[Young Master Smeet]

jondwhite wrote:

But what if a significant proportion of producers where prepared to continue to produce for free, then why would it only be a temporary fall in prices? Also what if distribution was widespread and global in reach, how could any goods or services with a price outcompete those without?

This circumstance occurs pretty frequently, whenever there is an economic crisis.  Part of the point of crises is that they re-impose scarcity, after capital has pushed productive capacity beyond what the market can sustain. 2001 saw “overproduction” of cars, 2008, houses (and yet, they stand empty).

[Young Master Smeet]

DJP wrote:

All prices paid come out of the general wealth, which in a capitalist society is the same thing as the total value in society. Prices can be under value for sure, they can also be over, but isn’t the fact the some prices and under value that allows for others to be above?

Well, if I exchange one valueless item for another, both of which have a large price figure, there is no value exchanged.  Two million pound opaintings could be so exchanged, and amillion pound price deal established without any comensurate value being involved.

DJP wrote:

But since all prices are just an expression of an amount of the total value, you cannot create more value by just creating more money, to do so just decreases the amount of value that a certain amount of money represents.

I wouldn’t agree that price is an expression of value, price is a definite relation expressed in commodity money.  The way I see it, it’s like saying total rulers equal total lengths, and there are more lengths than have been measured.

DJP wrote:

So I’m still not sure what it would mean if prices and value did not equal in aggregate. Would this not imply that you could create wealth by just raising prices?

In fact, it means the opposite, that raising prices creates no wealth.  I would agree that the value of total prices cannot exceed total value, that is the real limit.

DJP wrote:

I know some interpreters of Marx refer to price and value as being to separate systems, is this the school from which you are drawing?

Yes, I suspect so, certainly I have one book at home that talks of the “Value domain” and the “price domain” in Marx as related but separate things.

[Young Master Smeet]

DJP wrote:

A further consequence of total prices not equaling value would be that all of Marx’s arguments about exploitation go out the window.

Not at all, profits realised as money still come from surplus value.  What it means is that there are fiddles and tricks for  screwing folk over over and above the inherent exploitation of the wages system.

DJP wrote:

I don’t think this supports at all what you are saying; the price paid from them comes out of the total surplus value, unless they are bought with funny money how can this not be the case?

The price paid for valueless objects can come out of general wealth, not just surplus value, and it is undetermined (anyone can pay any price they like).  they establish the concept that price can be independent of value.  This opens the door to the idea that prices can be under value, and generally a large chunk of value goes unrealised.

[Young Master Smeet]

DJP wrote:

Interesting. I would agree that for an individual commodity, price = value only by accident, I think Marx would have said this?

I was just reading a passage in Grundrisse (link) t’other day where he said pretty much that.

Marx wrote:

The value (the real exchange value) of all commodities (labour included) is determined by their cost of production, in other words by the labour time required to produce them. Their price is this exchange value of theirs, expressed in money. […] The value of commodities as determined by labour time is only their average value. […] The market value is always different, is always below or above this average value of a commodity. Market value equates itself with real value by means of its constant oscillations, never by means of an equation with real value as if the latter were a third party, but rather by means of constant non-equation of itself (as Hegel would say, not by way of abstract identity, but by constant negation of the negation, i.e. of itself as negation of real value).

DJP wrote:

Socially necessary labour time is determined through the mechanism of market exchange. If capital fails to become valorised, i.e expanded in production, it is because it has not been invested in socially necessary avenues.

Value transfers across branches of industry via the rate of profit (i.e. the price of a good is calculated as the price of prduction plus the rate of profit) in those industries with relatively large labour inputs transfer surplus value to industries with large capital inputs.  It’s perfectly reasonable to say that some surplus value is not realised as price, but merely transfers direct to consumers.

DJP wrote:

In Marx total value = total price is true by definition. To say something else is to depart from what Marx said, which would mean having to use a completely different analysis.

Marx was wrong on this one, his maths on the transformation problem have been exploded, and all other attempts to make that work are truly tortuous, it’s easier to say that prices can’t equal value. The simplest disproof are antiques and arts: their prices are not at all determined by value (since they are unique and cannot be reproduced).

