Exploitation

[ComradeYoldas]

I'm relatively new to this forum, and would like to ask: is the meaning of exploitation different than it was when Karl Marx was around?

I was looking into this libertarian video:
youtube.com/watch?v=4Ttbj6LAu0A

And it made me think. Another general question is what do you think of the video itself?☼－X

[Blake's Baby]

No, it isn't really different, Marx was discussing how profit comes from worker being paid less for their work than the value of the work they do. That is still the basis of profit in capitalism.

I have no idea about the video, I didn't watch it. Why would you mention 'it made you think'?

[evermilion]

Yeah, one way to get us not to watch something is telling us it's libertarian. That should've been a secret.

[Blake's Baby]

By 'Libertarian' I assumed a US-style 'Libertarian' ranting on about guns and the gold standard and how all those damn Jew Commie Liberals are talking away America's cows and guns, or some such, rather than for instance 'the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists'. So, yeah, I didn't watch.

Perhaps, OP, you could say what you thought some of the more salient or thought-provoking points were, and we can get on with demolishing them.

[WelcomeToTheParty]

I believe the answer is no. The distinction made in the video is complete nonsense, as is the rest of the video. Workers are exploited in both senses of the word under Capitalism.

Fairly early on he dismisses the labour theory of value and yet something like 30 seconds later he's claiming that workers have to be paid close to the value they produce! No doubt because he falsely believes capital also creates value.

He brushes away exploitation on the grounds that capitalist and worker meet as equals in the market for labour, but we know that they don't. A worker has no choice but to sell his labour to the capitalist if they intend to live and the coercive forces of competition will always push capitalists to pay them as little for that labour as possible.

[Blake's Baby]

The argument that the worker 'exploits the capitalist's need for labour' is a fairly common one for 'Right-Libertarians' but is easily dismissed. A capitalist can work his machines himself, if he needs labour. Problem solved, for the capitalist. A labourer, however, cannot merely take a machine and work it for him- or her-self. Not unless we're living in communist society, anyway.

'Right-Libertarians' also claim (don't know if they do in the video, but again it's a common theme) labourers agree to sell the products of their work to capitalists, and this is what wages are, while capitalists take what has been made, and sell them in the (external) market, deriving profit, thus the capitalist's profit is merely the result of the capitalist risking loss by buying (from the worker) short and selling (to the consumer) long. Of course this is nonsense; if workers decided 'OK, we'll just take the cars we made instead of wages, and sell them direct' then they would be arrested and imprisoned pretty rapidly. Workers do not sell 'commodities in general' (ie, whatever they're producing) to the capitalist, they sell labour power. It is the exploitation of this labour power by the capitalist (buying it at its replacement value, but selling the commodities produced at many times that value) that produces profit.

Another common criticism of 'labour theory of value' from 'Right-Libertarians' is that it implies that digging a hole and filling it in again, or making mud pies, is a worthwhile economic activity (again, don't know if it's on the video but it comes up time and again). Marx deals with this when he discusses commodity production - a commodity is only a commodity in the market; if something doesn't have a use-value, it doesn't have any value period. In the case of commodities, that use-value is equivalent to a buyer. If no-one wants what is being produced it is useless, and therefore a) without value 9no matter how much effort went into making it), and b) not a commodity (because it has no buyer).

Lastly (for now) is the criticism that Marx doesn't take supply and demand into account in formulating the 'Labour Theory of Value'. Actually, he does, he says prices fluctuate around 'value' but aren't identical to it. In this case, price fluctuations are the result of supply and demand, but the 'value' around which they fluctuate is the 'value' derived from labour. To examine labour as the source of profit, Marx assumes, for the sake of the model, that neither suppliers nor customers can unduly influence prices - in other words, he assumes that the supply and demand match. This is in some ways a serious failing; capitalism doesn't work like this, in specifics, which is one of the reasons for crises of capitalism. So, Marx actually posits a better-organised, more harmonious and rational capitalism than actually exists. When 'Right-Libertarians' use this argument, I often infuriate them by agreeing with them, and saying that Marx overestimated capitalism's rationality and yes, they're right, the system is more stupid and irrational than Marx's model suggests.

