What does the labor theory of value say about services?

Is the service itself a commodity?

What are some example of non-labourer service providers? Lawyers? E-celebs? QVC hosts?

They are all labourers but they don't produce commoditys.

I don't see how it differs from anybody producing luxury goods. Though some services may be truly valuable because they save people time they would otherwise have spent acquiring a skill they only use once a year.

An associate lawyer is a laborer (maybe labor aristo), a partner is bourgeois.

Marx viewed services as unproductive labor. He categorized them as unproductive because from a social standpoint they add no new value to the social product. They are necessary positions that help facilitate the transfer of wealth but because they aren't adding value their labor is seen as a deduction from the already extracted surplus.

So mainly service based economys produce no value?

Essentially. They may be economically productive for capitalists but they aren't producing anything of social value.

so value is only produced in the "third world"

How does it feel to be a brainlet?

pretty bad.

Largely, yes, but I wouldn't say only.

Don't be mean, user.

Remember to keep your definitions of value straight. "Exchange-value (or, simply, value), is first of all the ratio, the proportion, in which a certain number of use-values of one kind can be exchanged for a certain number of use-values of another kind."

that's not really how value works

The third world barely makes anything. Value added manufacturing averages $4000 per person for the OECD and $3000 per capita for NATO (depending on which definition of first world you're using). The absolute best in the third world at manufacturing is Brazil, and they get only 1200$ value added per capita, everybody else is worse. India is the only third world nation with a manufacturing center worth a damn but they pull that off by having more than a billion people, the value added per person is just . Even if you want to contort the definition of third world until it includes China and Russia they only have a value added of about 2000$ per capita.

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LTV explains that in the absence of external market restrictions, such as trade marks, that value at price point drops to equilibrium value. Eg, the cost of labor.

therefore Value us equal to the amount of labor it takes to produce a good or service.

The question doesn't make much sense.

Do service based companys exploit workers?

Yes

Your figures are shit cause they aren't population adjusted. It's meaningless.

the fuck does that matter? we're discussing which countries most of the surplus value comes from.

We're discussing which countries utilize their labor best. If you use 4x as much labor to make 2x as much stuff you done fucked up.

mises.org/blog/labor-theory-value-refuted-nobody-cares-how-hard-you-work

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I read the piece and nowhere does it even address Marx's theory of value so there's nothing there to debunk.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Origins
That's because it didn't originate solely from Marx.
According to: Karl Marx,Value, Price and Profit, 1865, Part VI., Marx "credited Benjamin Franklin in his 1729 essay entitled "A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency" as being "one of the first" to advance the theory."
It doesn't mention Franklin, either. Doesn't mean the counter-argument has been mentioned.

Marx developed a theory of value that was based on his predecessors but ultimately not the same. Stop being autistic.

Except he didn't 'develop' it, he improved upon an idea that already existed. Development as advancement, sure. Not as creation.
Yet you are incapable of addressing the points within beyond "I couldn't find what I was looking for, and it's from a source that's smelly so I don't care".

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Well, it's because the manager determines the price because the employees aren't self-employed, ergo they have no rational justification to claim ownership if… they don't own anything. The central argument is against those who parrot the glazier's fallacy, like Keynesians and their ditch-digging. What is it that determines value? Well, let's ask the consumers who define the demand…

consumer demand is what determines price not value.

Consumer demand determines value. It is worthless until it is desired and purchased. Otherwise, that which is highly valued can just as easily be outside of the scope of the public's demand… which is a self-refuting concept. iPhones are valuable because people buy them. If nobody cares about a product and doesn't buy it, it doesn't matter how hard you worked to create it: it is without value.

only in the sense that consumer demand determines exchange value. Use value is different.

See, right there you're assuming what will be done with the product once it is purchased. I can purchase a second house because I want to have two houses, and I can leave it all empty (ergo, the 'usage' of the house as a living space is not fulfilled). The only thing that determines its worth is the offer I put forth on the house. I don't have to sell it, swap it, or loan it out to anybody, what happens after the fact is irrelevant. The central premise is that its worth is determined by my desire and demand collectively manifesting itself within a group of people, who all want/desire a product. They don't have to fulfil the purpose of anything after they buy it.

Here, I found a more in-depth explanation: mises.org/library/subjective-value-theory.

>Here, I found a more in-depth explanation: mises.org/library/subjective-value-theory.
Subjective value theory only works if you decontextualize capitalism from all of history and assume that every consumer is both perfectly rational and fully informed on the economy.
youtube.com/watch?v=9OqFKWfzh98&index=16&list=PL3F695D99C91FC6F7

How do you become 'informed' on 'the economy'. You mean going over stock prices? That's what day traders do. Consumers set the demand because of their desire for a product: otherwise, you'd just have a bunch of shelves filled with apples that nobody wants.
'From all its history' assumes that consumers aren't rational. The issue isn't a moral or an ethical one: it's simply that what the consumer wants, they will get because of the demand. Take black markets, for example. Heroin and cocaine, although they are illegal, still have huge impact on 'the economy'. For example, a quick search: businessinsider.com/infographic-the-business-behind-the-black-market-2012-1.
It exists because consumers give it value. I don't use drugs or stuff like that, so its value, to me, is worth exactly 0.00.
What a preposterous assumption (I will assume you are aligned with the ideas within the link provided). Operating on "group demand without purchasing power ought to be relevant… oh my, it actually isn't?" is a faulty premise and kind of begs a second glance at the fundamental premise and what is actually being asserted: consumer demand determining value. Nowhere does it claim that "any demand is equal", that's a faulty premise to operate off of.

On the topic of "only from wages paid to workers": Now, when such a structure or concept exists in reality, can be easily observed, and just as easily proven to exist, it is not a fantasy. In the USA, for example: usdebtclock.org/.
Small business assets are valued at around 11 trillion by the Federal Reserve. Small business in the USA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_business#Size_definitions.
So, they actually DO have a huge relevance.
On "exploitation": Except theft presupposes an infarction of criminal code, which presupposes ownership. For example, US Code on theft: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/668.
"A person who—
(1) steals or obtains by fraud from the care, custody, or control of a museum any object of cultural heritage; or
(2) knowing that an object of cultural heritage has been stolen or obtained by fraud, if in fact the object was stolen or obtained from the care, custody, or control of a museum (whether or not that fact is known to the person), receives, conceals, exhibits, or disposes of the object"
Steal: take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
Without defending your claim to ownership in a court of law or by means of establishing your property by might, you own nothing. You can say you will defend your positions, but I can take them from you if I am more powerful than you and those who defend you.
If it's 'labour' that is being stolen and unfairly compensated, then this relies on the archaic example of 'labour' Marx could talk about a century ago because it was observable then more than it is now (in the civilized world, at least). It isn't simply "I pay you to dig this ditch, then fill it back up again", it's an inter-connected network of effort that is utilized in order to produce a service/item. People advertise it, people develop it, people test it, people work to pass by the regulations, people assemble it, people can harvest/mine the components, etc. Assuming that "this plate of food was sold for 'x' dollars, and I am the chef, ergo I deserve that amount" presupposes both the paradox of 'theft' (which you never owned it to begin with, so it's a null point) and that you are the singular component responsible for its 'creation', when in reality, you just assembled it. It also assumes that you are self-employed and set the rules of the business yourself, which you do not.
It's not exploitation by any stretch of the imagination if you sign a contract. Don't be surprised if you sign off on me coming to your doorstep and punching you in the face: you signed off on it with your own sober judgement.

