29-01-2005 02:24									#61
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist Defining exploitation with reference with reference to the labour theory of value is "hardly just Marxian"? I challenge you to find one non-Marxist who would agree with it. (People being idiots, you'll probably find one if you look a bit, but the challenge sounds good. )

Read the dictionary.

quote: Anyway, the point isn't about exploitation, but about the utility of the concept of "value" in the Marxist sense. Saying that the Marxist definition of exploitation rests on it won't cut it unless you can give some independent motivation for that.

Again, the idea of value is not just Marxian. Everyone else seems to agree with me about what value is. My argument is about what creates it. So do you have an argument about what creates value?

	29-01-2005 02:26									#62
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Kid knows better than me if I'm being exploited.

	29-01-2005 02:38									#63
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Since that's not a real situation I don't see how it matters really if we disagree. In the real world the worker gets paid the same whether he has the tractor or not.

kid since when do you care about how things actually work in the real world ?

Isn't what I said completely in agreement with previous discussions where you stated

1. It does not matter if a worker makes more money, it can still be exploitation

2. The true value which a worker is entitled to might not be possible for the capitalist to accurately ascertain


Then you turn around and say that everyone should get a "fair wage" which seems to divorce a worker from the value of their own labor.

	29-01-2005 02:39									#64
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Read the dictionary.

The AHD gives no less than ten nominal definitions of "value":

quote: 1. An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return. 2. Monetary or material worth: the fluctuating value of gold and silver. 3. Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit: the value of an education. 4. A principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable: “The speech was a summons back to the patrician values of restraint and responsibility” (Jonathan Alter). 5. Precise meaning or import, as of a word. 6. Mathematics An assigned or calculated numerical quantity. 7. Music The relative duration of a tone or rest. 8. The relative darkness or lightness of a color. See table at color. 9. Linguistics The sound quality of a letter or diphthong. 10. One of a series of specified values: issued a stamp of new value.

Nothing about labour here that I can see ...

quote: Again, the idea of value is not just Marxian. Everyone else seems to agree with me about what value is.

Really?

quote: My argument is about what creates it. So do you have an argument about what creates value?

I'm not seeing any reason to think that the Marxist and capitalist concepts of value refer to the same thing, nor any reason to care about either.

	29-01-2005 03:03									#65
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious I'm saying that the value that it gets from goods and services produced with a high school diploma is the same. If if doesn't get as much value from one good as the other even though they took the same amount of labor then it is allocating labor inefficiently.

That's nothing short of insane. You're saying that society derives the exact same value from everything that takes X man hours to produce, regardless of what it is, assuming they all require the same level of education to produce. You're also necessarily implying that if we find a more efficient way of producing something, then society automatically values it less.

	29-01-2005 03:18									#66
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I think I've hurt Kid's feelings

Copycat threads

	29-01-2005 03:34									#67
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It seems he's trying to defribulate the thread with lemons

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	29-01-2005 06:34									#68
	Re: Re: Re: Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious But what people pay for an item doesn't determine it's value either. The price is just a mechanism to atract or detract supplies. If there is a shortage the price will be higher, but no value was created. There is only a situation were buyers will bid up the price.

it tells what they think at the item is worth to them. that is what value is. If an individual can not make a decision about value, then neither can a society, which is just a collection of said individuals.

	29-01-2005 09:05									#69
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I have to spend my time more wisely.

	29-01-2005 09:44									#70
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U aint alone

	30-01-2005 04:43									#71
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I'd appear to be forced to conclude that Kid can't or won't answer my question coherently.

Any capitalist who'd like to try for their side?

	30-01-2005 04:55									#72
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I'd just end up repeating myself from the other thread.

	30-01-2005 05:22									#73
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That's why we've got copy'n'paste.

	30-01-2005 05:43									#74
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Most of the anti-capitalist commies love to do drive by threads like this using outragous claims. Once educated people disect their claims and start to prove them false they run for the hills and you don't see them talk about it for a few weeks.

	30-01-2005 06:02									#75
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You're implying I'm a commie?

	30-01-2005 06:11									#76
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No, I'm implying most threads such as this are created by commies who can't back up their economic claims.

	01-02-2005 00:10									#77
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I back up my claims plenty. Most of them are common sense. What I'm done with is arguing with unreasonable people.

	01-02-2005 00:20									#78
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To me, value = Labor + Education

	01-02-2005 00:20									#79
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Odin

	01-02-2005 00:21									#80
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin No, I'm implying most threads such as this are created by commies who can't back up their economic claims.

