Prakash RP
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Hey, No one is stealing anything from anyone in the capitalist mode of production. It’s an open & fair deal. Workers sell their labour-power of their own free will; capitalists buy it, and so capitalists are the legitimate owners of the workers’ labour, the use-value of their labour-power, and fruits of their labour. It’s as simple as this.
Marx thought, mistakenly, that some valueless things (virgin soil, honour, conscience, etc.) may have prices and be bought & sold like commodities. Nevertheless, Marx did Not say anything to the effect that useful products of labour meant for self-use do Not or cannot have value or that useful labour may not always create value. Marx seems to have failed to consider the fact that useful products of labour (or products of useful labour), be they meant for the self-consumption or sale, have got value, hence price (money-value). Evidently, there’s No basic distinction between useful products of labour meant for self-use and commodities. Therefore, the view that useful products of labour meant for self-use are Not commodities is devoid of any logical foundation.
Examples of saleable useful products of labour meant for self-use are numerous: residential houses, female cow-calves reared for milk, male calves bred by domestic cows, private cars for self-use, vegetables & fruits from plants grown in house gardens or roof-tops, puppies from pets, etc.The view that things produced for sale alone are commodities adds up to the silly view that products of useful labour turn commodities just when they’re offered for sale or the view that commodities originate during exchange in the market. Workers in a factory labour to make useful things because they’ve been asked to make them by the capitalist to whom they sold their labour-power the use-value (labour) of which belongs, as a result, to the capitalist. Factory workers do Not make anything for sale or self use. In fact, the manufacturing-unit workers are Not involved in the selling business. Thus, it follows that factory-products are Not commodities until they’re brought to the market. The question is, do they possess value? Does the labour of factory workers create value? If products of labour turn commodities in the market or during exchange, one may justifiably claim that human labour has Nothing to do with value. If the value of commodities originates in the market, both the Smithian and the Marxian theories of value prove wrong, as I see it.
Hi DJP, are you sure that you’re Not suffering from the ‘Dunning-Kruger effect’? So far you’ve lamentably failed to present a sensible argument in this debate on my view of value. You’re also lamentably lacking in the STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS that constitutes an essential attribute of a guy endowed with BACKBONE. You’re so INSIGNIFICANT. You should feel ashamed of yourself.
Hi robbo203, I’ve responded to your point. Have you got any other points against my stance on ‘value’? Really curious to know!
Hey DJP, what prevents you from citing pointblank an instance to support your position? What’s your purpose really? Do you want to know the TRUTH? A true TRUTH seeker doesn’t behave thus. They’re always STRAIGHTFORWARD.
You’re evasive. Such behaviour is outright unbecoming of a COMMUNIST who must always stand for the TRUTH. Recourse to silly tactics like evasiveness is expected from people that are devoid of the backbone needed to stand up straight with their heads held erect before the TRUTH.
‘That Marx didn’t agree with your theory is not a good argument against your theory. But it is a MIGHTY argument against your claim that your theory is “an incontestable argument for the law of value discovered by Marx”.’
So, what you view as ‘not a good argument’ is ‘a MIGHTY argument’!!!
‘The MIGHTIEST argument against the Prakashian Labour Theory of Value that everything that is bought and sold contains some labour is virgin land (and sea), and plots on the moon and on asteroids.’
Would like you to elaborate, with specific instances, on your ‘MIGHTIEST argument’, namely, your claim that things like ‘virgin land (and sea), and plots on the moon and on asteroids’ that do not contain any human labour are ‘bought and sold’.
‘Marx’s view (or definition, if you like) is that “value” is not a material thing that can [be] sensed by the senses. You can subject a use-value offered for sale to examination by a microscope and you won’t find an atom of “value”. Value (on Marx’s definition) only becomes observable as “exchange-value” when a commodity is exchanged for another commodity. Value, for him, is not a material thing but is a relation between things (and ultimately between those who produced them).’
Your life, life philosophy, true character, your belief or disbelief in God, religion etc., your stance on feminism, racism. fascism, welfarism, Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, etc. too are, like the ‘”value”‘, non-material things. Nevertheless, none of them are imperceptible to senses of a sensible human.
Because stars become visible at night, it doesn’t follow that stars are born at night & die off all together at the end of night.
Your life philosophy, true character, etc. also become truly known (‘observable’) only through your actions & behaviour (i.e. your social intercourse with other humans), Not by your mere words. From this it doesn’t follow that all these attributes of yours come into being during your social intercourse and then disappear when you’re alone.
‘A use-value that is not produced for sale has no value.’ This statement by you is refuted by the simple argument that use-values produced for self-consumption are as much saleable as those produced for sale.
Hi DJP, you’ve again passed a damn silly remark, I’m afraid to say. I’m Not here to relish my freedom to do whatever I like. I’m here to share my views on important issues and take part in debates on them with a view to finding the TRUTH as I’m aware that it’s the conflict between views & counter-views that leads us to the TRUTH. You’ve proved, by this remark, unworthy of participating in debates.
Society is a part of nature, and laws of social evolution & revolution are universal & eternal like laws of nature.
Value appears to be an eternal, universal & natural product of human labour.
Besides, I don’t think it matters much whether value follows ‘an[y] eternal law of nature’.
Hi DJP, I’m ready to welcome a thousand such ‘cheap trick
‘ of yours.
Nevertheles, I’m well aware of Marx’s view of ‘conscience, honour, etc.,’, and I think Marx was plain wrong to view such stuff thus. In ‘things like bribery’, people sell sorts of illicit services (sorts of commodities) for money the filthy lucre, as I see it.‘How then would you go about determining the relative contribution of different kinds of labour – skilled or unskilled – to value if …?’
Whether the concept of gravity is true is one question, whether it’s measurable or how to measure it is completely a different question.
I cannot see how your query is relevant to the question of the validity of my position on value & wage labour.