The necessities also compete with each other, based on nutrition, affordability, quality, etc. It's a multi-faceted issue that a reductionist approach cannot arrive at. If you like toilet paper from brand 'x' because they make it like ____ over brand 'y', that means nothing to me because me and my district prefer brand 'y' over 'x'. Effectively, brand 'x' is worthless because our demand runs in the opposite direction.

Yes, because presupposing ownership assumes you can defend the argument, which you cannot (addressed here: ).
Again, you're operating on a faulty premise of entitlement which you do not have.
It's also self-refuting to claim that consumer demand is different and varies between brand 'x' and brand 'y' when you're trying to make an objective claim on value.

Yes, because that is precisely the definition of subjectivity. They are dependent on the individual, which is why they are subjective. Just setting up a strawman that isn't what is actually claimed isn't a substantive point.

Once more, operating on a faulty premise that is concerned with entitlement which has never, and will never, exist. Do you blame the rabbit for running away from you when you attempt to catch and eat it, or do you blame yourself for not being fast enough? It's just a question of personal responsibility and not assuming that you will be born with a silver spoon in your mouth ("well, if I don't have x, y, and z, then this is automatically an injustice done against me!"). Nobody owes you anything and assuming that "just because I don't have all these things to be able to act in this way means that I am suffering!" assumes that you necessarily deserve a quality of life you cannot attain.

how come Marx denies that the more efficient Laborer contributes more value to society? Mises has to be the one to tell me that, not Marx.

It is. You are obfuscating the issue by determining the conclusion as some necessary injustice because, surprise surprise, the individuals are not in equal circumstances. If only that were the case, it would be "so simple", as you say.

See above.

Yes, individuals trade goods because they value 'x' over 'y'. I don't always have access to all fruit, sorry to tell you.

See: www.investopedia.com/terms/s/self-employed.asp

It's not really sneaky, it's a basic observation that not everybody can come to own things because individuals are not created equal, both in faculty and effort. It's such a bother that the USA doesn't have any panda bears, I guess that means only China can trade them away, oh bother! Well, I guess that means that because Hungary likes to buy lots of pandas from China, that the value of pandas can be extended to the USA, too, because there is a difference in property between China and other nations. Of course the inherent inequality of the panda market must exist: that is a basic observation and operating on the basis of this egalitarian model is the actual fantasy!

Marx doesn't deny that at all. Labors can have a different use-value or no use-value at all if they produce something that is socially worthless. Engels makes this point here: marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch18.htm .

The thing is that when labor becomes an exchange value, it has to be comparable to other labors in a quantifiable way. Marx uses the term socially necessary labor time to describe the labor power of the average worker, working with the average tools and at average efficiency, as the baseline to make this comparison.

Sounds awfully subjective, and assuming society does not change over time is awfully…ahistorical.

The LTV very much applies to service work. For example, a piano teacher is hired by a corporation to travel around to family homes and give out lessons. The corporation owns the website where families can contact and choose between different teachers, as well as the music books he teaches from. For every lesson, the corporation charges the customers $30, however, they only pay the teacher $15 per lesson. Here it is obvious that:
1. The teacher is not getting paid in full for his labor, thus he is exploited
2. Some of the surplus value is then invested in more capital (such as books and maintaining the servers for the website) and hiring more teachers, the rest goes to the stockholders
3. It should be extremely obvious that it is the teachers labor that produces all the value here, it is what the customers are paying for after all

Service work is usually considered to produce a "bodyless" commodity that is consumed at the same time it is produced.

Reread my post and realized I need ro revise point number 2:

2. Some of the surplus value is used for costs in the production (such as the books hes using and maintaining the servers for the website). However, the rest is invested in more capital, such as hiring more teachers, developing new feautures for the website and upgrading the servers. Whatevers left is given to the shareholders.

Of course society changes over time, which is why SNLT is difficult to pin down exactly. But in any given point in time, there is an SNLT for a given task. This is most evident in the production of commodities, where the labor required is usually simple or can be reduced to simple labor, and the quality of the product for the purposes of exchange is a binary "fit for sale" or "not fit for sale" with unfit items simply being discarded.

So, too, does what is socially desirable/valuable based on… the society as a collective, as determined by… the consumers within the society. That's the central premise.
What is 'simple labour'? Who defines this as such? Again, you completely bypass the entire issue of preference. To me, simple labour like sitting around farming rice is really easy and not difficult at all. But to females or some other guy who hates harvesting crops, it sounds like hell. The 'simple labour' is subjective and does nothing to determine if something is 'fit for sale' or otherwise. The consumer determines what they will choose to buy at all. If I pass by an item in a store, that doesn't mean the other consumer will not. The item is discarded in a grocery store if it is wasting space and can be put in the back end of the store when a better-selling item replaces its slot. It isn't 'discarded' until it is expired or for the reason I outlined above. Or it can just be stolen, too.

You're forgetting SNLT again.

Now who's being subjectivist here? The demand and perceived utility of various items is fairly predictable based on common sense. You're arguing from the subjective point of view of what a single consumer wants or doesn't want, but a commodity has an objective set of properties that WOULD make it useful for certain purposes. For example, a loaf of bread is useful for eating, and further bread has a texture that is desirable to the person eating it. Now of course there may be some people allergic to gluten who want the bread less. In aggregate though, you can guess why someone wants bread through fairly simple reasoning. If not bread, then a human being (or any organism) needs food of some type in order to survive. Maybe in the distant future humans will be able to survive on photosynthesis or whatever, but food would still retain its properties, and human demand doesn't just transform for no reason - there would be historical reasons why humanity no longer wants bread, or food in general.
Again, production is a SOCIAL activity, not an individual one. The individual wants of each particular person are less important to Marx than the aggregate demand, and you can probably trace reasons for that demand that are not subjective or appear out of nothing. The point Mises seems to be making is that demand just pops out of nowhere and is purely the whim of the buyer, or something to that effect. I dunno, I don't read that toxic shit.

None of this is remotely relevant. I'm talking about what a factory or a farm produces, not what gets discarded in the supply chain due to a lack of demand or whatever, or things that are stolen. Generally the produce of a factory or farm is checked for quality before it is sent into the distribution chain (sold), modern factories set that up as standard practice actually.

