Marx and Automation

[Alan Kerr]

 That’s great Michel. Very broadly, we can think of just 3 ways to organize production. 1) Crusoe’s island 2) prison labour 3) market. You are talking of Marx theory that commodities sell on average at their prices of production. That’s our market today (number 3 above). Today your proprietors are also investors–capitalists. The investors switch capital at once away from cloth to coats. That’s if cloth exchange value falls since now 1 coat = 2 rolls of cloth. In the end commodities sell on the average at their prices of production. This theory does not clash with proprietors tipping the scale in their favour. It is because they tip the scale. If they did not tip the scale then commodities would not sell at their prices of production. It’s how it works. You keep saying ‘the relationship between "price and value is an ideal one"’. But any economic model needs to know when to switch means and labour from weaving to tailoring and vice-versa. And in the end, this is a real rather than just an ideal problem. How do you think we achieve this? It requires commodity price signals and market competition. Thanks for reference to what you’ve written. I’ll look there. I've also written about this.  So you can find me and share feedback my username over on the academic.edu site is “Satan The Devil”.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

That’s great Michel. Very broadly, we can think of just 3 ways to organize production. 1) Crusoe’s island 2) prison labour 3) market.

[my bold]Can't we think about a fourth option? That is, 'democratic'?

[Alan Kerr]

Thank you, I was once SPGB and wrote a one page letter to all members. Adam Buick will be unlikely to forget this.  On his advice, I gave to my branch and had hundreds of copies printed for all members of WSM. Branch asked EC to forward copies to companion parties with copies to branches and members of central branch. Please see if you can get copy of that letter and post for anyone to discuss here. It will be relevant to this topic. On your question I’m thinking of how to save on labour as you grow food, make clothes and build homes… Currently the market is your way to achieve that. Democracy is allowing the market to do its work better than dictatorship can. But no the alternative to the market is not just democracy as such.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

Democracy is allowing the market to do its work better than dictatorship can.

Must be my mistake – I was assuming that by 'democracy' you'd understand 'socialist democracy', rather than, as you appear to have, 'parliamentary democracy' (ie. 'not-democracy').

Alan Kerr wrote:

But no the alternative to the market is not just democracy as such.

I'm afraid you're going to have to explain how 'democracy as such' differs from 'socialist democracy'.Clearly, I'm saying that 'socialist democracy' is a fourth alternative, to the three that you proposed, and I'm not sure why you apparently discount it by definition. If you define the possibilities as your three suggested, then you remove the alternative of socialism. If you want to do that by definition, then that's fine, but it's probably best that you say openly at the start of any political debate about social production that you discount democracy, and simply want either individualism, elitism or chaos (which is another way of describing your three alternatives).

[robbo203]

