Prakash RP
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I'd like to add the following points to my comment #212. I can't see any good reason why the sensible should fail to see the argument that it's a personal, not a political, matter is in essence a rank sophistry. Anyone can use it to justify their indulgence in drugs, drinks, matrimony, smoking, gambling, and all other activities that clash with the Principle of healthy and meaningful living, and hence with the communist values and principles. As regards the communists' indulgence in the luxury of matrimony or a travesty in its name, I'd like all the SPGB members to take cognisance of the following points. 1. Matrimony is fundamentally anti-feminine. It follows from the very fact that feminine freedom clashes with principle purpose of matrimony, i.e. to ensure the paternity of children, just because a free woman is accessible to any men other than her husband. 2. We men, i.e. all the men belonging to the ordinary crowd ( the 99% ), are NOT lions of men. By a lion of a man, I mean a guy possessing as much calibre as he must possess in order to make a worthy hubby, and by a worthy hubby, I mean a guy that must have the capability to ensure the social and financial security and decent living of his wife and children as well as decent upbringing of the children and decent livelihood of the grown-up kids. In our India, over 95% of the country's manhood don't have taxable income, i.e. over 95% of the Indian manhood are so poor in the eyes of the govt of India as to be entitled to full tax exemption. And by Oxfam's wealth data, the global poor make up the 99% of humanity. How many men really deserve to be bracketed with a true lion of a man ?3. Matrimony performs no meaningful role in an individual's life or in society or in the State.4. Both by origin and in essence, matrimony is a hundred per cent barbarian institution.5. Matrimony or a travesty of it symbolises gross injustice because it makes an innocent lot ( a guy's wife and children ) suffer ( i.e. a poor guy's wife and children have got no other option than to suffer poverty and privation ) for no faults of theirs but for all faults and failings of someone else ( the guy that indulges in the luxury of matrimony or its travesty ). 6. The vulgar millions marry and procreate just to add to the vulgar population and swell the army of the antisocial.
I'd like to add the following to my comment ( #206 ) in response to ALB's comment ( #201 ): By a sophistry, I mean the stuff that appears logical but is not so in essence. To date I haven't heard of a dietician that approves of, to ALB's pleasure ( #201 ), including stuff like drugs, drinks, smoking, etc in a healthy diet. Nevertheless, a communist's choice of such a diet or a sumptuous one that may not include any unwholesome stuff but is meant mainly for the luxury, as matrimony or a travesty of it happens to be, of the super-rich can't deserve approval on the grounds that it's, as ALB ( #201 ) and The SPGB view it, a personal, not a political, matter, IMHO.
' It just looks like judgemental, pompous self-regard to me. ' ( admin #207 ) The observation quoted above happens to be an instance of a mere subjective impression that, even if it proves right wholly, doesn't deserve to be reckoned an argument or a logic meant to prove or disprove something. You don't want people like a corrupt bureaucrat or the convicted, former South Korean President Ms Park Geun-hye to be accepted as truly civilised, do you ?
' I don't smoke myself but you are changing the subject. There are penty of other food faddists in the SPGB — not just vegetarians, nature cure people and partisans of various different diets, fruit juice drinkers, even vegans. People smoke all sorts of things too. So you'd be in good company if you joined. But we don't regard choice of diet as a political matter but as a private one for each member to decide for themselves. ' ( comment by ALB; see #201 ) Dear ALB, inventing sophistries, I'm afraid, does no credit to the inventor of such silly stuff. Anyone can invent hundreds of such things, and any sensible people can see the fallacy of such stuff. If a human can stand up straight with their head held erect in front of the PRINCIPLE of HEALTHY and MEANINGFUL LIVING, I think they deserve great credit in today's world. Never ever did I say anything to suggest that people addicted to something have got no plus points or merits. But then, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous power brokers, people like the convicted former South Korean President Park Geun-hye, etc, etc also have got a lot of pluses. And just because someone has got a lot of pluses, they can't deserve to be recognised as fully civilised or communist, IMHO.
' … So, what's all the fuss about — just a cigarette and a glass of beer. What's wrong with that? ' ( ALB's comment # 182 ) ' … If you'd allow me to give you a piece of advice, I'd ask you to say to yourself that communism is a GREAT ideology, and that communists are GREAT people endowed with good sense, strong backbone, and invincible willpower and thus persuade yourself that if you're a true communist, you must prove stronger than the allure of and addiction to all unhealthy indulgences. ' ( my reply ( #189 ) to the above comment by ALB ) Dear ALB, I expected to have received your response to my reply to your comment cited above. I'm afraid your silence might be taken to mean that to you, ' just a cigarette and a glass of beer ' happens to be worth far more than The PRINCIPLE of HEALTHY & MEANINGFUL LIVING.