And to add to that, Marx is primarily looking at the producers who originate the products, which is where the creative power of labor is relevant. The merchants and retailers who distribute the goods don't add any value to the commodities, they're just a necessity of delivering the goods from the factory to the end user (if they're even necessary at all).

You can say that the retailer or the end user has their particular whims, but for the factory that produces a commodity, the purpose of that factory is to make that commodity. Say you have a factory that makes cars - they're dependent on selling cars and only cars in order to stay in business, so there is no subjective whim there. Now there is no rule that a car factory owner wants to get out of the car business and produce coats instead, but in order to do so he'd have to scrap all of his machinery designed to produce cars, retrain or rehire a workforce to produce coats, and get the capital outlays to create coats instead. You can see why this is something that doesn't happen on a whim, and why firms generally stick to producing the kind of goods they're familiar with producing. Of course, car manufacturers do upgrade their machinery and design newer types of car, but this is a progressive sequence of events that comes from that firm's experience in making cars, and their ownership of machinery that is useful for making cars. It's not just on a whim or from nowhere that newer models of cars are designed, or that the machinery to make those newer cars or make cars more efficiently arises.

Because that which is socially required is determined by a society of consumers and their demands. I'm referring directly towards it because it refutes your concept of 'effort to produce 'x'' having any relevance (also conveniently bypassing corporate losses).
Still me. I never claimed otherwise. I have, since the beginning, claimed it is a subjective issue, because it is and preference demonstrably proves this.
Then go read the markets and make millions, lord knows many have tried and failed. Retrospect is always 20/20.
Kind of an argument against your capacity to debate me if you, just now, realize my platform.
Except I've referenced the society as a whole, and consumers both as individuals and as groups.
Unless people have an affinity towards them, then that is true. But what makes gold valuable? People like shiny things and gold has a long history in our culture. It is very malleable, too. But beyond that, you are… still making a subjective argument because gold's properties don't make it valuable, the desire FOR gold an individual has makes it valuable. I prefer silver over gold, anyways, so gold has a total worth of zero dollars per unit volume, to me.
What a really poor example. Again, highlighting the subjective nature of bread: people are born with Celiac's disease. It isn't objectively true that bread has value, and this value is distinct from the hours worked. Almost as if the society and the components within determine what is and isn't valuable (read: consumers within a society).
Making it a niche market composed of people who eat bread, people who have an intolerance, and people who don't have an intolerance, but just don't buy bread. It is entirely subjective.
Objectivity doesn't have exceptions, by definition. It is absolute.
Also, where are your billions for reading the markets, huh? You should know that people loved fidget spinners, it just has "specific qualities that give it worth". Or maybe it's because the concept was created a decade ago and only gained notoriety when it became a meme because consumers thought of it that way…
Different food items, different preferences.
It terms of homeostasis, no. But that doesn't mean preferences don't exist when it comes to food. I have literally never bought liquorice in my entire life. I hate it. It is worth zero dollars to me.
Consumers have preferences and the marketplace is fuelled by demand (created by consumers), nothing else.
Individuals can produce things.
Making him an intellectual hack incapable of coming to terms with concepts refuting his ramblings.
Where does he say this, or is it insinuated? Or are you just taking implications you're making up?
Ah, the last one.

Discussing the rationale behind grocery markets and goods displayed on the shelves is not relevant to the topic of consumer demand and store's supply? Keep up, m8.
Sure, farmers have a supply and demand ratio, too. If I work as a farmer and only produce ten bushels of wheat instead of fifty, I will have to sell the ten for more if I want to pay my bills. I have to find a consumer who loves wheat that much (preferences) and who desires MY wheat over the next guy to buy it off of me. If I don't, then once it has become old, I will discard of the wheat. It still exists when I'm advertising the wheat, and that's the entire point: I put the option for the exchange out onto the market and wait for a reply. Advertisement.
Yes, health regulations exist.

So, chairmen of companies or in other leadership positions, like Gates? They produced the foundation for the products, creating it from scratch.
They're acting as a conduit, though. You can go and act as the bridge if you please. But when you refuse their offer, that's all you can do: do it yourself.
Transportation, yes. Employs many millions of people worldwide.
Preferences, yes.
In line with the preferences of the society.
Except when they make pink cars and nobody buys them because everyone hates pink. Again, they tone their product to the tastes of the consumerbase they are pitching it to.
Get a loan and then make the money back to pay it back if you think coat selling is so lucrative.
Almost as if businesses act rationally when their bottom line is on the cutting block.
More like keeping up with the competition, who just got newer machinery that can churn out Fords faster than the next guy's car brand.
Ford creates cars people want. If the people's taste changes and their cars become stale, nobody buys them and, even though their efforts and manpower/machinepower is expended making many thousands of cars, those cars are worth exactly zero dollars. Useless if nobody buys them. No demand=sitting in a garage somewhere, rotting.

This is one area in which I agree with communists

But that's preposterous. A surgeon performs a surgery for you by removing a tumour from your brain. It is one of the most important career paths in a civilized society. They aren't shuffling value around, their services are vital to the health of a nation. Consumer demand will always exist and the reason it's so expensive is because it is a niche field that requires the utmost precision and skill.

NO user THE SURGEON SHUFFLES THE ORGANS AROUND HE DOESNT PRODUCE ANYTHING IN FACT HE TAKES PART OF YOUR BODY WHICH HE DID NOT PRODUCE HE IS A LUMP AND PROLETARIAT

A service is a commodity, one that is consumed immediately.

I know this is ironic, but it's always funny to point out individuals who are not equal in their capability and examine the counter-arguments that follow. This is a tier above the rest, which assume that surgeons will wait around for free, or that services don't have value. Honestly, why does anybody take Marx's idealism seriously if it's self-admitted that Communism has never been tried? I can make the same faith-over-fact arguments about any claim I want to with the same amount of real-world evidence as Communism.

Jesus you're so fucking dense and can't get over your fetishism for consumerism. I'll try one more go and see if the idea sinks into your head.

DEMAND IS NOT SUBJECTIVE. It does not appear out of nowhere. The whole point of this capitalist enterprise is ostensibly to best fulfill the multitude wants of society, which have existed before capitalism and will exist after capitalism is done. If you're arguing the point that demand is completely subjective, then laws of supply and demand - which basically every economist including Marx subscribes to - would be effectively meaningless, because you can just conjure a notion that humanity would commit collective suicide and stop eating food for no reason whatsoever. I'll leave it to you to figure out for yourself why that doesn't happen.

So PRODUCTION IS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY. Humans, as a society, want to do stuff with each other, and need to do stuff with each other in order to satisfy their wants and needs. You can't participate in this system and pretend you're isolated from society, even if you are a beggar since you're still benefiting from the production of other people to survive. What you're trying to argue is basically the old Thatcherite line that there is no such thing as society, which is ridiculous horseshit.