Let’s remind ourselves what the nub of this interesting debate is about.  The Marxist view is that increasing productivity, resulting from technological innovation, means a decline in unit costs and in the value content of individual commodities themselves.  This is because only living labour can create new values; machines only transfer the value already contained in them.  So as machines increasingly replace human labour, the effect should be a reduction in the value content of these commodities. That in turn should result in a lowering of prices since on average, over the long run, commodity prices broadly reflect their values  – the amount of socially necessary abstract labour required to produce them. That isnt happening, according to Michel so there must be some flaw in Marx's theory: " In fact, increasingly post-industrial, post-modern bourgeois-state-capitalism is abandoning, with the advent of ever-increasing automation, the limited parameters manufactured by socially necessary labor-time in favor of the unlimited parameters manufactured by conceptual-commodity-value-management, namely, arbitrary, socially constructed value, price and wage-determinations. "  According to Michel, the long run determination of market prices by labour values no longer really applies. It has been marginalised, rendered irrelevant and finally transcended by a mysterious new factor – namely the “creative power” of capitalists to arbitrarily assign prices to commodities just as they chose in their relentess desire to “accumulate profit, ad infinitum” (when did capitalists not desire to “accumulate profit, ad infinitum”, you might well ask!) .  So contrary to the expectation that increased productivity by increasing output should cause prices to fall, the opposite is true, he claims.  Prices are actually rising despite production costs falling (and I assume he is talking here of both prices and costs of production being adjusted for inflation).  As he puts it: “Marx was wrong to think that capitalists would lower prices when production costs went down. To circumvent this faulty Marxist logic, capitalists simply made deals among themselves within their specific industries to limit competition among themselves so as to keep profits high and ever-increasing”.  I have asked Michel for large-scale economy-wide data to back up this claim but he has yet to provide this data.  It’s easy enough to provide anecdotal evidence of individual prices outstripping their costs of production which may indeed be falling.  I have given examples of this myself in the case of certain branded “status goods”.  Their prices have risen sharply thanks in part to the aggressive marketing of such goods while the costs of producing them have fallen as result of outsourcing to various Third world countries where labour is much cheaper.  But in no way does this contradict the Marxian view that increasing productivity tends to cheapen the commodities being produced.  Nor does the fact the wage increases may temporally dip below price increases from time to time – causing living standards to drop – prove Michel’s basic point that the capitalists can just arbitrarily raise prices by exerting their “creative power”.  They can’t. Rather what this shows instead is the weakened bargaining position of workers vis-à-vis the capitalists – for example, at a time of economic recession.  In other words that would be misinterpreting what is happening as evidence to support his central argument. It doesn’t demonstrate the freedom of the capitalists to just arbitrarily raise prices to whatever they want but rather the relative lack of freedom of workers to resist the downward pressure on wages in an economic recession.   Not only that, there is a huge problem with his whole argument which Michel does not appear to see.  If capitalists can just arbitrarily raise their prices or keep their prices high in the face of declining unit production costs then why don’t those capitalists that provide the inputs upon which other capitalists depend to manufacture their commodities, likewise raise the prices of THEIR commodities so that the unit costs of production of those other capitalists, instead of falling will be rising? Why is it assumed that only the producers of final goods are able to circumvent the need to undercut their rivals by limiting competition between themselves but not the producers of intermediate goods – that is, the goods that constitute the inputs needed to make other goods? This makes no sense.  Are not the producers of intermediate goods also driven by the need to “accumulate profit, ad infinitum” ? So what is so special about the producers of final goods that enables them to hold down their costs of production but increase the price of the commodities they sell to whatever they want, which the producers of intermediate goods cannot do? Michel does not explain.  There is a further point to consider and I have pressed Michel on this but have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. The costs of production, include crucially, labour costs – the wages bill.  If these latter are slipping further and further behind rising prices (which have supposedly been arbitrarily raised by the capitalists whose “greed continually short-circuits Marx's elegant, scientifically quantifiable labor-time analysis” – at least in the advanced capitalist countries) then this begs all sorts of questions  – not the least of which is why have these capitalists chosen now in this supposed post-modern era we are living in, to assert their “greed” in this way and only in the advanced capitalist economies, not the third world economies where Michel concedes Marx’s theory is “still valid” Let’s look at this claim more closely.  The point of a business producing a commodity is to sell it and to realise a profit by doing so.  So what is the point of pitching the price of a commodity so high that it cannot be sold and particularly when all that will do is force consumers to turn to some other, cheaper, supplier?  If real wages are declining as part of the general decline in the costs of production then this would be even truer – workers would have even more reason to look around for the best possible bargain in the market.  As a capitalist you would need to reduce your prices accordingly so that the good in question is not beyond the pocket of your potential customer – if you are to attract their custom.  