[Young Master Smeet]

DJP wrote:

A lot of introductions to Marx say that he said that the price of individual commodities gravitate towards their value (socially necessary labour time) equivalent  but I don’t think this is necessarily the case. All Marx said was that total value equals total price and that value and surplus value is distributed between capitalists through the competitive struggle for profits.

Actually, I would say the opposite, goods only sell at their value by accident, and Marx was wrong, total prices don’t equal total values (and, I suspect it would be the case that a good deal of value goes unrealised as price).  I think value is more like a sort of gravity for prices, which are subject to other forces as well.

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

Value is not defined by the quantity of work (one could put a lot of work to destroy his house but it would be a negative value!), it is defined by how much importance an individual puts on a good to achieve his own preferences

The short answer is that millions of subjective individual purchasers produce roughly uniform prices, and we are entitled to examine the basis upon which those millions come to the same sort of price.   Our main premise is that human brains a roughly similar, and reasonable people in similar circumstances come to similar conclusions. A closer examination of the purchasing relationship reveals a quick answer.  The subjective position of a purchaser is to want something for nothing [*], the seller won’t let it go for nothing, and so demands a price.  Their minimum price is the price they paid for it, to which they will try and achieve a mark up (if they can); and so on up the supply chain.  The thing that stops them naming any price they like is the existence of competitors, who are also  trying to sell their goods; and ultimately, the fact that the goods concerned are reproduceable.   The source of competition is production, and thece human effort.  [*] as one economist corrected me, and I’ve seen procurement personnel do this in action, in fact purchasers want to be paid to take the goods away.

[Young Master Smeet]

Anyway, just came across this useful quotation:

Schopenhauer wrote:

Dialectic, on the other hand, would treat of the intercourse between two rational beings who, because they are rational, ought to think in common, but who, as soon as they cease to agree like two clocks keeping exactly the same time, create a disputation, or intellectual contest. Regarded as purely rational beings, the individuals would, I say, necessarily be in agreement, and their variation springs from the difference essential to individuality; in other words, it is drawn from experience. Logic, therefore, as the science of thought, or the science of the process of pure reason, should be capable of being constructed à priori. Dialectic, for the most part, can be constructed only à posteriori; that is to say, we may learn its rules by an experiential knowledge of the disturbance which pure thought suffers through the difference of individuality manifested in the intercourse between two rational beings, and also by acquaintance with the means which disputants adopt in order to make good against one another their own individual thought, and to show that it is pure and objective.

The Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer (link)That is all dialectic is: indeed, Rosa has been engaging in dialectics on this forum from the off. (I’ll have to go off and read the rest of the book now).

[Young Master Smeet]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

YMS:”Seconds it is outside the light cone. That is, the time it takes light to travel 60 cm (give or take a few extraneous quibbles). Now, in the duration of that time period, characters cannot appear on my screen following a keystroke, because the speed of light is the cosmic speed limit of effects/information. Characters cannot appear before I have struck a key, because that would be effect preceding cause. Now, the key point is that time vectors can only go one way in a causal universe, we cannot go backwards in time. “In other words, given your ‘causal interpretation’ of ‘connection’, most things in the universe aren’t connected, and never will be — as I asserted.

And yet 2.00138E-09 seconds after I hit a key, a character appears on the screen that was previously outside the light cone, connected in a direct chain of causation.  If I stab a man and he dies of the stab wounds an hour later, you wouldn’t say the two things were unconnected.  All points in space are connectable.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

And we still await your explanation of ‘no-thing’.

I wouldn’t wait, it’s nothing, really. Anyway, we’re going no-where fast here.