Again, PRODUCTION IS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY. Localized pockets where a corporation loses money or goes bust are irrelevant. Marx is critiquing the system of capitalism as a whole, not the profitability of individual firms. Lots of firms do go bust, but most of these are small firms that cannot compete against the entrenched large firms. Marx predicts from the LTV that there will be fewer and fewer firms as time progresses and that capital will concentrate, so he is perfectly aware of corporate losses and firms going out of business.

I did not propose that I have a perfect model that predict localized ups and downs of the stock market, only that there are predictable reasons why people demand the things they do. You're arguing that demands are completely arbitrary and based on nothing but subjective, relative phenomena. I'm calling bullshit on that concept.

Because your point of view is wrong and retarded.

NO YOU DIDN'T, DUMBASS. You have been entirely focused on localized phenomena and acting as if the whole of society is a disconnected mess of actions that have no common root. In short, you don't understand historical materialism even in the crudest sense.

Marx expounds on the money-form in Capital. Money can be literally anything, gold has no intrinsic claim to be money and Marx states as much.

Bread does not have a subjective nature. Something is bread, or it isn't.

Of course, value is ultimately a subjective judgement. But the origins of the concept of value in society are objective, which is why producers do not arbitrarily jack up or lower prices at a whim. If they did, then end prices wouldn't have an equilibrium in a free market and they'd be all over the map. Fucking read Capital chapter 1.

The origins of fads like widget spinners may be inscrutable to the knowledge we have, but they come from SOMEWHERE. Again you're failing to grasp historical materialism and think that demand just pops literally out of nowhere. If human societies operated like this on a large scale, it would be absolute chaos, yet over time there isn't that much chaos.

GAAAAH SUBJECTIVE VALUE THEORY IDEOLOGY STRIKES AGAIN. I'm not even going to bother with this one.

I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE PRODUCTION PROCESS YOU MORON. You know, the part where shit is actually produced, not resold. You are literally incapable of grasping that the retailer's goods come from somewhere, or something like that.

Muh job creators. God damn.

So you're back to arguing that the preferences of society in aggregate are completely unknowable and random?

Great, you finally understand that capitalism can fuck up. But the producer still has to sink resources and labor into building those cars.
Now try, if your brain can comprehend it, to take that example and make it the norm for society, that firms overproduce on a massive scale and can't sell their wares. Can you see now where a problem arises with capitalism if labor-time is expended on goods that don't sell? The laborer still put in his time and sweat to build the shit, and the producer had to pay the laborer. If this happens on a massive scale under capitalism, then you have by definition a pretty shitty system for allocating human labor.

Inequality of capability is not fixed entirely by nature. A lot of people who could become surgeons do not, for a variety of reasons, but there is no rule that surgery is a mystical art only knowable by a few. Surely there are quite a few people who cannot feasibly become surgeons, but with enough education and study the average person could become a surgeon. It's just easier for society to single out the people who have a natural aptitude and desire to become surgeons. The important thing for the surgeon role is the things that the surgeon does, not their pedigree or being six feet tall or whatever.

I TOLD YOU COUNTLESS TIMES, THE LABOR THEORY OF VALUE EXPLAINS EQUILIBRIUM PRICES. NOW IN ORDER TO DEMONSTRATE THE INADEQUACY OF THE THEORY, YOU COULD PROVE TO ME THAT IT IS EITHER EMPIRICALLY WRONG OR THAT IT IS FALSIFIABLE.

Later on, you go on to dismiss the concept on irrational grounds by stating: GAAAAH SUBJECTIVE VALUE THEORY IDEOLOGY STRIKES AGAIN.
My subjective desires is proof that there is no such thing as objective demand. Consumers determine the value of products because they want them. Your fatal flaw is assuming "consumers" are a monolith.
You're right, ad campaigns spark demand in specific demographics. Take wigs, for example. A niche market that has demand from people who are bald or want hair extensions/different colours of hair.
Exactly. I've never claimed demand only exists in a free market. See:
I touch on black markets, too.
Strawman. The point is that within the foodstuff industry, there is preference towards specific brands over others, not that the entire concept of homeostasis (gathering nutrients as sustenance) is 'bunk' because some people prefer cream cheese over feta.
And performed on an individual level. Individuals can operate as self-employed citizens in a one-man enterprise. This reductionist approach is not confirmed in reality.
Does not mean that individual enterprises are non-existent. Again, the crux of your argument is to avoid nuance and exceptions. When you make statements as absolute as that, you must preface the issue that people can work for themselves, by themselves. Of course, the general trend is that humans interact with one another and trade, because not everybody can do everything for themselves. But many tasks are outside of this social requirement for cooperation.
You don't need to pretend, you can do it yourself. For example: youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA.
See above, already discussed the inaccuracies.
I mentioned corporate loss because the assumption is that corporate losses are inconsequential to the evolution of an industry.
A criticism has to be based in reality and reasonably sound. Marx's criticism, as you just admit, omits a crucial component: namely, profitability of individual firms.
Good, they shouldn't if they cannot compete.
Excellent. This is not a bad thing, it just goes to show that, say, Microsoft or Walmart are better than the rest. Maybe if you want to make it easier for smaller firms to compete, don't tax small businesses.
Then go and make billions. You realize what you're dealing with here? You can predict consumer demand to a degree. You are sitting on a gold mine. Go make yourself rich, you are obviously a clairvoyant!
Consumer preference isn't arbitrary, it's the central premise and is very much so relevant to the discussion.
Once again, demonstrating your own incapability. If my POV is so infantile, so preposterously incorrect, how come it takes you that long to actually accurately demonstrate my position? Speaks more to your inability than it does mine (and also assumes ad hominem attacks are rational when you make them, but irrational when I do).

See:

Keep up, if you're too lazy to accurately examine the opposition's viewpoint, just admit it. It's really easy. Also, [citation needed] on your assertion on my viewpoints. I just provided mine. I have discussed individual demand from my POV, and as a larger concept, like consumers at a grocery store in my neighbourhood.
Excellent, it's a fairly well-known concept.
Strawman. The subjective nature of bread in the context of its demand on a marketplace. Not "bread, or un-bread". The point was about the following: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease.
See above.
Great, we agree. Value is subjectively judged, based on individuals and their preferences. You have just nullified any position you had by ceding this territory to me.
Except they do when they own their business and see a profit incentive to do so. It isn't "on a whim", they have market analysts that focus many thousands of hours collectively to examine the product's performance. That's how sales work: if they can afford it, they put the item on sale because they realize they can afford to.
The price point that an object is sold at does not have to remain 'in equilibrium' with anything but the supply. If you have a low supply of an item and dip the price drastically, you will not make as much money if you had chosen to increase the price. An 'equilibrium' requires another component, so incorrectly citing "chapter one" isn't exactly elaborating your claim. Also, you should read this on properly citing a work: owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/06/.
"Just read this chapter" isn't a citation.
Go read the market, you're the clairvoyant.
I don't think I've ever claimed that demand pops out of nowhere. In fact, on the spinner argument, I said that it became a meme: humans are social animals and such trinkets can bolster your status in a social circle, or you can get it as a joke. Again, not from "nowhere", but keep strawmanning the point without pointing to a post where I said that demand pops up from the aether.
Now I'll be more direct: cite the post where I made such a claim. I quote my own spinner argument: Or maybe it's because the concept [fidget spinners] was created a decade ago and only gained notoriety when it became a meme because consumers thought of it that way…