Otherwise you will just be left with a whole bunch of unsold goods and there is no point in that – is there?  If capitalists are truly motivated by the desire to accumulate profit as Michel says then it is absolutely essential that they sell their commodities in the first place and that means selling them at a price that is not going to encourage their customers to look elsewhere.  It seems to me that the only way in which he can sustain his argument and make it sound remotely plausible is if he were to argue that there are certain kinds of commodities that are simply indispensable to workers such that they cannot do without them and that the capitalists supplying these commodities can somehow conspire together with their commercial rivals to agree to push up the price of these commodities and not to break rank with each other – in other words to suspend the normal struggle between themselves over the size of the market share they command. In an increasingly globalised economy that seems even less unlikely but even if such a price fixing conspiracy could be organised and adhered to, this does not get round another very basic problem which Michel completely neglects to address.  The problem is this.   The opportunity costs of consumers having to pay more for these particular commodities means EITHER that they will have to buy less of these (now more expensive) commodities OR if they continue to purchase these commodities at the same volume as before, that these consumers will then have less money to  spend on other commodities.  That is to say, the market demand for these other commodities will fall and so the capitalists supplying these other commodities will be obliged to reduce their prices accordingly if they are not to be left with huge stockpiles of unsold goods at the end of the day.  Either way the outcome will be the same – namely to validate the basic point that you cannot just arbitrarily raise prices beyond what the market can sustain from the standpoint of the economy as a whole.  Certainly you can modify the pattern of demand but there is a zero sum game at work here to which Michel seems quite oblivious  To fill in the huge gaping holes in his argument, Michel introduces another factor – debtOf course, the working population is seemingly making more money, today, but this is not true, as prices have been increasing at a faster rate then wages/salaries, and compounded with an ever-increasing ability to BORROW, means that an illusion of wealth grounded in debt is enveloping and masking the true nature of living in post-industrial, post-modern capitalist society, opulent poverty. This illusion of wealth is masking a fundamental contradiction, a poverty clothed in opulence, where the majority of the working population are inundated with commodities and luxury goods, goods that they do not really own outright, but make monthly or bi-weekly payments upon, debt peonage/Debt slavery masked in seeming opulence.  Unless I have misunderstood him here, what he seems to saying is that the growing gap between falling wages and rising prices is something that is increasingly being filled by workers taking out loans and falling into debt.  Ironically, Michel himself talks of this development as signifying simply an “illusion of wealth” and, in so doing, unwittingly confirms the validity of the Marxian theory rather than repudiates it.  All debt does is delay the inevitable rather than banish it.  You can’t just conjure market demand out of thin air.  You can’t just spend your way out of a crisis as the Keynesians would have it with their talk of “demand management” and pump priming.  There remains still the key point about the labour theory of value which Michel simply skirts over but which is fatally damaging to his whole argument – namely that at the end of the day, the sum total of prices in a capitalist economy must equate with the sum total of values generated in that economy.  This is because value, as a magnitude signifying socially necessary abstract labour, only reveals itself in exchange – in exchange value or the proportions in which commodities exchange.  Some goods can indeed sell at a price above their notional value but the necessary corollary of this is that other goods must sell at a price below their notional value.  That means it is literally impossible that goods in general or in the  aggregate can sell at a price above their value.  Of course, it is quite true that the relative share of the social product that the workers receive in the form of their wages can vary upwards or downwards.  For instance, according to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2009 U.S. productivity increased by 80 percent, while the hourly wage of the median American worker went up by only 10.1 percent.  ("The Sad But True Story of Wages in America", Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief no.297, March 14, 2011).  In other words most of the gains in productivity went to the super rich – the top 1%.  While the real wages of workers grew by very little they nevertheless grew- thus disproving the suggestion that living standards have declined because capitalists can arbitrarily or permanently raise the prices that workers have to pay for goods above what workers are themselves paid in the form of wages.  The mistake that Michel makes is to assume that the capitalists have increased their wealth in the form of profits simply by putting up prices.  But profit is not made at the point of sale.  Rather, it is made at the point of production and is only realised at the point of sale.   In other words he is   misinterpreting the growing share of social product going to the capitalists as evidence for saying the labour theory of value is no longer relevant when what it is really signifying is an increase in the rate of exploitation which is precisely what the theory seeks to demonstrate.  The increased debt that workers are saddled with these days is simply a reflection of the increased share of the economic surplus appropriated by the financial capitalists and banking sector at the expense of the traditional industrial capitalists.  It is not a magic money tree that allows the system to bridge the gap between falling costs of production and the ever rising price of commodities brought about by the capitalists suddenly deciding to become terribly greedy in the last two or three decades or so.