I think I should now ask the SPGB to make known its official stance on the thesis ( money cannot measure the worth of a commodity ), its significance ( the immediate corollary* to it ), and my claim to have proved it first and thus enlightened humanity about its correctness and its significance as well. * i.e. the fact that economic inequality doesn't owe its origin to qualitative distinctions between humans or between the work done by a skilled hand and that by an unskilled one. [ I'd like to add the following to the above. ] I think I've successfully dealt with all counter-arguments that deserve to be reckoned sensible, and thus I've proved my points, and so I wish the SPGB would agree to debate, if they like, directly with me on my claims and points at issue. I feel my debaters have exhausted their faculty of reasoning and would like the SPGB to take cognisance in this regard of my comments #41, #51, and #55 and comments #44, #49, #53, #56, #62, and #78 by Alan Kerr as well as comments #59 and #63 by ALB, which I think prove this point of mine.
I'd like to replace the sentence ' If " worth " is taken to mean " exchangeable value ", money that happens to be meant, by definition, to measure the " exchangeable value " can certainly " be seen as a measure of worth ". ' in my comment #73 ( posted on 17 Jan 2018 ) with what follows. A pen ( a commodity with a certain kind of use-value ) can be exchanged with a truth brush ( another commodity with a different kind of use-value ). Because of this fact, you can say, if you please, that the use-value of a commodity is exchangeable with the use-value of another commodity. But in this sense, every use-value is exchangeable, and thus the exchangeable use-value is evidently identical with the use-value and non-identical with the exchange-value ( or value ). Put plainly, the exchangeable use-value is not to be confused with the exchange-value or value or exchangeable value. Therefore, if ' worth ' is taken to mean the ' exchangeable value ' ( = exchange-value ), money that happens to be meant, by its definition, to measure the exchange-value can certainly ' be seen as a measure of worth '. But then this ' worth ' is not the use-value nor the exchangeable use-value, OK ?
' Ok Prakash you are convinced that I'm confused and have a confused view of money. Tell me why I should switch to your definition of money. ' ( Alan's comment #62 ) I don't think I ever said you've got ' a confused view of money. ' In fact, I feel dubious about whether you're aware of what your view of money is. You should accept my definition of money because it's true. Once again I'd ask you to have a close look at my comments #51 and #55 and not to fail to take cognisance of the fact that my definition of money is wholly premised on Marx's view of money. I'd also ask you not to be so careless as to cause a waste, by passing silly remarks, of your own and other people's precious time.
' Prakash RP wrote:' " The answer to your question is no I don't. I don't think Alan K does either. " ( ALB #59 ) Should I take it to mean that you don't think that ' all my points are " logical mistakes " ' ( Alan's comment #44 ), that ' Marx's concept of money is wrong, … ' Just because I don't think that all your points are logical mistakes doesn't mean that I therefore think none of your points are. For you to conclude that I do would indeed be a logical mistake of the simplest kind (some A are B, therefore all A are
. I am afraid I don't think you should be awarded a Nobel Prize or that statutes should be erected in your honour all over the world for the great service you imagine you have done to humanity by repeating something that has been known for over 2000 years. ( ALB's comment #63 ) Thank you a lot for voicing your thought. I don't think I ever stated anything like the silly logic that because ' some A [sic] are B, therefore all A [sic] are B ' It seems to be the invention of your fertile brain. I just meant to point to the limitations of your last comment ( #59 ) that did not clarify this point. I don't think I ever asked you either to propose my name for the Nobel Prize or erect my statue. I'd like to know what led you to make such comments. Nobody, not even Professor Robert J. Aumann nor, perhaps, you, knows who enlightened humanity about the thesis at issue 2 000 years back. And nobody knows either who proved it before me and thus enlightened humanity about its correctness.' In my view, use-value is not the same as general usefulness, and 'worth' as a word does not seem to me to appropriately connect to utility or usefulness. As I explain below, when there is talk about the 'worth' of something, in ordinary non-technical language I take that to relate to a discussion of its realisable exchange-value, not use-value, a polar opposite concept. (What's it worth? normally refers to exchangeable value, whereas 'What's its worth to [you][me]?' would be more in line with the above usage). … ' ( Ike Pettigrew, #61 ) Dear Ike, you're free not to take, as you please, the