[rezzza]

Hi Blake. I am new here but wanted to ask you: how does the LTV explain why water (a item needed for survival) is much cheaper than diamonds (an item we could easily live without)?

[Blake's Baby]

Because water falls from the sky. In fact, where I live (no idea where you are) people spend an awful lot of time hiding from it. It is quite literally bouncing off the widow I'm sitting next to.

Water, consequently, is quite easy for people to get to. About the only thing I can think of that's easier to access is air.

Diamonds, on the other hand, are quite difficult to get. They take much more effort (= labour).

So... diamonds are expensive because a lot of labour goes into getting them. Water is not expensive because comparatively little labour goes into getting it.

Which rather blows the notion that it's all about demand out of the water. If it were, water and air would be the most expensive things on the planet.

[WelcomeToTheParty]

Hi Blake. I am new here but wanted to ask you: how does the LTV explain why water (a item needed for survival) is much cheaper than diamonds (an item we could easily live without)?

The LTV explains value, but price can move around value as a result of different material conditions. The price of diamonds is a reflection of the special place diamonds occupy in western society (a product of a great advertising campaign) and artificial shortage caused by the power cartels have over the market.

[Theophys]

Because water falls from the sky. In fact, where I live (no idea where you are) people spend an awful lot of time hiding from it. It is quite literally bouncing off the widow I'm sitting next to.

Water, consequently, is quite easy for people to get to. About the only thing I can think of that's easier to access is air.

Diamonds, on the other hand, are quite difficult to get. They take much more effort (= labour).

So... diamonds are expensive because a lot of labour goes into getting them. Water is not expensive because comparatively little labour goes into getting it.

Which rather blows the notion that it's all about demand out of the water. If it were, water and air would be the most expensive things on the planet.

That's ridiculous and false. First of all, the guy asking the question was referring to the price of the two commodities, you instead mixed up both the value and the price and in the end didn't seem to understand which of the two your were speaking of. Effort and labor directly reflect price only when demand and supply are equal, amongst other conditions taken aside by Marx. When demand and supply are not equal then price does not equate value. That is to say, diamonds are expensive not because "they take much more effort (= labor)" or more ridiculously because "a lot of labour goes into getting them [while] water is not expensive because comparatively little labour goes into getting them". Our economy and society today do not operate on the basis of equal demand and supply, but on fluctuating demand and supply that have a large factor on the price.

The reason why diamonds are expensive is due to their low supply, high demand, rarity, difficulty to obtain, skills required to etch and perfect, and their other qualities that make them a Veblen good. Water, on the other hand, has little to do with the lack of labor making it cheap as much as it has to do with the high supply (your example of it falling on your "widow" [sic]), ease of manufacture/purification, availability in nature, low costs of production, and an ensured demand with little risk.

Furthermore, effort =/= labor. Labor is work. Effort is the amount/quantity/quality/difficult/type of labor expended. Not only that, but it is labor-power that determines value in an equilibrium as per the LTV, not labor.

Your post did not "blow" anything anywhere. You relied on false assumptions, conditions, and theory which you seem to have very little understanding of. That is to say, demand IS one of the factors that determine the price of water.

Oh and lastly, as for your last ignorant statement concerning demand and water/air, that would only be the case purely because you only took into account high demand with complete disregard for competition, supply, cost of production, availability, and so on. You took away the price balancing factors that act as a counter-weight to the soaring price of high demand. Your conclusion is false and reeks of intellectual dishonesty.

WelcomeToTheParty was correct in his post, but he should have replied to you instead of rezzza.

Maybe you should go read Capital and take a single course in economics before you start bringing up this philistine nonsense.

[Blake's Baby]

You're welcome, Theophys.

[BIXX]

That's ridiculous and false. First of all, the guy asking the question was referring to the price of the two commodities, you instead mixed up both the value and the price and in the end didn't seem to understand which of the two your were speaking of. Effort and labor directly reflect price only when demand and supply are equal, amongst other conditions taken aside by Marx. When demand and supply are not equal then price does not equate value. That is to say, diamonds are expensive not because "they take much more effort (= labor)" or more ridiculously because "a lot of labour goes into getting them [while] water is not expensive because comparatively little labour goes into getting them". Our economy and society today do not operate on the basis of equal demand and supply, but on fluctuating demand and supply that have a large factor on the price.