[robbo203]

robbo203 wrote:

Let’s remind ourselves what the nub of this interesting debate is about.  The Marxist view is that increasing productivity, resulting from technological innovation, means a decline in unit costs and in the value content of individual commodities themselves.  This is because only living labour can create new values; machines only transfer the value already contained in them.  So as machines increasingly replace human labour, the effect should be a reduction in the value content of these commodities. That in turn should result in a lowering of prices since on average, over the long run, commodity prices broadly reflect their values  – the amount of socially necessary abstract labour required to produce them. That isnt happening, according to Michel so there must be some flaw in Marx's theory: " In fact, increasingly post-industrial, post-modern bourgeois-state-capitalism is abandoning, with the advent of ever-increasing automation, the limited parameters manufactured by socially necessary labor-time in favor of the unlimited parameters manufactured by conceptual-commodity-value-management, namely, arbitrary, socially constructed value, price and wage-determinations. "  According to Michel, the long run determination of market prices by labour values no longer really applies. It has been marginalised, rendered irrelevant and finally transcended by a mysterious new factor – namely the “creative power” of capitalists to arbitrarily assign prices to commodities just as they chose in their relentess desire to “accumulate profit, ad infinitum” (when did capitalists not desire to “accumulate profit, ad infinitum”, you might well ask!) .  So contrary to the expectation that increased productivity by increasing output should cause prices to fall, the opposite is true, he claims.  Prices are actually rising despite production costs falling (and I assume he is talking here of both prices and costs of production being adjusted for inflation).  As he puts it: “Marx was wrong to think that capitalists would lower prices when production costs went down. To circumvent this faulty Marxist logic, capitalists simply made deals among themselves within their specific industries to limit competition among themselves so as to keep profits high and ever-increasing”.  I have asked Michel for large-scale economy-wide data to back up this claim but he has yet to provide this data.  It’s easy enough to provide anecdotal evidence of individual prices outstripping their costs of production which may indeed be falling.  I have given examples of this myself in the case of certain branded “status goods”.  Their prices have risen sharply thanks in part to the aggressive marketing of such goods while the costs of producing them have fallen as result of outsourcing to various Third world countries where labour is much cheaper.  But in no way does this contradict the Marxian view that increasing productivity tends to cheapen the commodities being produced.  Nor does the fact the wage increases may temporally dip below price increases from time to time – causing living standards to drop – prove Michel’s basic point that the capitalists can just arbitrarily raise prices by exerting their “creative power”.  They can’t. Rather what this shows instead is the weakened bargaining position of workers vis-à-vis the capitalists – for example, at a time of economic recession.  In other words that would be misinterpreting what is happening as evidence to support his central argument. It doesn’t demonstrate the freedom of the capitalists to just arbitrarily raise prices to whatever they want but rather the relative lack of freedom of workers to resist the downward pressure on wages in an economic recession.   Not only that, there is a huge problem with his whole argument which Michel does not appear to see.  If capitalists can just arbitrarily raise their prices or keep their prices high in the face of declining unit production costs then why don’t those capitalists that provide the inputs upon which other capitalists depend to manufacture their commodities, likewise raise the prices of THEIR commodities so that the unit costs of production of those other capitalists, instead of falling will be rising? Why is it assumed that only the producers of final goods are able to circumvent the need to undercut their rivals by limiting competition between themselves but not the producers of intermediate goods – that is, the goods that constitute the inputs needed to make other goods? This makes no sense.  Are not the producers of intermediate goods also driven by the need to “accumulate profit, ad infinitum” ? So what is so special about the producers of final goods that enables them to hold down their costs of production but increase the price of the commodities they sell to whatever they want, which the producers of intermediate goods cannot do? Michel does not explain.  There is a further point to consider and I have pressed Michel on this but have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. The costs of production, include crucially, labour costs – the wages bill.  If these latter are slipping further and further behind rising prices (which have supposedly been arbitrarily raised by the capitalists whose “greed continually short-circuits Marx's elegant, scientifically quantifiable labor-time analysis” – at least in the advanced capitalist countries) then this begs all sorts of questions  – not the least of which is why have these capitalists chosen now in this supposed post-modern era we are living in, to assert their “greed” in this way and only in the advanced capitalist economies, not the third world economies where Michel concedes Marx’s theory is “still valid” Let’s look at this claim more closely.  The point of a business producing a commodity is to sell it and to realise a profit by doing so.  So what is the point of pitching the price of a commodity so high that it cannot be sold and particularly when all that will do is force consumers to turn to some other, cheaper, supplier?  If real wages are declining as part of the general decline in the costs of production then this would be even truer – workers would have even more reason to look around for the best possible bargain in the market.  As a capitalist you would need to reduce your prices accordingly so that the good in question is not beyond the pocket of your potential customer – if you are to attract their custom.  