a question - on Marx's economical theory?

[Guest]

* Hadn't Marx said that the price is a
function of supply and demand ?

How could he explain the fact that
there are plenty of cheap trousers
and people buy expensive brands
which sometimes are of inferior quality?

[Moskitto]

That isn't Marx's theory, If you ask any major economist they'll tell you the same thing.

Then again you're question raises issues about what kind of society we live in where brands are worth more than quality.

[El Commandante]

We live in a seriously screwed up society where if you stick on a label then you can charge loads more, for sometimes an inferior product in comparison to its non-designer counterpart. Brands or so it seems are worth more than the quality of life the some citizens of the world who work for them experiance.

Nike - just do 'em

[pce]

well, i'd say it's like this: brand names are in demand over ordinary trousers, so the price of brand names go up even though they are really worth less because of their infiriority. i'd say it describes price as a function of supply and demand perfectly. demand overrides quality in determining prices.

[gogo gomez]

Quote: from Guest on 1:48 pm on Nov. 25, 2001
* Hadn't Marx said that the price is a
function of supply and demand ?

How could he explain the fact that
there are plenty of cheap trousers
and people buy expensive brands
which sometimes are of inferior quality?


you cant explain it...people will buy what they can afford and what they like. who are we to say different. myself i buy used because most of the clothes i like are those of quality but i cant afford them.

so are we to believe that part of the problems in the world are because people buy expensive clothes?

[Red Star]

Buying clothes from brand names is a social status, and people want to look the best they can. Thats why you see them buying Abercrombie, American Eagle, and so on. If people suddenly put less importence on the clothes they wear the cheaper brands of higher construction quality would sell.

[Che Jexster]

I agree completly that clothes have become a status symbol. Abercrombie is the perfect example of it. The rich wear abercrombie to fit in with people of their own demographic. Nike is the same except it is more associated with sport culture than a specific financial background. Perfect example of that, the Boing shoe. That is the most useless piece of crap i've ever seen. Someone got them at my last school and everyone admired them and said "man i bet you could get some tight air in those" till i burst his buble and told him that if the shocks really worked they'd be in the ball of your foot not the heal cause you dont jump from your heel. Yet physics dont mean anything when a shoe is completly advertised based on how high they make you jump. To them gravity is only a tool to keep money from falling out of their pockets.

[peaccenicked]

For Marx price is not a function of supply and demand.
It is a function of the ammount of labour endowed in the product.

[Guest]

which is a reflection of supply and demand...if one owned a lint factory, worked 40 hours a week there, but no one wanted lint, it wouldn't matter how much labor was put forth to produce the lint.

Price is undeniably a function of both supply and demand, I tend to believe it is more vested in demand, as keynsians would say. The labor "endowed" in something is a reflection of how much consumers want something. The more demand there is, such as for oil, the more labor will be put in getting it.

Over the short run price will go up, since technology is stable over the short run. Over the long run price will go down, because methods of processing a good, such as oil, become more efficient. That is why, keeping with the case of oil, prices of this good have gone down in real terms from what they were in 1880 when the first uses for oil were discovered and there was "less" supply.

[vox]

Guest,

I must say, you're very good at misrepresentation. Kudos on that, but it won't merit you any status here, I fear.

Marx did indeed speak of supply and demand. In fact, he wrote about it in an early work. Here's a link:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...labour/ch03.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch03.htm)

However, you write:

"The labor "endowed" in something is a reflection of how much consumers want something."

That's not the case, though, for if the cost of production is greater than consumers will pay, the commodity itelf is "endowed" with more value than is reflected in its price, yes? We now have the technology to extract gold from the sea, but the cost of doing that is higher than the price of gold, so any gold produced by such a method, which contains the labour of previous workers, would be a losing proposition for the capitalist, and this doesn't even get into such capitalist inventions as TRIPS.

Again, please try a bit harder, guest, and when you talk about "real terms," please make it clear that your are talking about gov't subsidized industries.

vox

[Guest]

I wonder how simple ideas could escape you so easily. If the cost of a new technology is to great, its proliferation would be postponed until its cost decreases. Think of...well damn you are typing into a PC, a product whose predocessors where so expensive that they could only be afforded by large organizations.

As I pointed out before simply because something is supplied, doesn't mean that there will be demand. Just because some dude in a lint factory makes lint, doesn't mean there will be a market for it. Just because some deviced a way to "extract" gold at a greater cost than is traditionally incurred, doesn't mean that they'll find a market for THAT gold.

I understand why this was such a contentious debate in 1933, before it was proven wrong. I understand that as the political history of socialism is rife with idiotic politics, its economic history is equally devoid of sense. State enterprises that produce for non-existent markets, commodities whose prices are set at zero by the government.

All you here have to seriously understand that it was not the west's propaganda machine, or its aggresive military expeditions that defeated socialism/marxism/leninism. These ideologies defeated themselves. The idea of everyone being equal is appealing if everyone is to be rich. Unfortunately, people don't want to be equal if they're all going to live like bums...or Soviets.

[ArgueEverything]

guest - you should read some history of the economic successes of the early soviet union under the NEP (new economic program). that was before stalin came about. stalin changed the whole direction of the economy. under the NEP, the country was progressing slowly but surely...stalin was impatient and started his little 5 yr plans.

but he didnt HAVE to. you base your criticism of marxism on the failure of the USSR. but the USSR adopted just one approach to communism, one that many communists at the time were opposed to. there were many other ways marxism could be applied.