The reason why diamonds are expensive is due to their low supply, high demand, rarity, difficulty to obtain, skills required to etch and perfect, and their other qualities that make them a Veblen good. Water, on the other hand, has little to do with the lack of labor making it cheap as much as it has to do with the high supply (your example of it falling on your "widow" [sic]), ease of manufacture/purification, availability in nature, low costs of production, and an ensured demand with little risk.

Furthermore, effort =/= labor. Labor is work. Effort is the amount/quantity/quality/difficult/type of labor expended. Not only that, but it is labor-power that determines value in an equilibrium as per the LTV, not labor.

Your post did not "blow" anything anywhere. You relied on false assumptions, conditions, and theory which you seem to have very little understanding of. That is to say, demand IS one of the factors that determine the price of water.

Oh and lastly, as for your last ignorant statement concerning demand and water/air, that would only be the case purely because you only took into account high demand with complete disregard for competition, supply, cost of production, availability, and so on. You took away the price balancing factors that act as a counter-weight to the soaring price of high demand. Your conclusion is false and reeks of intellectual dishonesty.

WelcomeToTheParty was correct in his post, but he should have replied to you instead of rezzza.

Maybe you should go read Capital and take a single course in economics before you start bringing up this philistine nonsense.

Actually, I believe BB explained it quite well. I think you need to read what he said better, Theophys. He explained precisely why air and water were cheaper than diamonds. I fail to see where he is actually wrong. Your post seems to ignore the fact that water and air do, in fact, take little effort or labour to obtain, and the fact that BB explained this in his post. So either I'm going full stupid or you are just trying to argue without reason.

[Theophys]

Actually, I believe BB explained it quite well. I think you need to read what he said better, Theophys. He explained precisely why air and water were cheaper than diamonds. I fail to see where he is actually wrong. Your post seems to ignore the fact that water and air do, in fact, take little effort or labour to obtain, and the fact that BB explained this in his post. So either I'm going full stupid or you are just trying to argue without reason.

No he did not, and I did "read it better", you need to read it better. I'll try to explain this in a very simple manner.

Rezzza came in and asked why diamonds cost more than water according to the LTV.

Blake replied that diamonds need more "effort" (a notion that is non-existent in the LTV) and labor (in fact, labor-power) to produce than water. So diamonds, since they need more "labor" should have a higher value than water.

The problem here is that Rezzza was not speaking of values, but of prices. Blake's reply only dealt, very problematically, with values rather than prices.

Under the theoretical conditions of the LTV that Marx used, price = value when ignoring demand and supply and the thousand and one other factors that determine price's fluctuation from value.

Meaning under normal market circumstances (where rezzza is coming from), value =/= price. Thus an explanation of why water is cheaper than diamonds from a value point of view whilst completely ignoring every other factor such as demand and supply, cost of production, etc. is completely false when trying to explain price.

Not only that, but there were several other issues as well. Blake tried with such a false explanation to show that thus it "blows the notion that it's all about demand out of the water" when in reality it is the high supply and demand that decrease the price, competition that decreases the price, availability that decreases the price, etc. almost completely disregarding labor-power embedded.

There's also the problem that he makes the assumption that diamonds require more labor than water and thus are more expensive. That is false as we cannot exactly know under what conditions the diamonds and water were extracted. The diamonds could have been found randomly on the ground, stolen from a bank, or even mined purely by machines using minimal labor as compared to the water being possibly extracted by hand, used more labor for the machinery, etc. etc.

Even then, the huge deficit in pricing is impossible to explain alone by the amount of labor-power embedded. What is needed to properly explain the price are numerous factors that determine that price in the first place ranging from supply and demand, availability, abundance and rarity (not in the market), marketing, a product becoming a Giffen and/or Veblen good, an item of luxury, the difficulty in extraction of a product, the cost of production, the cost of labor, AND the amount of labor needed, etc. etc.