You haven't bothered with anything, you've just name-called, improperly cited works (true intellectualism ftw), and strawmanned my position without pointing to a post where I said what you assert. Oh, and repeated yourself even after I'd refuted the positions with sources and elaborations.
So specify what it is you're discussing instead of just saying "'m talking about what a factory or a farm produces, not what gets discarded in the supply chain due to a lack of demand or whatever", because the "whatever" is exactly what I'm discussing.

Excellent rebuttal, saying "god damn". Let me guess, is there another book you want to "cite" that you haven't read, either? "Go read chapter twelve, I'm sure my argument is there somewhere!"

This, coming from the clairvoyant who can read the markets because it all has origin that doesn't rely on your half-baked retrospective ramblings. No wonder many Marxists were middle-class or even from wealthy families…

I'd discussed corporate losses a while back. Again, keep up, see:
The glazier's fallacy is a perfect demonstration of banging your head against a concrete wall thinking you're getting shit done because someone said it benefits the economy. That's how companies go under: assuming markets exist for ditch-diggers who fill up the holes they make.

Sure, of course they do. The resources are wasted and become worthless when they are not sold (after they've been assembled).
I'm familiar with the argument, already. Blockbuster and Netflix, etc. Already happens because culture and society are not monoliths: they are changing because the preferences of the public change, sparking new demand.
Sounds like a personal problem for a failing business. Let them fail.
Yeah, the worker still gets paid because it's government regulation. He just can't pay his to keep his own business afloat, so it fails. Good.
It's actually excellent because it weeds out the inferior. Putting up a safety net is counter-productive to finding the best ideas from companies.

Never said it was. People fail because they get in car accidents and cannot work. Star athletes get killed by things they can't outrun. A proportion is natural, though. Bill Gates can work his entire life, but he can never play basketball as good as Michael Jordan could.
How the fuck do you know a self-admitted unknowable truth (if they become, say, teachers)? Explain to me how you know they could have become surgeons. Where are all these potential surgeons?
Never said that. I said that the training and success is not something anybody can do, because it is difficult and requires skill that not everybody has.
That's my entire argument.
Why don't you try that. I would LOVE to see this implemented. Let's see all those potential surgeons prove their capability. Do you have a single statistics, a single study, or a single metric from which you can examine and measure this assertion? I await such a response. Seems like a load of horseshit over-estimating people's ability.
What the fuck are you talking about. I thought it wasn't entirely natural, yet here you say that there is a natural 'aptitude' for this level of skill? I disagree insofar as it can also be environmental, too. Some people might be killed before they become surgeons. But claiming you confidently know they were going to be surgeons is speculation acting as evidence. I'll be the first to admit I was speculating with the statement I made about the car killing of a potential surgeon: I can't read the future, neither can you.
Talking about their mental capabilities, not height.

"Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat". Or, "the burden of the proof lies upon him who affirms, not him who denies".

Why do you take forever rationalizing your own incorrect and incoherent view of the world? I laid out the critical flaws in your reasoning very early on and you are constitutionally incapable of comprehending them. I point out your misinterpretations of Marx that are obvious to anyone who is remotely acquainted with what Marx actually wrote and you persist in those misinterpretations.

When we're talking about the LTV, we're talking about production for exchange on the market. Once you enter the market, you're in competition with everyone else that is on the market to exchange your stuff. This is not a hard concept to understand.

Muh taxes. Oh lordy.
I don't want smaller firms to compete, and it's a fools' errand to try to modify capitalism to be friendlier. Communists want the abolition of the value-form. The simplest way to put it is Marx's famous line "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". I'm sure you'll find some way to mangle the understanding of that with your neoliberal logic and I'm not going to bother answering that bullshit.

Then if it isn't arbitrary and firms need to produce certain items for exchange on the market, what do those items all have in common? That they are the product, directly and indirectly, of human labor. Labor is the only commonality between commodities, and is the only basis for which there can be a comparison of exchange-value at the most basic level. This is the simplest way to explain the law of value according to Marx, a view also held by Smith and Ricardo. The realities of market competition are where Marx is able to derive concepts like socially necessary labor time. You're operating (I think) on the misunderstanding that labor-time somehow mystically "imbues" an object with value, when that's not really what Marx is saying.

I mean, god damn it takes you four posts to repeat over and over this libertarian bullshit, and you chide me for taking too long to explain my point? Fuck you very much.

No, they're not special. If society insisted that everyone train or at least try to be a surgeon, you could probably find many millions of potential surgeons in the population. It would be a phenomenal waste of time to educate every single person in the medical knowledge necessary to become a surgeon and specialization of labor is necessary for the myriad other tasks that society wants done. If, however, say 90% of the population were killed and this killing wiped out entirely the professional class, it's not as if the remaining 10% (who we'll say are rural bumpkins in totality) cannot read a fucking book and learn to become surgeons. There would obviously be a desire for medical professionals, from whatever pool of population they need to be drawn from.

Mental capabilities are not entirely inborn. A genius does not automatically become great through no effort of his own, and in practice a lot of human intellect is underutilized by this society, let alone the parts of the world where education is simply not possible regardless of the inborn talents of the poor population.

Because I did it with the first post I made here:
The brilliant response:

Except when your interpretation of my position was accurate half-way throughout your post here:

"Now who's being subjectivist here?"
Me, keep up.
"You're arguing from the subjective point of view"
Woah… keep on complaining about my comprehension, though.
If they cite him as well as you do, they haven't read a single page of his work.

None of this addresses my point refuting your dismissal of self-employment (as a one-man operation). You don't have to cooperate with anybody. See: youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA.
It is entirely plausible for individuals to live for themselves, by themselves, and not trade anything on a marketplace.

I quote my last post, slightly amended: Excellent rebuttal, saying "muh". Let me guess, is there another book you want to "cite" that you haven't read, either? "Go read chapter twelve, I'm sure my argument is there somewhere!"