Otherwise you will just be left with a whole bunch of unsold goods and there is no point in that – is there?  If capitalists are truly motivated by the desire to accumulate profit as Michel says then it is absolutely essential that they sell their commodities in the first place and that means selling them at a price that is not going to encourage their customers to look elsewhere.  It seems to me that the only way in which he can sustain his argument and make it sound remotely plausible is if he were to argue that there are certain kinds of commodities that are simply indispensable to workers such that they cannot do without them and that the capitalists supplying these commodities can somehow conspire together with their commercial rivals to agree to push up the price of these commodities and not to break rank with each other – in other words to suspend the normal struggle between themselves over the size of the market share they command. In an increasingly globalised economy that seems even less unlikely but even if such a price fixing conspiracy could be organised and adhered to, this does not get round another very basic problem which Michel completely neglects to address.  The problem is this.   The opportunity costs of consumers having to pay more for these particular commodities means EITHER that they will have to buy less of these (now more expensive) commodities OR if they continue to purchase these commodities at the same volume as before, that these consumers will then have less money to  spend on other commodities.  That is to say, the market demand for these other commodities will fall and so the capitalists supplying these other commodities will be obliged to reduce their prices accordingly if they are not to be left with huge stockpiles of unsold goods at the end of the day.  Either way the outcome will be the same – namely to validate the basic point that you cannot just arbitrarily raise prices beyond what the market can sustain from the standpoint of the economy as a whole.  Certainly you can modify the pattern of demand but there is a zero sum game at work here to which Michel seems quite oblivious  To fill in the huge gaping holes in his argument, Michel introduces another factor – debtOf course, the working population is seemingly making more money, today, but this is not true, as prices have been increasing at a faster rate then wages/salaries, and compounded with an ever-increasing ability to BORROW, means that an illusion of wealth grounded in debt is enveloping and masking the true nature of living in post-industrial, post-modern capitalist society, opulent poverty. This illusion of wealth is masking a fundamental contradiction, a poverty clothed in opulence, where the majority of the working population are inundated with commodities and luxury goods, goods that they do not really own outright, but make monthly or bi-weekly payments upon, debt peonage/Debt slavery masked in seeming opulence.  Unless I have misunderstood him here, what he seems to saying is that the growing gap between falling wages and rising prices is something that is increasingly being filled by workers taking out loans and falling into debt.  Ironically, Michel himself talks of this development as signifying simply an “illusion of wealth” and, in so doing, unwittingly confirms the validity of the Marxian theory rather than repudiates it.  All debt does is delay the inevitable rather than banish it.  You can’t just conjure market demand out of thin air.  You can’t just spend your way out of a crisis as the Keynesians would have it with their talk of “demand management” and pump priming.  There remains still the key point about the labour theory of value which Michel simply skirts over but which is fatally damaging to his whole argument – namely that at the end of the day, the sum total of prices in a capitalist economy must equate with the sum total of values generated in that economy.  This is because value, as a magnitude signifying socially necessary abstract labour, only reveals itself in exchange – in exchange value or the proportions in which commodities exchange.  Some goods can indeed sell at a price above their notional value but the necessary corollary of this is that other goods must sell at a price below their notional value.  That means it is literally impossible that goods in general or in the  aggregate can sell at a price above their value.  Of course, it is quite true that the relative share of the social product that the workers receive in the form of their wages can vary upwards or downwards.  For instance, according to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2009 U.S. productivity increased by 80 percent, while the hourly wage of the median American worker went up by only 10.1 percent.  ("The Sad But True Story of Wages in America", Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief no.297, March 14, 2011).  In other words most of the gains in productivity went to the super rich – the top 1%.  While the real wages of workers grew by very little they nevertheless grew- thus disproving the suggestion that living standards have declined because capitalists can arbitrarily or permanently raise the prices that workers have to pay for goods above what workers are themselves paid in the form of wages.  The mistake that Michel makes is to assume that the capitalists have increased their wealth in the form of profits simply by putting up prices.  But profit is not made at the point of sale.  Rather, it is made at the point of production and is only realised at the point of sale.   In other words he is   misinterpreting the growing share of social product going to the capitalists as evidence for saying the labour theory of value is no longer relevant when what it is really signifying is an increase in the rate of exploitation which is precisely what the theory seeks to demonstrate.  The increased debt that workers are saddled with these days is simply a reflection of the increased share of the economic surplus appropriated by the financial capitalists and banking sector at the expense of the traditional industrial capitalists.  It is not a magic money tree that allows the system to bridge the gap between falling costs of production and the ever rising price of commodities brought about by the capitalists suddenly deciding to become terribly greedy in the last two or three decades or so.