Oh and no I did not ignore the issue of water and air being hard to obtain or not, I explained this by mentioning that Marx did not speak of "effort". But any way, you also forget the fact that rainwater can very well make you sick and can even be fatal should you not purify that. Rainwater is also not available everywhere in the world. Let's also remember that air is "cheap" not because of little labor going into it but because of its availability, demand and supply, cost of production, etc. etc. which Blake completely ignored in his reply.

So I ask you, need I even go on?

[Blake's Baby]

The very fact that the 'cost of production' of air is nil, and that it is ubiquitous, means that very little labour goes into 'extracting' it. The fact that water is nearly as abundant as air, and therefore the 'cost of production' is close to nil, means that very little labour goes into extracting it.

I answered the question as it seemed to be asking about demand - water is necessary for survival (therefore everyone wants it) but it's cheap, diamonds are unnecessary for survival (therefore a lot of people are happy to do without) and yet they are expensive. At no point to refer to 'an actual diamond' or 'an actual glass of water' so yes, prices may fluctuate because of local conditions (diamonds lying in the street of a town in the desert) but I'm discussing averages here (as it seems to rezzza was).

Ubiquity means that less (or no) labour-power is necessary for extraction. So, price in this case still relates to exchange-value. It is hard to commodify water, very hard to commodify air (not impossible, when clean air is difficult to obtain, then air can be commodified) precisely because they can be extracted with little expenditure of labour-power. On the other hand, if diamonds were generally available, then they too would have little value (and consequently a very low price), because little labour-power would be required for their extraction.

[Theophys]

The very fact that the 'cost of production' of air is nil, and that it is ubiquitous, means that very little labour goes into 'extracting' it.

False. The cost of production is not as majorly affected by labor as you make it out to be. Labor is not synonymous with cost of production as there are numerous other factors that add up to form the cost of production. Machinery, fuel, etc. can automatically pump water and air and purify it with little to no interaction from a laborer except by the press of a button. It is because there is no demand for air, no benefits of purifying it, etc. that it is not a commercial product as opposed to water which we will get to below.


The fact that water is nearly as abundant as air, and therefore the 'cost of production' is close to nil, means that very little labour goes into extracting it.

The cost of production of water is low, but not "close to nil." Water is in extremely high demand with a high supply and high competition. Labor has little to do with the cost of production of water and its effect on price. The price of water has thus little to do with labor as much as it has to do with the numerous other factors that exist which I have previously mentioned in my other posts.


I answered the question as it seemed to be asking about demand - water is necessary for survival (therefore everyone wants it) but it's cheap, diamonds are unnecessary for survival (therefore a lot of people are happy to do without) and yet they are expensive. At no point to refer to 'an actual diamond' or 'an actual glass of water' so yes, prices may fluctuate because of local conditions (diamonds lying in the street of a town in the desert) but I'm discussing averages here (as it seems to rezzza was).

As I have previously shown, your answer to the question was false with also false conclusions concerning demand and price. Water is necessary for survival, but it is not because little labor goes into its production that it is cheap, it is because of the demand, supply, abundance, availability, etc. etc. that make it cheap. This is exactly why water has higher costs in countries with water scarcity, it is not because those countries resort to labor-intensive methods of the extraction and purification of water but because of demand outweighing supply, availability, scarcity, lack of competition, etc. etc. The LTV is not capable of explaining such things, the LTV should solely be used to theoretically show the origin of value in an equilibrium amongst other conditions of a theoretical "perfect market". Your discussion of averages changes nothing, especially if we are to take specifics which would put your "discussion" to rest when it comes to reality. You claim that diamonds cost more than water not because of demand, supply, rarity, its social status, etc. but because it takes much more labor to extract and whatnot. That is obviously false. You can never know exactly how much labor goes into the production of diamonds versus water, hell if I can predict the results I would see that the water industry has more laborers than the diamond industry based on the global nature of the water industry with numerous companies in each country, the need to ship the water on a daily basis to the market, the need for large-scale accounting in each company, the need for marketing, the need for quality assurance, etc. etc. Nevertheless, it is exactly because prices "may" fluctuate that your entire post was wrong. You spoke of values, not of prices. Values cannot explain anything in a disequilibrium and without the theoretical "perfect market" as prices fluctuate vastly around that value. Razzza was not asking "why is the value of water lower than that of diamonds"" but "why is water cheaper than diamonds?"