I wonder how Communists think they're going to get the working man on their side when they want to promote disincentives to their success as small businesses competing with the big guy. You really didn't think this one through, did you? No wonder Communism is regarded as it is in the 21st century in the West.
You can want whatever you please, but if you cannot even demonstrate a proper implementation of your ideas, then you will be convincing the masses to take a leap of faith towards your idealistic pipe dream.
simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_need#cite_note-3
Are you sure it's Marx's?
You aren't even familiar with the phrase, yet you want to parade it around as if you're well-read. I love it, this is peak pseudo-intellectualism.
Again, find a way to falsify your hypotheses, or else nobody is going to care about your faith-over-facts nonsense. Burden of proof is on you.
Firms don't need to do anything, they choose to. Most firms fail at doing so because pinpointing consumer demand, that is always changing, is a difficult task.
Well, machines produce many things, so this argument falls flat on its face. You mean a human made the machine? Woah, well we all come from humans, too. Truisms are fun! Still not addressing the central point of consumer preference and its subjective nature: people want different things based on their environments and choices.

First post here:
This has already been dealt with. Blockbuster can work as hard as it wants to as a collective of workers churning out copies of movies all day long. The sum of all their efforts will amount to zero dollars when it all goes belly up because Netflix stole their consumerbase.
People working to produce things=/=value for consumers. Only people working to produce things people demand=value for consumers who choose to buy the things.
See:
Self-refuting point. By definition, that is subjective and dependent on the individual.

Never claimed that, quote me on that.
How many surgeons are there as a percentage of the labour force in the US?
So find me them. Again, burden of proof is on you who affirms the belief that potential surgeons are walking around. I ask again: Do you have a single statistic, a single study, or a single metric from which you can examine and measure this assertion? I await such a response.
Stop pussying out and provide your evidence.

Why don't you focus on the potential surgeons, seeing as how you already admit here:
"Surely there are quite a few people who cannot feasibly become surgeons", then go on to make a claim to truth without evidence (average person can become a surgeon).

I'll repeat myself because this is the central point that demolishes this nonsense belief: Do you have a single statistic, a single study, or a single metric from which you can examine and measure this assertion? I await such a response.
Making empty assertions rooted in over-estimation isn't an argument. I'm sure the MCATs weed idiots out who cannot succeed, but I'm sure that doesn't count towards anything.

Never claimed that. But you can do as much as you want to become a genius: you will still fail to reach the intellectual capability of Terence Tao.
I even said here:
"I disagree insofar as it can also be environmental, too."
I'm sure lots of potential mathematical geniuses just quit, but what I am claiming cannot be measured because it's… speculation! Just like your nonsense.
Like I said, you can try and teach many kids maths from a young age, just as geniuses quit studying, you cannot 'raise' geniuses en masse. Not everyone is born a blank slate with equal capability to succeed.

>None of this addresses my point refuting your dismissal of self-employment (as a one-man operation). You don't have to cooperate with anybody. See: youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA.

Of course it's possible for someone or groups of people to live entirely seperate from each other with no interaction whatsoever, but then you're not talking about production for exchange on the market, which is what the LTV is about. It's irrelevant to the LTV. Nor is production for home use relevant to the LTV, at least not directly. LTV concerns production of goods for exchange.

Are you retarded enough to think the Republicans or Lolberts care about your hypothetical small business or the self-employed?
Maybe this is news to you but smaller firms by nature are at a disadvantage against larger firms. It's not muh big gubermand and muh taxes, except so far as the American government gives preferential treatment, tax breaks, and subsidies to big business - which is what a capitalist state winds up doing when the capitalists can bribe their way into getting whatever they want.

I never said Marx originated the phrase and you're acting like it's a relevant point. You're a fucking sophist. It is still the simplest explanation of what Marx believed should happen, and Marx himself said it.

Okay, let's say wants are completely subjective like you say. It's bullshit but whatever. To fulfill those wants you need to actually do shit, like real shit. Factories don't just crap out products on a whim or spontaneously come into existence because magic. So there are real rules, materialistic rules, that govern production. These can't be the arbitrary whims of the producer, the producer needs to do certain things to achieve an outcome, in order to bring a good to market and sell it. Do you understand that simple idea? That even if you take that the wants of the people are completely subjective and vary from person to person, the way those wants are fulfilled is through a process that is not subjective? Now, what is common between all commodities that come to market? That they are the products of human labor and capital outlays (tools). And all capital outlays can eventually be broken down to human labor and extraction of resources from Nature. So, even if you suppose that demand is completely arbitrary and can change at a whim, production costs are fixed based on a common requirement of, ultimately, labor, and firms cannot regularly sell under the cost of production or else the whole capitalist system would implode. That doesn't mean that there aren't localized cases where producers will produce at a loss or sell their stock at a loss, but that would not be normal or desired operating procedure.

Eat shit and die you eugenicist piece of shit.

are retarded thought experiments which have no basis in reality the "basic economics" that propertarians always whine about?

Aaaand argument over. Keep agreeing with me, please. It's always fun to find people who hate me, yet love to agree with me.
That is my central premise that you just ceded, btw.
The entire argument is that there is not a necessity for exchange.
Well, I've already addressed the issue on 'working hours that are socially relevant' as being a self-refuting concept because it cedes the issue of subjectivity within a society, and that nobody cares how long you work if nobody buys it. The point I was making is that people don't need to cooperate to survive.
Where did I say that? See, notice a theme among this? Every time I call you out on your assertions towards something I said and ask for a quote, you pussy out and skip past that part. Why don't you find me a point where I defend Republican policy towards small businesses? All I said was that not taxing them as much will be better for obvious reasons (more expendable income for them to utilize as a small business).
Every large firm was a small firm. If they are at a disadvantage, then they can't compete. Let them fail.
Kind of is if you're taxing them 20-30%.
Great, keep it up. Small businesses need it most.
AHAHAHAH I love this, keep up the damage control. I quote your post here:
Better delete it quick!
LOL

They are. I prefer things you don't.
Irrelevant to the question of personal preference. It doesn't matter how much effort it takes to produce 'x' if I want 'y'.
See:
"It isn't "on a whim", they have market analysts that focus many thousands of hours collectively to examine the product's performance."

Except the issue is about personal preference, not how the item is produced. The assembly line for Ford is "objective"? Its production process is "objective"? It used to be hand-made, but now it is assisted with machines. Change over time is dynamic and not absolute, it isn't "objective".
Humans created them. Woah… so this is the power of truisms. Did you know all humans were also born from a sperm and an egg? Woah…
Now what does this tell us about individual preference? That it doesn't matter how the product is made, it will sell for nothing if nobody buys it. All that "objective effort" (that changes over time) is worthless.
Humans are born from a mother and a father. Yup, shocking stuff. Still missing the point about personal preferences.
Any system will implode. People don't work for free, they don't want hugs as reimbursement, they want a unit that can be exchanged for other things, like currency.
The only truthful thing in your post. You basically admit that corporate losses exist because they failed at meeting consumer demand because it doesn't matter how hard they worked: selling garbage products will force you to drive the price down as you desperately look for a buyer.

