Sympo
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ALB wrote:That's interesting. Are these official statistics somewhere on the internet?
Yes, it's here:Röster – Val 2014Though it appears that you only see the result if at least two people has written the same thing.
ALB wrote:"I don't think they count how many people wrote "None of the Above" or "Fuck off the lot of you" or "World Socialism". In fact, I know they don't."They actually do that in some countries. In Sweden every ballots writing appears to be registrered. For example, if one looks at official statistics you will find that 2 individuals have voted for "myself" and 2 people have voted for "Mickey Mouse", which aren't names for any serious or frivolous party. 5 people voted for World Socialism."But that's not the point. The point is abstention, putting a blank paper in the ballot box, or writing something on the ballot paper are legitimate political alternatives to voting for one or other of the candidates. We favour going to the polling station over simply abstaining as this shows that we attach some importance to the exist of elections."Hmm. I have somehow gotten the impression that the puropse of writing "World Socialism" on the ballot would, to a good extent, be so that socialists would be able to show support for Socialism. I guess I would have voted blank but it slightly loses its appeal when nobody will be able to see what I have written on the ballot.
ALB wrote:"Incidentally, in France, they don't vote by putting an X against the name of one of the candidates listed on the ballot paper. You put in the ballot box a piece of paper with the name of the candidate on it. So there's nothing stopping you putting a piece of paper in across which you've written "Je vote pour le socialisme mondial"."Does the spoiled ballot show up in the statistics though? I'm talking about France specifically here. I know in some countries, it is possible to see, after the election, how many people who has written "World Socialism".
gnome wrote:"And the number who abstained from voting totalled 12.1 million, the highest since 1969. Taken together, those figures represented a third of all those eligible to vote."Yes, but if (and this might not be the case in France) there is no way to know how many people who spoiled their ballots by writing "World Socialism", there's no way for anyone to know that anyone has written "World Socialism" at all.So socialists who has written "World Socialism" might as well be stalinists or conservatives who hate Macron and Le Pen, seeing as there is no way to show support for World Socialism. The only thing you can do is to show discontent for two candidates.But I have no idea if they count the votes in France in this way. Do they write in what people have written on their spoiled ballots? Or do they just say 'count this "World Socialism' vote as a spoilt vote", without specifying what's been written on it?
Macron has won the election (which isn't good, but at least Le Pen isn't president).Would French socialists have the possibilty to show up in the results if they had voted "World Socialism"`? I'm talking about the second round here, not the first one.If not, would it be bad to have voted Macron, even if support for the WSM would not been possible to show in the election resulsts?I am slightly leaning on saying "no", as I would be voting on a politically crappy candidate, but I become less sure of myself if there's no way to show specific support for the WSM.
moderator1 wrote:Interesting commentary: http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-the-latest-claims-against-assad-are-a-pack-of-lies/5584556I haven't read the article you linked but the guy who owns the site Globalresearch is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. So be sceptical of everything you read on that site. RationalWiki has an article about it:Globalresearch – RationalWiki
robbo203 wrote:I think the point is, Sympo, that value is a social average so it doesnt really matter in the end that a 1.5 gram potato and a 1 gram potato have a different price despite having – supposedly – the same embodied labour content.Does social average basically mean that if it takes 1 hour for you to do one thing, and it takes 3 hours for me to do the same thing, the social average is 2 hours (combined labour time divided by the number of individuals working)? If not then correct me and ignore the question after this sentence.Why does the fact that value is a social average make the problem of potatoes of different weights having differens prices go away? This question isn't meant to be snarky, I'm just having a hard time seeing the connection.
ALB wrote:"How could it since 10 small potatoes can't weigh the same as 10 large ones, can they?"I think what I am trying to ask is "does a potato that weighs 1.5 gram have the same value as a potato that weighs 1 gram?"If the answer is "yes", how is the value of potatoes relevant at all to its price, seeing as the price of potatoes differ depending on the weight of them? As I see it right now, all potatoes take the same amount of labour time to socially produce."Incidentally, to complicate things, commodities do not generally exchange at their labour-time values but tend to sell at what Marx called their "price of production" which is the monetary cost of producing them + a markup for the average rate of profit."Yes, I believe you mentioned this in my thread "A few questions regarding economics". I should read up on that.
Vin wrote:"You cannot apply the LTV to two potatoes"Why not?"and I wonder where your vision of potato production comes from."I really have no clue about food production."Today the production of potatoes is a complex social process. It is with this that the exchange value is concerned. How much socially necessary labour time goes into it.."As I see it, the LTV means that if two objects are socially produced with the same amount of labour time, it would mean that a potato that has the weight of 3 units has the same exchange value as a potato that has the weight of 3 and a half units. And that to me doesn't make any sense.
ALB wrote:"A bag of the same weight of small potatoes would have the same value as a bag of larger ones."Does this mean that a bag of 10 large potatoes has the same value as a bag of 10 small potatoes?"You are the one who said this was a silly thread."That's true, but right now I can't fully see why my reasoning is terrible. Though I probably will after a few more posts.
ALB wrote:Of course it takes time to sort out bigger potatoes from smaller ones. It's a question of time not weight.But does it take more time to sort out bigger potatoes from smaller ones than the other way around? Isn't it the same thing? If so, shouldn't they have the same value, considering that it takes as much time to sort out big or small potatoes?I don't have any clue about potato cultivation so my vision of potato farming is basically someone digging up a bunch of potatoes and putting the big ones in a bowl and the small ones in another bowl. Why does one take more time than the other?I mentioned the weight because it takes more time to move a piano than it takes to move a small chair, i.e. I am under the impression that weight can have an effect on how much labour it takes to do certain things with objects (for example, moving them around).
ALB wrote:If bigger potatoes are sold together they would be have more value than a bag of potatoes of all sizes due to the extra labour involved in picking them out …Does it really take more labour to pick up a potato that is bigger than another? It's slighly heavier, but surely the weight would be very light for the average person?Does it take more labour to pick up two coins than to pick up one coin?
Didn't I write a new post in this thread? Was it deleted or did I forget to send it?Ugh, it was pretty long one…is there any way to get it back?
DJP wrote:"Does a big lump of coal represent more value than a small lump of coal? Yes…"But doesn't this go against the labour theory of value if one uses the LTV when talking about food? They both took the same amount of labour time, wouldn't the labour theory of value mean that if there were only these two potatoes that were socially produced, they would have the same value?
ALB wrote:More plausible is that it was the rebels to discredit the government, egged on or even arranged by the Turkish or some other regime that wants to escalate the war now that the government is winning.I'm not very well read on the subject but I've gotten the impression that the other theory than the first one (i.e. that the Assad regime used chemical weapons) was that the Syrian state had bombed a chemical weapons warehouse which contained chemical weapons, i.e. the chemical disaster was accidental.Are you saying that the rebels killed their own population in order to make Assad look bad?If I am ignorant on the subject I can assure everyone that it is not intentional.