Ubiquity means that less (or no) labour-power is necessary for extraction. So, price in this case still relates to exchange-value. It is hard to commodify water, very hard to commodify air (not impossible, when clean air is difficult to obtain, then air can be commodified) precisely because they can be extracted with little expenditure of labour-power. On the other hand, if diamonds were generally available, then they too would have little value (and consequently a very low price), because little labour-power would be required for their extraction.
Oh please more nonsense. You do not know which requires more labor-power, something that is made much more difficult in a real market with prices fluctuating away from value. {rice in a real market does not equal exchange-value, but it is related to it as you say and that relation is completely unknown and differs from area to area. Lol? Water is already commodified, what do you mean by water being "hard to commodify" when it ALREADY is a commodity and easily commodified with the simple bottling of water by a machine? Air need not be commodified because there does not exist proper markets and demand for it.

And are you seriously kidding me here? Are you trying to correlate labor-power and availability in an attempt at explaining price? That if something is readily available it requires little labor-labor power? Ridiculous. Diamonds exist in the millions in Earth and so does water. I bet computers only cost a few dollars, because after all they're mostly built by machines! Coal and lumber must cost in the millions because they require more labor-power. That is the most ridiculous nonsense I have ever heard. Damn, I also bet those friendship bracelets sold in markets must cost billions as they're purely made out of the expenditure of labor. The same applies to those handmade clothing, wool fabrics, etc. What about all the sweathshop workers with the hundreds of superexploited workers? Those sweatshops expend much, much more labor-power into products and yet they are dirt cheap. Their products cost less than brand products produced with machines! Seriously, stop this bullshit, it's getting ridiculous. I also bet diamonds cost so much because of labor-power expended upon it rather than the thousand and one factors that are much more important and vital for the price! Diamonds, extracted through whatever means, have their price dependent upon demand and supply, availability, social status, being a Veblen and Giffin good, etc. etc. with labor being one factor out of many.

After pointing out the disaster that is your argument, you attempt to include other factors to save your misinterpretation and perversion of the LTV such as availability and supply. Listen, when someone discusses value in an equilibrium and the other conditions taken by Marx, then and only then can you speak of price being truly represented by value and the labor-power expended. However, when you do away with those conditions, open up the market, create a disequilibrium, include luxury, include scarcity, include difficulty to extract (machines or labor, generally machines), and so on then price has little to do with the intrinsic value of the commodity.

[BIXX]

I bet computers only cost a few dollars, because after all they're mostly built by machines!

Do I really need to explain what is wrong with this (and all your other) analogies? I think I will use this one as my starting point.

The problem with that argument is the labour that goes into getting all the materials to make the computer, the maintenance on the machines, etc...
Your argument basically is saying that labour does not happen in a place where machines do a good amount of the work. With that, then yes, things that were solely produced in places with machines would be cheap. However, you're wrong, because places that utilize machinery also utilize a lot of labour.

Take my dad's job for example. He helps build airplanes and whatnot. Your argument is that under BB's LTV, the airplane produced would be nearly free. However, this is not the case. There is a ton of labour at the manufacturing plant my dad works at, from using machines to sandblast the parts, to creating wax casts, etc... Which is all done with the help of a machine, however, it is still labour. My grandpa, who works at the same company, has to maintain the perfect temperatures I'm the plant all the time by actively working on the air conditioning units there. My mom works in their wax department, where she has to form perfectly (with a torch) wax casts. My dad is the one doing the sandblasting, which, really, is dangerous (especially with the equipment he used to have to use) and hard. Plus, he has to break ceramic casts by hand. Plus then you have transportation from one plant to another. Then you have all the people in other departments doing all sorts of shit (like burning out the ceramic cores of the parts they work on) and all of this adds up to a HUGE amount of labour. But they use machines, so you assume that there is no labour in that production process, with is laughably false. Go learn some things about production at an actual plant, not some made up fantasy land plant where people just watch the machines saying "WOW! LOOK WHAT THE MACHINES CAN DO!" all day.

[WelcomeToTheParty]

ITT: People who don't know the difference between price and value. Marx took the assumptions of capitalists economists as true (i.e. perfectly competitive markets) and used that to show capitalisms contradictions. Under that assumption price and value will be the same, but otherwise it can fluctuate around.