Aww, run off to the mods to block the bad man?
Still not answering the question, which I repeat again: Do you have a single statistic, a single study, or a single metric from which you can examine and measure this assertion?
Looks like I found a bootyblasted "potential surgeon" who failed the MCATs or something. Take a chill pill, man.
Not to mention your complete refusal to argue rationally. I'm sorry, but the theory of evolution has been thoroughly demonstrated. Whether or not you want to believe that the environment is the only component in shaping groups is up to you, but Lamarckism and all its silly off-shoots have already been debunked. Darwin was correct, sorry to let you know.

Tell that to the ditch diggers out of a job complaining about "the economy". Of course I don't actually mean "ditch digging", I mean jobs that aren't worth the effort it takes to complete them.

Please kill yourself.

I quote from my post above: Excellent rebuttal! Let me guess, is there another book you want to "cite" that you haven't read, either? "Go read chapter twelve, I'm sure my argument is there somewhere!"
This is peak Communist rhetoric.

Apples are not stored on shelves, they are stored in bags

...

Remember to report this faggot every time. Arguing with him is killing valuable time, just sage, tell him to kill himself and report.

Yes and that influences back on the SNLT as well as the production process
kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/law-of-value-10-price-and-value/
doesn't mean he created it
Ignoring how that ignores the earliest forms of human societies, if technology is advanced enough and we can create pretty much everything in abundance, it will no longer be the case
Plus Mutual Aid is a thing that exists

Sage is a thing

I'll be damned, I stand corrected
Good day

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.

Society evolves and changes over time. Therefore, what is useful today is not useful the next day. You just admitted to the subjective nature of demand by admitting that different people want different things ("Yes and…"). That is the entire point. It is irrelevant how much effort a business puts into a product if it doesn't meet the demand. That's why many businesses fail. Not the only reason, but it is pretty important.
Then it isn't "his famous line", it is somebody else's line. Don't attribute to him what he did not coin.
People worked for free because currency didn't exist. That's like saying people didn't actually breath because Oxygen was not observed. Doesn't mean a quid pro quo did not exist, although this era you are referencing is prehistoric, and often predates writing, so there is literally no way you can come across a demonstrable truth. I'm not sure what prehistoric man's economy looked like, but people worked inwards out (speculation, again) insofar as they assisted themselves, their family, then their nearest tribe first. Also, appealing to archaic forms of society can be used to justify any argument. We "used to" do many things that we evolved out of, such as the development of cell theory to explain our surroundings.
How do you know this is possible?
Elaborate on this point.

So sage.

The most honest man I've debated here, much better than the last guy who assumed everyone can be a surgeon if they just "try hard enough". Dude mental faculties lmao.

Nice link. Naturally the idiot didn't bother to read and just keeps going Mises.

See:
Still without response, kind of like:
Oh wait, another genius decided to use the following logic:
You have to demonstrate how the link I first cited is erroneous, how Mises as a source has been erroneous, and how you can attribute that history to this judgement now.

Mises is a fucking fascist tool. That tells you enough about how valuable he is as a source on anything.

Can you define fascism? Can you demonstrate how that definition can be extended to Mises by citing his work as a 'fascist'?

-Ludwig von Mises

see

Well, that's a quote, not a properly cited one. Where was this said? Also, can you explain how commenting on fascism (in the form of dictatorships) as a 'temporary saviour' makes you a fascist? Can you also cite the relevant context where Mises explains what the intentions are? Seems like there were passages before and after which elaborate on the issue.

See:

For example, Hillary Clinton has worn a hijab when visiting Muslim nations and has spoken against anti-Islamic speech. This does not make her ideologically aligned with Islam as a movement. Whereas if she said "I am aligned with the views of Islamic schools of thought" (or something along those lines of endorsement), that would be a different story.

see

See:
AHAHAHAH I love this, keep up the damage control. I quote your post here:
Better delete it quick!
LOL

What does this have to do with keynesianism

Don't make me call my nigga Krugman to break some windows just so he can fix them up.

lol praising Krugman

Every time. Propertarians are a fucking joke. Krugman is closer to Friedman than to Keynes.

Context: mises.org/library/broken-window-fallacy.

By what judgement?

I look at that post and all I see is autism. The point is: the Mises article does not refute or even try to refute Marx's arguments so posting it in a thread about Marx is a non-sequitor. Now fuck off and take your meds.

Fuck off tankie

Woah… so this is the power of the Communist mind…
Because it wasn't directed to Marx specifically because Marx, like the intellectual hack that he is, ought not be the sole owner of the concept because it did not originate with him: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#History.

He's a neoliberal, not a social democrat. Once again, "muh broken windows" has no basis in reality. In the 50s, when keynesianism was government policy almost everywhere, did the government send police to smash windows to "create jobs" or shit like that? It's like the mudpie argument.
"muh basic economics" is libertarian newspeak for retarded thought experiments like barter economies and the tragedy of the commons

No just things that are autistic (you)

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#History
If you actually read that article yourself you'd know why the Mises article does nothing to refute Marx

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Karl_Marx

Keynes wasn't a social democrat. He was a fascist. Yeah, didn't you know? He once commented on fascism, so he's a fascist.
Yeah, do you understand what the fallacy actually represents? Read the article before commenting on it.

Don't remember using that term, but keep on projecting, it's fun to watch.

Where's your diagnosis?
See:
"Because it wasn't directed to Marx specifically because Marx, like the intellectual hack that he is, ought not be the sole owner of the concept because it did not originate with him: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#History."
All of this to avoid the arguments within. "I didn't find Marx's name, so it doesn't count".
Well, I didn't see Mises namedropped, so no arguments were actually raised that are in contradiction to any other arguments…

ourselves to the propositions of political economy itself.
have already seen, identical with the increase of poverty and slavery. The relation between increasing house rent and increasing poverty is an example of the landlord’s interest in society, for the ground rent, the interest obtained from the land on which the house stands, goes up with the rent of the house.
production.

Why did you quote this random part of the article, just for funsies? I assume so because it has nothing to do with Marx. If you don't want to engage with Marxist concepts then you should find a classical economist board and argue there.

When you copy-paste things without properly formatting them, it's obvious.
What's with these poor false dichotomies? Emotional manipulation?

Because it's one of the arguments mentioned.
Then you agree on its principles if you offer no rebuttal. We can hear you repeat the central claims from the link (which you and I seem to agree on), then repeat the concepts erroneously assumed to be truthful (regarding labour being relevant to value) in conjunction.

No argument as usual.

Well, just claiming "it doesn't deal with labour being a determining factor in the worth of a product" is bunk if you review the logical conclusion of the main points raised.

Are you going to actually argue with or just shitpost?

Correct. It's poorly written and shallow but that doesn't mean it's in contradiction with Marx. With little work, you can retool it to be a Marxist rebuttal of the labor theory of value.