[Young Master Smeet]

I think we are, almost, argued out now.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

“And I think you need to re-read it, those points are synchronous space/time co-ordinates of absolute position, in the ‘real’ universe, over time the effect does spread, and, if the universe is limited, then all points in space will be eventually effected by an event in space/time.”Well, as far as I can see, this will never happen; here is the relevant section (bold added):

Again, I think you’re misreading the light cone stuff.  Lets take a real world example.  My computer monitor is outside the light cone of my keyboard.  It is 60 centimetres away.  For2.00138E-09Seconds it is outside the light cone.  That is, the time it takes light to travel 60 cm (give or take a few extraneous quibbles).  Now, in the duration of that time period, characters cannot appear on my screen following a keystroke, because the speed of light is the cosmic speed limit of effects/information.  Characters cannot appear before I have struck a key, because that would be effect preceding cause.  Now, the key point is that time vectors can only go one way in a causal universe, we cannot go backwards in time. Now, the other point is that my monitor is 60 centimetres away in space, but it actually represents two (or more) points in space time, in this case, 60cm/0s and 60cm/2.00138E-09s.  Now, those space/time co-ordinates (and those within that range) cannot be subject to effect by electric impulses from my keyboard, and yet eventually, I am able to make characters appear on the screen.  Characters which form perfectly commonplace philosophical terms.

[Young Master Smeet]

OK, I’ll admit I was wrong, there is still a little fresh mileage in this:

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

I’m sorry, but we define ‘things’ all the time without ever once thinking of ‘No-thing’ — whatever that is.For example, here is a definition of ‘horse’:

But that defines horse in terms of other Things: that slippery chain of metaphors and metonyms eventually leads to no-thing.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

I’d like to see the non-metaphorical proof (which, if you are correct, will have to be written in a non-human language) that “human language…[is]…ultimately metaphorical.”

Since there is no intrinsic connection between signifier and signified the only real reference is to historical locutions – every word is meaningful only in the context of where it has last/usually been used, and is thus a metaphor for itself.  As I’m sure you’ll know, denotations are actions of naming, simply to refer to a cigarrette is to enact the fact that the object in question is like unto the object previously referred to by the term cigarrette.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

2) I didn’t snip it. I apologised later for missing it — did you alter your original post on edit?

Apologies, I read your next post after I finished mine.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

3) The point about gravity does not alter my argument in any way. Unless you think gravity acts instantaneously across all regions of space and time, then most things in the universe, past, present and future, can’t be connected, let alone interconnected.

They can be connected, over time, but, if space/time is absolute, then not  synchronically.  However, that does no disprove connection (or, rather, interconnection), if I were tied to you by a (very long) piece of elastic, that was incredibly stretchy, we could go our whole lives without ever feeling any effect from such a laggy band, except one day, after many years, when it reaches its limit.  We would still have been connected for all that time.Now, as for connected, I would say I’m using it in the sense that my actions will have an effect upon another object through transmission: connection does not have to be direct or immediate.  Or, put another way, I equate connection with casuality, which, in the context of the big bang theory means everything is connected in common cause and its transmission through the cosmos.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

So, let’s imagine that you move house, and want to be connected with the internet. You ring your favourite IP and ask them to connect you with the web. The person on the other end of the phone, who has read Dietzgen and believed far too much of it than is good for any human being, tells you that since all things are connected, you are still connected to the world-wide web, so why are you ringing her.

She would be right, in a banal sense, that since the humans I interact with are connected to the web, and I can (and do) use it through them, I am connected regardless of whether I am in possession of a portal or not.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

I think you need to re-read the material on light cones, since that tells us that there are vast regions of space that we will never be connected with each other or with us — unless, once more, you are using ‘connected’ in a new, and as-yet-unexplained sense.

And I think you need to re-read it, those points are synchronous space/time co-ordinates of absolute position, in the ‘real’ universe, over time the effect does spread, and, if the universe is limited, then all points in space will be eventually effected by an event in space/time.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Unfortunately, you neglected to prove that light is everywhere — or why this shows everything is connected — except in your odd sense of ‘connected’, which you have yet to explain.

I don’t need to prove that, since I’ve never asserted it.  So much for linguistic philosophy.