 There is a usful link here which might throw more light on some of the  arguments presented above  https://libcom.org/library/marxian-economics-curriculum-1935-iww-work-peoples-college

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

I was once SPGB and wrote a one page letter to all members. Adam Buick will be unlikely to forget this.  On his advice, I gave to my branch and had hundreds of copies printed for all members of WSM. Branch asked EC to forward copies to companion parties with copies to branches and members of central branch.Please see if you can get copy of that letter and post for anyone to discuss here. It will be relevant to this topic.

I do remember this even if it's going back well over 20 years. There must be a copy somewhere. Was it the one where you argued that labour-time vouchers and labour-time accounting would be needed in socialism?

[Alan Kerr]

@ LBird, No the alternative is not just democracy as such. The alternative to the market is in Marx’ Capital here.http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#I.I.133

[Alan Kerr]

@ALBIt 1) corrected item in your ADM report and 2) argued … That capitalist ownership is a hindrance to production. That the small capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to that of the big capitalist. That the big capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to Socialist Production. That this supplements your Object So far as we know, I was the first to argue that this supplements your Object. And the argument was right wasn’t it Adam. 

[Anonymous]

The third world does not exist any longer, there is only one world which is the capitalist world. Some countries where were considered as part of the third world now they are the economic power. The concept of the third world is propagated by the Maoist based on the so called Theory of Three World elaborated by Mao Tse Tung.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/ownership/third-world-one-worldHis concept of post industrial capitalism is wrong too, it is like same that capitalism is not manufacturing anymore, the capitalists have some industry to others countries, but the industrial production has continued, even more, nowadays there are more wage slaves than in prior epoch.  His problem is that is based on North America, but there are others countries with large industrial production, in North America, the industrial production has not disappeared completely, one of the major industry in the US is the production of Armaments and aeroplanes and carshttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1132-december-1998/towards-post-industrial-capitalism

[Anonymous]

