work. It is like saying "You must work to live" as opposed to "To live is to work" Work becomes the subject from which life is derivative.
The other part of alienation, which I suspect is the same thing in drag, is that we see the circulation of commodities AS the defining relations in society, but miss that they are truly the relations of man to man. This is because our own work -- our own LIFE -- now appears to be instead be a conglomeration of objects circulating around the globe governed by laws of their own and completely separated from ourselves..
Its another one of those things were Marx is very didactic but also a bit slim on the explanatory side. Sometimes he pops up with an epigram and you can't tell if that is his penchant for turning everything into a less than perfectly fitting epigram or if it is an actual enunciation of what he is really saying.
Re: What is Value?
meganmonkey
09-02-2009, 08:22 AM
Dammit I'm supposed to be writing a grant, not essay questions on economics (oh how it hurts my head the way these things overlap though)
'...the same unsubstantial reality...'
The value of labor is so far removed (abstracted) from the actual physical result of the labor that there is no substance to this value, there is nothing real (substantial) about it anymore. It becomes a trade-able commodity of it's own, in the abstract...right?
Basically what happens is that the only value that matters in the market is the exchange-value (ideally leading to surplus-value) regardless of the real use-value of any specific inputs (amount and type of labor and materials) or even the final product itself. Am I on track here at all?
Kid above asked if money is a commodity, and it is, I think, in these terms, because it is abstracted away (from anything of substance) into this unsubstantial value, and can basically be exchanged on its own despite it's unsubstantial nature...
But it is still 'real' inasmuch as it lends power to those who have it (power over labor and means of production and ability to glean even more surplus-value into one's pockets).
I dunno. I'm mostly just thinking aloud, re-wording things and seeing if I even have a sense of them.
09-02-2009, 08:22 AM
Dammit I'm supposed to be writing a grant, not essay questions on economics (oh how it hurts my head the way these things overlap though)
'...the same unsubstantial reality...'
The value of labor is so far removed (abstracted) from the actual physical result of the labor that there is no substance to this value, there is nothing real (substantial) about it anymore. It becomes a trade-able commodity of it's own, in the abstract...right?
Basically what happens is that the only value that matters in the market is the exchange-value (ideally leading to surplus-value) regardless of the real use-value of any specific inputs (amount and type of labor and materials) or even the final product itself. Am I on track here at all?
Kid above asked if money is a commodity, and it is, I think, in these terms, because it is abstracted away (from anything of substance) into this unsubstantial value, and can basically be exchanged on its own despite it's unsubstantial nature...
But it is still 'real' inasmuch as it lends power to those who have it (power over labor and means of production and ability to glean even more surplus-value into one's pockets).
I dunno. I'm mostly just thinking aloud, re-wording things and seeing if I even have a sense of them.
Re: What is Value?
PinkoCommie
09-02-2009, 08:36 AM
- from one another. Work is not social when labor is a commodity.
- from the product, which is appropriated by the parasitic class.
- from the fullness one's potential and form one's self, where work instead is often mindless drudgery and the line between humanity and machine is blurred in the productive process.
09-02-2009, 08:36 AM
- from one another. Work is not social when labor is a commodity.
- from the product, which is appropriated by the parasitic class.
- from the fullness one's potential and form one's self, where work instead is often mindless drudgery and the line between humanity and machine is blurred in the productive process.
Re: What is Value?
Dhalgren
09-02-2009, 08:40 AM
The creation of zombies, who work and create new little zombies, then die. It's a horror movie...
09-02-2009, 08:40 AM
The creation of zombies, who work and create new little zombies, then die. It's a horror movie...
Re: What is Value?
blindpig
09-02-2009, 08:48 AM
"Ya don't work, ya don't eat."
09-02-2009, 08:48 AM
"Ya don't work, ya don't eat."
Re: What is Value?
blindpig
09-02-2009, 08:51 AM
Clouds clear thinking, save the rage for when it can be applied.
09-02-2009, 08:51 AM
Clouds clear thinking, save the rage for when it can be applied.
Re: What is Value?
Kid of the Black Hole
09-02-2009, 09:07 AM
but I was trying to hew as closely as possible to "commodity fetishism" and the "division of labor", which are the two things that Marx comes to expressly emphasize (early on in say the Paris Manuscripts he has a different formulation but it is not entirely clear what parts of that he retains and which parts he discards..at least not to me. Its possible the shift is semantic but I don't know)
Even apart from the capitalist society, the division of labor is seen to be the wedge that separates man from his own livelihood. Capitalist relations of course, lay this separation completely bare
09-02-2009, 09:07 AM
but I was trying to hew as closely as possible to "commodity fetishism" and the "division of labor", which are the two things that Marx comes to expressly emphasize (early on in say the Paris Manuscripts he has a different formulation but it is not entirely clear what parts of that he retains and which parts he discards..at least not to me. Its possible the shift is semantic but I don't know)
Even apart from the capitalist society, the division of labor is seen to be the wedge that separates man from his own livelihood. Capitalist relations of course, lay this separation completely bare
Re: What is Value?
Two Americas
09-02-2009, 09:18 AM
"If someone wants to become a slave, they should be free to do so..."
People with leashes around their necks walking around on all fours and barking like a dog are not slaves. If they are free to choose that, then they are free, not enslaved.
Freedom to not be free is not freedom, and proposing that is could be is libertarianism.
This a variation on "gee those darkies sure seem happy-go-lucky on the plantation. It is not for me, but they seem to like it."
09-02-2009, 09:18 AM
"If someone wants to become a slave, they should be free to do so..."
People with leashes around their necks walking around on all fours and barking like a dog are not slaves. If they are free to choose that, then they are free, not enslaved.
Freedom to not be free is not freedom, and proposing that is could be is libertarianism.
This a variation on "gee those darkies sure seem happy-go-lucky on the plantation. It is not for me, but they seem to like it."