Why machines don’t create value
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The webzine Cosmonaut has been referred to previously elsewhere and our Cde, RobertS in his Grist news feed draws attention to it once again in an article about surplus value and why labour is the source of all wealth.
I have just got round to reading this and there is something wrong with Ian Wright’s argument as he ends up by saying that, at some point in future, machines that produce surplus value could exist.
I think that’s what wrong is that he thinks that “value” is a thing that exists in any society, not just capitalism. He is a sort of “market socialist” in that he envisages a post-capitalist economy made up of workers cooperatives producing for sale. He knows us and our position but doesn’t think that it would work. But he always has something stimulating to say.
As to the answer to his analysis, I think it will be along the lines of that capitalists pay for the machines but that the work they do is a natural force (like that of animals) that costs them nothing and so doesn’t produce value or surplus value.
ALB
Keymaster
I have just got round to reading this and there is something wrong with Ian Wright’s argument as he ends up by saying that, at some point in future, machines that produce surplus value could exist.I think that’s what wrong is that he thinks that “value” is a thing that exists in any society, not just capitalism. He is a sort of “market socialist” in that he envisages a post-capitalist economy made up of workers cooperatives producing for sale
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I was able to say that error too, it is one of the argument of the so called Vietnamese socialism , even more, one of their supporter which is the CPUSA have indicated that
https://peoplesworld.org/article/vietnam-s-socialist-market-economy/. It is also the stand of Richard Wolff
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