It seems to me that most of economics is mostly pro-capitalist assumptions + mathematics

	01-02-2005 00:26									#81
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious I back up my claims plenty. Most of them are common sense. What I'm done with is arguing with unreasonable people.

You do, however, seem to have serious problems with answering simple questions.

	01-02-2005 00:48									#82
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No one has to answer questions that lead them nowhere. Two reasonable people should be able to agree what value is within a given context. It doesn't matter what their ideology is. If they're reasonable there shouldn't be a problem.

	01-02-2005 02:09									#83
	Re: Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere? Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by Kidicious So according to capitalists value is equal to price in a free market. So then if the cost of something goes up, and the price goes up then value has been created? Just the opposite is true. Value is created by decreasing costs.

Substitute "competative" for "free" and you have far more of a point. And surely in a competativbe market, price is equal to the value the marginal consumer has for that good. Since raising or lowering price changes who buys or does not buy, clearly value is a relative thing, and everyone does not have the same value for an item.

	01-02-2005 02:18									#84
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quote: Originally posted by Odin It seems to me that most of economics is mostly pro-capitalist assumptions + mathematics

Not quite. Economics can be done from any set of assumptions, and many people practice economics from far more socialist assumptions. The economics is the the application of those assumptions and that mathematical method or model to data to produce predictions. Most economists justify their assumptions using data from the real world, which I personally don't consider pro-capitalist or pro-communist? If in forensic policing it was found that 99% of criminals were white, in a multi-racial area, and thus used that as an assumption, were they supporting either side in a racism debate? No, they were just taking a statistic and using it as an assumption. Thus if an economist finds that 99% of the time, a fall in tax causes a boom in consumer spending, then they will use that assumption as part of their model. It's not supporting the pro-capitalist position, or any other, it's just taking a fact and using it without thinking of political considerations. The results of that model are then used to advise governments on policy.

With the absense of tests that have only one variable, as is possibly in much natural science, economics has to rely on reams of data and statistics to build plausible assumptions. Those assumptions are not pro-capitalist, pro-socialist or anything else, they're just whatever the bulk of the data seems to support. As Popper said when talking about science, the process of science is to take a theory, test it until it is proven false, and then come up with a new theory that fits all the data. This is the exact process economic assumptions are adapted, with the exception that because of it being a human science, and people being as unpredictable and complicated as they are, you can't isolate a variable, and thus you get some anomolous results. Thus the model that fits *the most* data is used.

	01-02-2005 02:22									#85
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious No one has to answer questions that lead them nowhere. Two reasonable people should be able to agree what value is within a given context. It doesn't matter what their ideology is. If they're reasonable there shouldn't be a problem.

I'm perfectly willing, for the sake of the discussion, accept your definition of "value". What I'm asking is, what use is this concept of "value"?

	01-02-2005 02:55									#86
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist I'm perfectly willing, for the sake of the discussion, accept your definition of "value". What I'm asking is, what use is this concept of "value"?

To get more of it. Value is good. I believe I said that, and then you started telling me that you don't accept my idea of value. It's not my idea. Give the credit to Adam Smith maybe, or probably someone who came before him. There is only one 'value' that is appropriate to the context of our discussion.

	01-02-2005 02:58									#87
	Re: Re: Why has Capitalism failed to produce optimal value everywhere? Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by Drogue Substitute "competative" for "free" and you have far more of a point. And surely in a competativbe market, price is equal to the value the marginal consumer has for that good. Since raising or lowering price changes who buys or does not buy, clearly value is a relative thing, and everyone does not have the same value for an item.

You have a degree in econ, right? So you know what consumer surplus is, right? So tell us, what does a consumer get a surplus of?

	01-02-2005 03:01									#88
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quote: Originally posted by Drogue Most economists justify their assumptions using data from the real world

Data that they pick and choose.

	01-02-2005 03:10									#89
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious Data that they pick and choose.

Yes since in the realm of economics there is simply too much "data" out there to assess ALL of it at the same time. But I'm sure you wanted the choosing of data sets to analyze to seem much more sinister.

Some economists have hard wired agenda's, whether they be capitalist, communist or something else. But I'm betting that most economists are merely trying to understand better the data they see and any bias is unintentional.

	01-02-2005 03:13									#90
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious To get more of it. Value is good.

Then join us on the capitalist side. Capitalism creates more value, more often than any other system.