Gipper said:
I read this whole thing, and I was looking for one word that I never found - scarcity.
Scarcity is the fundamental measuring stick of economics, and Marx was ignorant to its existence.
You talked about the W/DP in relations to (what a surprise) social structure, i.e. costs involved to bring to market. At no point does Marx address value based on rarity of such diamonds and real costs.
His version of LTV had no address for involving ability and availability when it comes to labor. He determined that labor was its own measure and its own currency, and that it was equal across the board. Sweeping the street has equal merit to solving equations or mixing chemicals. It's a scary thought, as an extreme version of that school of thought resulted in Mao slaughtering several tens of millions of people.
Also, the Marxism school of thought is still rather nouveau in the grand scheme of economic political environment.
And in case there's subject of argument, I actually have read Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. Been a while, but I have.
Scarcity is part of his system ... The LTOV is a model depending on relative equilibrium of supply and demand.
It did address ability and availability, which is why he made sure to calrify with "socially necessary labor time." Its also only meant to be applied to commodities.
YOu have to read Marx in the context of Smith and RIcardo ...
Gipper said:
Food, water, and shelter does exist at a level where everyone can be fed and sheltered, but this is because it is driven by classical macroeconomic policies. Marxist thought eventually leads to stagnation and an internal collapse on itself as time and the world passes it by. A truly Marxist state today would be about as evolved and advanced as America would be back in the pioneer days. Greed has been a driving force for man to advance in science, technology, medicine, and general betterment of society. Yeah, under Marxist philosophy nobody would freeze or starve to death, but those are the only benefits they would have. You wouldn't have that computer you're using unless you traded grain with an advanced society.
A: Marxism IS NOT NORMATIVE ECONOMICS ... IT IS POSITIVE ECONOMICS ... (which is why Marxists of different stripes, although they all agree on the basic analysis of Capitalism all have different ideas of how to resolve the issues).
B: There is nothing in any form of socialism that assumes no more greed, all it does is change the incentives ... Also most advances in science, technology or medicine have been publically funded on not made for profit ... after they were made the advances were taken by privatte industry to make a profit.
Gipper said:
They fetch less because they're not real diamonds. There has to be intrinsic value applied to the time it takes for the earth to crush carbon into shiny little stones. Having said that, I won't argue this point because I'm not female, and I think arguing over the value of diamonds is really a female thing because they raise the cost through sentimentality and other girly bullcrap.
the sentimentality changes the supply and demand ... you can't predict those things in economic theory.
Gipper said:
This is one of the staples to why Maxism fails. If I spent 3000 man-hours trying to build a rocketship to Saturn with some old crates and chicken wire, does it have real value to society? Of course not. Labor does not automatically equal value, and valuable labor does not have a fixed determinant value. A street-sweeper has less intrinsic value than an engineer, despite the fact that they both perform necessary functions in society, because of the amount of people who can perform each task is quite varied.
Ok ... You obviously havn't read Marx's Capital ... or if you did you obviously did'nt understand a single word of it ...
Marx goes to great leangths to explain "use value" and "socially necessary labor time" and the fact that it requires a market ...
No never said just labor for the sake of labor creates value ... He's talking about the labor put INTO commoditites, not valuing the labor itself, but valuing the commodity ... Also commodity assumes a market ...
These are all rediculous strawmen.
(BTW, the LTOV isn't even necessary for Marx's economic analysis)
Gipper said:
He was a philosopher, and that's all. His belief structure systematically fails from a statistical and numerical standpoint.
He was a philosopher as well ... and many Marxists that support his economic analysis (like me) ignore his philosophy and consider it not necessary, (as I do). His economic analysis have STILL not to this day been refuted (other than by using strawmen versions of it), and were expanded on ... and actually came to fruition as time went on.
Gipper said:
Government IS the biggest barrier to entry. All those TRUE monopolies I listed exist because there are legislative barriers. If you wanted to (and had the money), you could build a chain of stores in an effort to curb business from Wal-mart or Target or what have you. You could operate your own farmer market and sell veggies at whatever cost you felt was fair.
However, if you discovered a cure for cancer and tried to go onto the internet to sell it, the FDA would come to your house and do everything but shoot you dead where you stood (and some conspiracy theorists would argue they'd do that too). If you stumbled upon an alternate form of energy, any of a dozen agencies would put your ass in chains.
Those are government enforced monopolies.
Also, price dumping and predatory tactics cannot be maintained in long-run economics, so even if the illegality of those were revoked, it would not persist.
Government is also the biggest aid to entry ... (loans, public infastructure and so on) .... The real barriers to entry are simply market based, notice you said the qualifier "if you had the money" ... exactly, if you have the money you can do anything ... but thats the point.
Gipper said:
Corporations cannot enforce the law, and thus cannot equal government. Bill Gates and Sam Walton may have significant influence, but to say that they can ever have free rein no matter what is simply not true. It's almost a shame, as I'd trust either one more than I would damn near any standing President.
Of coarse they can enforce their own laws ... why not?