Diamonds are not that rare, nor are they that hard to extract. They're used on industrial drills all the time without costing huge prices. The high price of diamonds, as both Theophys and I have been arguing, is a result of market conditions forcing price above value. Marx understood this possibility.

[Blake's Baby]

False. The cost of production is not as majorly affected by labor as you make it out to be. Labor is not synonymous with cost of production as there are numerous other factors that add up to form the cost of production. Machinery, fuel, etc. can automatically pump water and air and purify it with little to no interaction from a laborer except by the press of a button...

You do realise that the machines you use, and the fuel (which is extracted, through machines, and by the direct application of labour power), are all examples of embedded (dead) labour?

Who built the machines? Other machines! But who built those machines? And who mined the ore that the machines are made of? It was all done by people excercising their labour-power. That's where machines come from.

[Theophys]

Do I really need to explain what is wrong with this (and all your other) analogies? I think I will use this one as my starting point.
Yes you do.


The problem with that argument is the labour that goes into getting all the materials to make the computer, the maintenance on the machines, etc...
Your argument basically is saying that labour does not happen in a place where machines do a good amount of the work. With that, then yes, things that were solely produced in places with machines would be cheap. However, you're wrong, because places that utilize machinery also utilize a lot of labour.
My argument is not that labor does not happen in a place where machines do a good amount of the work, that was the argument made by Blake who claimed that water requires little labor and ergo costs little. Nevertheless, your argument will remain a deficit. The prospecting for water, the extraction of water, the purification of water, etc. all utilize machinery which have embedded labor-power within them. Since that is the case, following such a false assertion we would thus have to reach the conclusion that since the embedded labor-power is being re-embedded in the commodified water by machines that the water must contain a shred of labor-power from the machines. That, of course is not only false but would also lead to the price of water far outnumbering the price of the diamonds who would thus by this argument take a lot less labor-power to produce. Water would thus require many more machines and much more labor than the rare diamonds, as I have already explained, and would thus have to cost more if we are to follow your false argument.


Take my dad's job for example. He helps build airplanes and whatnot. Your argument is that under BB's LTV, the airplane produced would be nearly free. However, this is not the case.
That was never my argument, that was Blake's argument. If you had even bothered to read what took place in this thread or even bothered to read my explanation you would see that Blake is the one who is stating that since water requires little labor then it is cheaper than diamonds. That was never my argument. My argument was claiming that his argument was false since he completely ignores numerous other factors that need to be taken into consideration when removing the LTV from an equilibrium and perfect market conditions that existed in the theoretical framework of Marx's Capital.


There is a ton of labour at the manufacturing plant my dad works at, from using machines to sandblast the parts, to creating wax casts, etc... Which is all done with the help of a machine, however, it is still labour. My grandpa, who works at the same company, has to maintain the perfect temperatures I'm the plant all the time by actively working on the air conditioning units there. My mom works in their wax department, where she has to form perfectly (with a torch) wax casts. My dad is the one doing the sandblasting, which, really, is dangerous (especially with the equipment he used to have to use) and hard. Plus, he has to break ceramic casts by hand. Plus then you have transportation from one plant to another. Then you have all the people in other departments doing all sorts of shit (like burning out the ceramic cores of the parts they work on) and all of this adds up to a HUGE amount of labour. But they use machines, so you assume that there is no labour in that production process, with is laughably false. Go learn some things about production at an actual plant, not some made up fantasy land plant where people just watch the machines saying "WOW! LOOK WHAT THE MACHINES CAN DO!" all day.
And all of that only proved my point, good job idiot. Blake's argument was that water is cheap becomes it involves very little labor. If your argument, which is also wrong, were to be considered then water would have to cost much more than diamonds which would cost 100x the cost of water even if randomly found on the ground in its unrefined form since that water requires a lot more labor to produce, manufacture, purify, extract, distribute, etc. That is of course me ignoring the other factors that determine price and the fact that in a real-life market there exists a disequilibrium where price fluctuates and differs from value according to demand and supply, cost of production, market prices, availability, rarity, difficult to production, etc. etc.