[Young Master Smeet]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

“At the initial point everything was very literally interconnected, since it was one object, since then that object has unfurled itself in different permutations. If I’m connected, as I am, to the Sun by gravtitational forces, and the sun is in turn bound to the galaxy by gravitational forces, and that galaxy to the rest of the universe, then I think it makes sense to say everything is connected.”Well, if we accept the Big Bang Theory (and I see no reason not to — that is, until scientists again change their minds, which they always do), and as I pointed out earlier, all this shows is that everything had a common origin. It doesn’t show that everything is now interconnected. You are still conflating “common origin” with “interconnected”.”If I’m connected, as I am, to the Sun by gravtitational forces, and the sun is in turn bound to the galaxy by gravitational forces, and that galaxy to the rest of the universe, then I think it makes sense to say everything is connected.”But, the light cone argument shows that this is an unsafe inference to make.

The light cone argument actually shows that over time everything will be connected, and given enough time, all points in space will come into contact with effects caused by me. It all depends, then if space/time is absolute, and if there are further dimensions.I think we’re getting back to greek style static versus dynamic universe here, and the Xeno’s paradoxes.Anyway, I reckon that’s the point where we’re argued out for now…

[Young Master Smeet]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

In which case, it can’t have a relation to anything that is actual (since it’s not a ‘it’), and nor can it ‘struggle’ with anything actual. At which point your dialectic stalls.

And yet we can only define Things by relation to No-Thing and the flow of information through things relies on the gaps, aporia, absences between them.  The forces acting on (and against) Things comes about only because there is a limit to Thingness.  Whether we call that non-thingness Nothing, or fishcakes, or spleen, is irrelevant.  The binary distinction remains.  This binary opposition is inherent in thing, and merely implies fishcakes; but we have seen things, and cannot see fishcakes.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Sure, the universe is running down (so scientists tell us), but how does that show there is a ‘struggle’ going on here? Are atoms really struggling to stay atomic? And what form does this ‘struggle’ take? Are electrons slugging is out with protons (or is with positrons)?

Systems move from high entropic states to low entropic states, energy seems to have an impulse to spread itself about a bit.  All language is ultimately human language, and ultimately metaphorical.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

What do you mean by ‘Things in themselves’? I know this term has been bandied about since Kant dreamt it up, but it seems to me to be an empty word, like ‘Slithy Tove’ — and so, with all due respect, what you posted makes about as much sense as this.

In the context, I meant there is no way of defining thing without reference to nothing, or a third term, action.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Indeed, it is metyaphysical, since it purports to tell us about fundamental aspects of the universe that are way beyond any possibility of confirmation or disconfirmation — ad is based on no little speculation dressed up as popular science (of the sort that Cox is happy to pass of as solid sicience).

Or, based on the best science available to us now.  BTW, I note you snipped my comment about gravity, since that would, even with old Newtonian science, seem to present an adequate and provable example of all things being connected.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Your thought experiment about Julius Caesar, even if correct, hardly shows he has touched me — unless, of course, you are using the word ‘touched’ in a new, and as-yet-unexplained sense. If so, what is it?

An atom that was once part of him is now part of you.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

But, even if you are right, how does this show that regions of space and time that are outside our light cone are interconnected with us now?

The key word is now, over time they will be connected, but if space/time is fundamental then each point is atomic, unless there are further dimensions to be unpacked.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

“It was a source, IIRC, for where I got the notion that light could be everywhere at once”‘Could’ is not the same as ‘is’; you need to prove with evidence, not speculation, that light is everywhere at once.But, even if it is, how does that show that everything is interconnected? That yawning chasm in your argument has yet to be filled.

If light is everywhere (and when) at once, then we are all simultaneously bathed in the same universal sea of light, which touches us all.

[Young Master Smeet]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Indeed, but how are the things you told us were nothing actually nothing? And you have yet to tell us how something can struggle with nothing.