terms ' use-value ', ' usefulness', and ' worth ' as synonymous and replace ' worth ' in the statement of my thesis with ' usefulness ' or any other term which has the same meaning as these terms, and which you think is more appropriate than these terms. But it has nothing to do with what the thesis at issue means, has it ? Because you prefer the term ' black ' to ' dark ', it doesn't make the statement that dark clouds bring rain wrong. I've stated in unequivocal terms that all these terms ( ' use-value ', ' usefulness', and ' worth ' ) have been used to mean the same thing and something other than the value or exchange-value, OK ? If ' worth ' is taken to mean ' exchangeable value ', money that happens to be meant, by definition, to measure the ' exchangeable value ' can certainly ' be seen as a measure of worth '. Prakash RP has never treated value ' as synonymous with use-value '. This nonsense is wholly your brainchild, I'm afraid to say. I'd like to know in which work by Marx you've found the expression ' the use-value of labour '. Marx used the expression ' labour power ' that he defined as ' capacity for labour ' to mean ' a special commodity ' the ' use-value ' of which is ' labour ' ( CAPITAL Volume I, Part II, chapter VI; Part III, chapter VII, sections 1 & 2 ). I'd also like to know in which work by Marx the nonsense such as ' the exchange-value of labour ' occures. ' Both use-value and exchange-value have "value" in common. ' ( comment #61 by Ike ) But according to Marx, both ' use-value ' and ' exchange-value ' are abstractions, and he used the term ' value ' to mean only ' exchange-value '. The ' use-value ' makes a commodity valueable, i.e. the use-value is the cause while the value is its effect. I don't think it's right to say the ' use-value ' has got ' value '. The ' exchange-value ' is itself ' value '. It's a commodity that, according to Marx, has got ' use-value ' and ' value ' ( ' exchange-value ' ). Prices are determined by market forces ( laws of supply and demand ), not by the use-value ( usefulness or quality ) of commodities. So many instances around you bear evidence of this fact. Such an instance is prices of cell phones, land phones, and smart phones. When cell phones made their first appearance in the market, they were the luxury items meant for rich people. Today mobiles are far cheaper than land phones, and smart phones which are far superior, in terms of quality, than the first- generation cell phones are seen in the hands of the ordinary folks. Your work is replete with errors, and so it adds up to an exercise in futility, I'm sorry to say. You've spent too much labour and time to produce something that proves or disproves nothing. Nevertheless, you deserve thanks for taking part in this debate. and I'd ask you, if you'd pardon my asking, to have a look at my comments #51 & #55 and say what you wish to say.
' The answer to your question is no I don't. I don't think Alan K does either. ' ( ALB #59 )Should I take it to mean that you don't think that ' all my points are " logical mistakes " ' ( Alan's comment #44 ), that ' Marx's concept of money is wrong, and that economists that belong to the marginal-utility school are right ' ( Alan's comment #44 ) ? If you say ' yes ', I think I can also take it to mean that you approve of my claim to have presented humanity with the first and only proof of the thesis that money cannot measure the worth of a commodity, OK ?
Dear Alan, your comments ( #53 & #56 ) give me the impression that you must be confused to a high degree. I don't think I ever asked you to state what ' marginal utility economists ' want or how they view money and use-value. In my comment ( # 51 ), I just wanted to know what led you to be so certain that the view of economists from the marginal-utility school is correct, and what led you to believe that Marx must be wrong. I'm wholly satisfied with and certain about the correctness of the definition of money based on Marx's view of it. I'm also outright certain about the correctness of my work. I don't think either that I ever asked you to state ' Marx' [sic] way to prove it ' ( your comment #56 ). I'd like you to have a close look at my comments #35, #41, #51, and #55, and state in clear terms what your stance on Marx's view of money and the correctness of the proof of the thesis at issue is.
' … you need to answer what proves your definition [ of money ] ? ( Alan Kerr #49 ) In my comment ( # 51 ), I think I've cited enough evidence to show that my definition of money is premised on and consonant with Marx's view of money. I'd like to know whether you're satisfied with it, and if not, I'd like to know what you think disproves my definition of money.
( to ALB ) Alan believes all my points are ' logical mistakes '; he also believes that Marx's concept of money is wrong, and that economists that belong to the marginal-utility school are right ( Alan's comment #44 ). Do you also hold the same views on these points, ALB ? I expect to hear from you something sensible.