Kids these days... They do not even bother to read before replying. He thought he was defending Blake's position and instead utterly blew him another hole. :laugh:


You do realise that the machines you use, and the fuel (which is extracted, through machines, and by the direct application of labour power), are all examples of embedded (dead) labour?
Yes. And since the prospecting, extraction, purification, bottling (plastics, petroleum), packaging, and distribution of water require much more machinery and embedded labor-power than diamonds, water should thus cost more than diamonds. It does not. Ergo labor in this case does not determine price because it is a disequilibrium, an open market, etc.


Who built the machines? Other machines! But who built those machines? And who mined the ore that the machines are made of? It was all done by people excercising their labour-power. That's where machines come from.
Cool story, you're still wrong. All you've proven here is that these machines would thus lead to the cost of water increasing rather than decreasing. Instead of explaining why water is cheaper than diamonds, you instead show that water should be much more expensive than diamonds because they require more labor and embedded labor to produce. Good job.

[BIXX]

Theosys, if you had bothered to read what I was saying, you would realize I was critiquing your view of Blake's argument. God, can we just ban this guy? I'm pretty sure he's a troll.

[Theophys]

Theosys, if you had bothered to read what I was saying, you would realize I was critiquing your view of Blake's argument. God, can we just ban this guy? I'm pretty sure he's a troll.

Are you kidding me kid? I know very well you were trying to argue against me, and yet I pointed out that your argument instead ended up arguing against Blake's argument because you did not bother to read anything in this thread. I showed this in my post. As for banning me, go ahead, kid, just do remember I'm not a troll. :laugh:

He can't get his head out of his ass, ergo I'm the troll. I just like how think you were arguing against my argument you ended up arguing against Blake's argument. :laugh:

Smart fellow.

[BIXX]

Are you kidding me kid? I know very well you were trying to argue against me, and yet I pointed out that your argument instead ended up arguing against Blake's argument because you did not bother to read anything in this thread. I showed this in my post. As for banning me, go ahead, kid, just do remember I'm not a troll. :laugh:

He can't get his head out of his ass, ergo I'm the troll. I just like how think you were arguing against my argument you ended up arguing against Blake's argument. :laugh:

Smart fellow.

Allow me to direct your attention to something, cause apparently you lost in in your lack of reading comprehension.


Your argument is that under BB's LTV, the airplane produced would be nearly free.

And my argument was supporting his, that the airplane would not be free because machines do not eliminate labour.

[Theophys]

Allow me to direct your attention to something, cause apparently you lost in in your lack of reading comprehension.

And my argument was supporting his, that the airplane would not be free because machines do not eliminate labour.

Are you fucking stupid? Where the FUCK did I EVER claim that an airplane would be free? Come on, I CHALLENGE YOU to show me where I claimed such a stupid thing. I NEVER claimed that machines eliminate labor. I never even spoke of any airplane.

It was Blake who claimed that if something doesn't have labor-power embedded in it then it has to be CHEAPER than other goods that need more labor-power to be produced. He was saying this in relation to water being cheaper than diamonds because water requires less labor-power, embedded or otherwise, than diamonds.

You then also claimed, trying to defend Blake, that machines have embedded labor-power within them. At which point I claimed that ergo water must cost more than diamonds because water needs much, much more labor-power than diamonds as it needs to be prospected, extracted, transported, funneled, purified, bottled, labeled, shipped, delivered, and stocked as opposed to diamonds needing nothing but being prospected or found. Thus following this argument, water should cost MORE than diamonds because it uses up MORE labor-power.

Not only that but even if you TRY to squirm your way out of this, you are still wrong when I can simply quote Marx explaining that price FLUCTUATES away from value in normal market conditions, i.e. in a disequilibrium, without perfect market competition, without a closed market, etc. etc. Both of your perverted misinterpretations of the LTV treat value as being equal to price under normal market conditions, the context of razzza's question.

However you attempt to twist your argument or mangle it, there are a thousand and one problems with Blake's argument and yours. Go read Capital and then come back here, kid.

And he said I'm the one with lack of reading comprehension. Anarcho-Communists, I tell you.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Are you fucking stupid?

Verbal Warning. Calm Down.