Nothing cannot be actual, by definition.  All I can know is that Thing is distinct from No-Thing.    Now, it might be that No-Thing is a thing, of some different variety, but the fact of difference exists, and that is sufficient.  All things are struggling with un-being, as the entropic principle moves through the universe towards heat death.  We cannot know Things in themselves, but only through their acts, their actuality, and it is the aspect of action that separates Thing from No-thing.   We can only know Thing and No-Thing through their mutual distinctions.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Not at all, I was merely drawing out a consequence of what you had said. I neither assert nor deny that everything is interconnected since that would be a metaphysical proposition, and thus non-sensical:

Hardly metaphysical to say that everything is connected through common cause and (possibly) common substance.  that’s mechanical.  BTW, did you know that, I think, every twentieth breath you take contains an oxygen molecule breathed in by Julius Caesar.  he has touched you, and you have touched him.  Across time, no less.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

“And from that it follows that everything is simply a permutation of this initial energy (including the energy that manifests as matter). And if we follow the laws of thermodynamics, that evergy cannot be created or destroyed, then it follows that nothing can happen that does not affect other entities within the system”But, not even this shows that everthing is connected, let alone interconnected. I think you are confusing the phrase ‘common origin’ with the term ‘interconnected’.

At the initial point everything was very literally interconnected, since it was one object, since then that object has unfurled itself in different permutations.  If I’m connected, as I am, to the Sun by gravtitational forces, and the sun is in turn bound to the galaxy by gravitational forces, and that galaxy to the rest of the universe, then I think it makes sense to say everything is connected.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

I’m sorry, but my enigma translation module seems to be out of action today, so I’ll need you to put this in plain English if I am to respond to it.

It was a source, IIRC, for where I got the notion that light could be everywhere at once.Why does E=MC^2 (click on link)

[Young Master Smeet]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

I am still unclear why you would want to call a gap “nothing”, or why an electron state ‘off’ is ‘nothing’. And do they really ‘struggle’ with each other? If not, why call this a ‘dialectic’?

A wall is something.  I cannot walk through a wall.  Things that are there can be materially interacted with.  Things that are not there cannot be.  there is no way to touch, see, smell or apprehend nothing. Likewise, nothing cannot impede my action, nor cause effects.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

What they seem to be connected with is this energy, not each other; unless you think there is some sort of instantaneous communication via this energy — which, once again, would be impossible to confirm.And the point of the light cone is that while everything might once have been connected, it isn’t so now, and nor can it be.

So you accept everything is connected, ultimately?  And from that it follows that everything is simply a permutation of this initial energy (including the energy that manifests as matter).  And if we follow the laws of thermodynamics, that evergy cannot be created or destroyed, then it follows that nothing can happen that does not affect other entities within the system.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

“All light is everywhere and all light is in contact with everything at once, then everything is interconnected via light. It could be, from a certain point of view, that the universwe is one still spot of light that we misinterpret as having dimensions.”Well, this reads like science fiction; I’d like to see the evidence that substantiates it.

I think there is a passing reference to the notion in (that name again) Brian Cox’ “Why does E=MC^2”.

[Young Master Smeet]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

How are ‘absences’ nothing? And, if there is a dialectic going on here, then this ‘something’ must be ‘struggling’ with this ‘nothing’. Do we see this in computing, or in genetics?

Two perfect circles would make very bad clockwork, the gaps between the teeth are not there, and yet they make the whole thing go.  They are defined by the something of the cogs.  Likewise in the electron states of semi conductors which are either on or off: there is a definite somehing that is nothing.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Of course, the Big Bang Theory is about origins; it says nothing about universal interconnection right now; in fact, as I pointed out, if relativity is correct, then not everything can be interconnected (that was the point of the link I posted about light cones).

Except everything is interconnected by its share of the initial energy impetus, if everything was once all part of one sub-microscopic spot.  If we expand the light cone back, then everything in the universe leads up to point E in the diagram in that article.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

“Leaving aside the bendier aspects of relativity which suggest that light may well be everywhere at once (IIRC)”There is no way that this can be confirmed, but even if it could, what has it got to do with the idea that everything is interconnected?

All light is everywhere and all light is in contact with everything at once, then everything is interconnected via light.  It could be, from a certain point of view, that the universe is one still spot of light that we misinterpret as having dimensions.  Certainly, Great Cthulhu thinks so.

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