@RobboIts very hard on this forum to respond equitably to each and every one of your concerns, pertaining to what I've introduced.And, as usual, Robbo, you are more than willing to claim that somehow I have misunderstood Marx and the capitalist economy. Of course (saracasm), that must be the case, if anyone disagrees with Marx.  It seems that Marx has become the OPIATE for certain people (@Marcos) on the SPGB Forum, rather than genuine social change.The logical argument, I've introduced, to explain certain post-industrial socio-economic phenomena is accurate, sound and plausible. I have outlined it clearly, logically and accurately, to the best of my abilities. History will validate it in the end one way or another. As for Robbo's call that I should spend the next 25 years amassing economic data to prove my point, is ridiculous. Steve San Franscico introduce a few studies (which support my argument), which Robbo, aptly refused to accept. Consequently, 25 years of economic data, will not change Robbo's mind one-iota. Marx has truly become the opiate for some people, (just read Marcos' posts). And besides, there is no more value in mathematical data than a sound logical exposition. Its false to think that mathematical data is more valuable than a sound logical exposition. (The myth of objective numbers.)However, to give Robbo, a fair shake, he or she does acknowledge that advertising, marketing and branding do produce an unquantifiable value onto commodities that can translate into higher prices, beyond the socially necessary labor-time such commodities may embody. Hence, my point. Moreover, this fatal admission, by Robbo, about the influence of unquantifiable values reverberates in how price, value and wage are determined, which flies in the face of Marx's strict scientifically quantifiable analysis, which is what I am saying.Marx is useful, but he does not have a totalitarian, indisputable, understanding of capitalism. He holds a part of the story but not the whole story.      A few more rebuttals for Mr. Robbo:1. Profit is made at the point of production and not at the point of sale. I agree, Marx stated as much and I agree. However, extending this idea, in a post-industrial, post-modern society, production extends far beyond the factory walls. Thus, I state, we are constantly in a moment of production, which feeds into and ameliorates the capitalist system, including price, value and wage. Me, writing on this forum, is productive, I am using certain unquantifiable creative-power and my time to introduce a unique logic of understanding, but I am not rewarded by the ideational comprehensives framework of capitalism, because it only rewards financial quantifiable capital, capital it deems is important. All other forms of value-creation are worthless and non-existent to capitalism, including what anyone writes on this forum. 2.. There is no governing law that says the sum total of prices must equal the sum total of values. This was another one of Marx's economic laws, grounded in scientifically quantifiable labor-time,i.e., socially necessary labor-time. In fact, you can put a price on anything (Marx understood this), including things with no labor-power/value embodied in them, so there is no reason for some deterministic mechanism dictating that the total sum of prices must equate to the sum total of values. Prices can be applied to anything, including things that have no quantifiable value in them. Which means prices and values can never in fact equate BECAUSE SOME PRICES HAVE NO VALUE IN THEM. This fatal to Marx in Volume 3. Of course, Marx makes them equate in Volume 3 because this is an IDEAL connection (Marx, himself, stated as much) and the connection, Marx fabricates, in Volume 3, between price and value is SUBJECTIVELY correct, correct (in his own mind) and only in his own mind.  And around and around we go!!!  

[alanjjohnstone]

I have been following this debate and MB if you have not considered that Robbo's rebuttal has not made you feel the necessity to return to your study and re-frame it somewhat, then it has not been a productive exchange at all.A little too often for my personal liking you have said you accept that Marx was correct then off you go endeavouring to prove he was either wrong or wrongly interpreted and only your own insight into what he really meant is accurate.I will now give you the benefit of the doubt. You are indeed correct in your ideas. Marx's analysis of capital led to him declaring that the proletariat because they are robbed (exploited) and because their sustenance is thwarted by capitalist laws then they would be the vehicle for social change.  A bit deterministic granted but Marx does add sufficient caveats that other factors arise in creating revolutionary consciousness.A question. Since for argument's sake, i accept your economic analysis…can you tell me how it will be changed and into what. So far i have only the Bakuninist rabble as the agency of change. But even they must have some motivation to spur them into action – and to old some idea of direction.MB please expand on how a new society will come about through an understanding and acceptance of your economic model  of "present-day modern capitalism."It's hackneyed to say this …but philosophers have only interpreted the world…the point is to change it. 

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@ LBird,No the alternative is not just democracy as such. The alternative to the market is in Marx’ Capital here.http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#I.I.133

So, to be clear, you don't accept that democratic socialism is a fourth alternative to your threefold definition of social production as either individualism, elitism or chaos.I was just giving you the chance to correct your definition (if you thought it was mistaken), but you appear to be clear that you believe that there are only those three, and democratic socialism is not one of them. Cheers.

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@ LBird,No the alternative is not just democracy as such. The alternative to the market is in Marx’ Capital here.http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#I.I.133

As elaborated on in this article "A World Without Commodities" in this month's Socialist Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2017/no-1357-september-2017/world-without-commodities

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@ALBIt 1) corrected item in your ADM report and 2) argued … That capitalist ownership is a hindrance to production. That the small capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to that of the big capitalist. That the big capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to Socialist Production. That this supplements your Object So far as we know, I was the first to argue that this supplements your Object. And the argument was right wasn’t it Adam. 

Yes, it's coming back to me now. That fits in with something I remember you saying at a meeting on the Luddites. The Party speaker expressed some sympathy for them, but you argued that socialists should be opposed to them because they were a hindrance to the further development of capitalism and so to the creation of the material basis for socialism. A point of view.

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