I just pointed out how it actually does address the issue of 'labour hours' being irrelevant to the discussion. You can dodge it all you want, you won't be the first: I've been trying to argue the point with almost everyone.
Alright, so we are in agreement that it is mistaken to assume work, in itself, has economic value.

Services and goods can just as much be commodified. The average amount of labor time required to produce a service determines its exchange value. It is wrong to view wage labor as exclusively pertaining to the production of a physical good.

is this your thinking or does marx agree

Marx was actually a fascist. So, who cares what he says because he's a fascist and "that tells you enough about how valuable he is as a source on anything". Yeah, it's true. I don't have to define fascism or provide a sourced quotation of his endorsement of fascist ideals in part or in whole, though.

...

wasted dubs

Restaurants

Yeah, that's about as intellectually honest as you sound when you claim anarchists are fascists.

when did i claim this

I have no way to prove you said anything other than what you just said, but there was an individual above who claimed that anybody who speaks OF fascism makes them fascist, making Mises and the rest of the lot fascists, by default (despite the quote being "It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aimed at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has for the moment saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history." while conveniently leaving out the "But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.").
Unlike the other pseudo-intellectual, I will provide a citation for my claims. Page 51 of 'Liberalism: a Socio-Economic Exposition'. It is just dishonest to call the lot 'fascists' by any stretch of the definition.

...

In of itself, work doesn't have value, but all things that have value come from Nature or labor (which is itself a manifestation of a natural force), or can be traced back to a process which involves (dead) labor. The particulars of whether a good sells or doesn't is a process which simply means that, if the good doesn't sell, the labor expended on it wound up being useless or worth less in exchange-value. But the producer cannot predict the future with perfect clarity, and the future cannot go back and alter the past.

Let me put it this way - would a factory produce a commodity if it KNEW it would not make a profit on it? Probably not. The risk of something selling at a net negative or not at all to the factory owner is a risk they take on, but at the time of production the factory owner is thinking the good will sell at its preferred price, if not now then at some point in the future. For the factory owner, it doesn't matter if the product reaches someone who will actually use it at the end - all that matters is that it sells and money transfers into the factory owner's pocket.

It's at the point of production that the creative, productive labor takes place, which is why I'm stressing the difference between the factory owner selling stuff and retailers selling stuff. What the retailer gets out of selling the good (if they sell it) does nothing to the factory owner's bottom line, so long as the factory owner can keep producing at a profit. Now, if there's a crisis and lots of people can't buy what the factories are making, then… there's a crisis, and it's probably affecting more people than that one factory.

Marx predicted that capitalism would endure periodic crises, depressions and recessions as a result of its inherent instability, of the problems of the market. You might sit back and say all of the people who lost their homes in the 07 crisis had it coming, but it's not as if the financial institutions were asking for a run on the banks to trigger what happened then. The whole debacle hurt everyone, ordinary people, businesses, even those at the top - until the big banks were bailed out with a ginormous sum of money printed by the government to cover up a market fuckup.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Alright, so when you said "correct" to our agreement, you didn't really agree with me: which is the entire point of mentioning the article, as it runs contrary to this narrative.
You've also just contradicted yourself. Work has no value, but value comes from natural force manifested within labour? Natural forces are a weird way of tip-toeing around human effort (as we are "natural" and biotic).
That's exactly what it means. See how useful your lemonade is if nobody buys your lemonade stand. You will get diabetes before you sell a glass: you'll really just be buying shit you drink before it goes stale.
Welcome to the stock market.
Agreed. It is because of the unknowability factor that corporate losses accumulate.
Why should it? All that matters is that they get a loyal customer, so it's a mutually beneficial agreement for the consumer to seek out products that are sound/have quality, and for producers to provide said products. It doesn't matter who uses it: the producer doesn't own it anymore, the consumer does. He can sell it if he wishes. Even if you make it illegal, the shit will still sell (black markets).
This assumes that those who re-sell items on the black market are not creative, or don't produce as much as those who first created the, say, iPhone. Not always the case, as many times, the item on the black market is sold and in such high demand precisely because of the (often illegal) creative energy expended upon the item that the initial producer did not expend.
That's why the retailer takes a risk in selling things he bought. If they fail, then the business sinks. Kind of like any company that buys items in bulk, customizes them, and can't sell them: they go belly-up and all the shirts are effectively worthless.
Probably true, sounds reasonable.
And he won't be the last.
Don't take out mortgages you can't pay back and don't loan mortgages to people who can't pay them back. A multi-faceted issue steeped in failure that should have been left alone to properly fail.
True, we should have let them fail.
See above.

Dude it's multiple people trying to reason with or simply laughing at your autism. The guy who said "Correct" is not me, and you're going autist about this supposed validation.

Factory owners aren't in the business of producing at a loss with regularity, unless they're shitty at capitalism. If there were a systemic situation where factory owners were continuously unable to sell their stock or had to stop production, then we have a problem. Do you not understand that the supposed point of capitalism is that it "works" - i.e. that the market is the most efficient allocator of resources possible? Yet, capitalism suffers systemic crises, and its current incarnation requires a lot of government spending, consumer debt, and financial tricks to maintain itself in a somewhat stable form.
I dare you to envision what will happen when Mises' neoliberal paradise becomes reality.

When did I say anything about black markets retard? Did you not read the part where I told you the factory owner doesn't give a shit what happens to the product after it sells? And why are you contradicting yourself just after your last point.
Of course commodities can be used to manufacture other commodities, or transformed from one commodity to another, that happens all the time. But you're trying to make the retarded point that if someone modifies a product after it exits the factory, it somehow alters the production process, inputs and outputs of the original factory's production process. I don't even know how you come around to this logic. You can't alter the past, that's common sense.

If you think this would have ushered in the neoliberal paradise Mises wanted, you're wrong. The neoliberals are all about government intervention and welfare when it comes to protecting their asses. Your man Mises himself said it when he merited Fascism - neoliberals will accept terrible things in order to uphold their own muh privileged position.

And that's what the capitalist state does - what it has to do. There was no alternative to bailing out the banks because the system demanded it in order to remain stable. It's not a matter of whether it suits your sensibilities or mine, if the banks don't get bailed out the global finance system collapses, and the banks leveraged their position to put a choke hold on the people. Now you have to ask yourself, if this a system worth upholding, when trillions of dollars need to be printed and fed mostly to the super-rich just to keep the game going?

A service provides a use value to the user, doesn't it? And you can perfectly produce this use value with the aim of realizing exchange value.

I don't think he necessarily could conceive of the kind of service economy we have now. In 19th century Great Britain, you're talking about a context where domestic servants were the biggest part of the of service industry. The dynamics of that are a tad different from what we have now.

Yeah, so when you reply to the post I made replying to him, what do you expect me to think? It's a linear observation, bring IDs if you wish, makes things easier. Also, I've already pointed out how slander gets you nowhere and only highlights your ineptitude. When your exact argument is reversed, you complain about unfair logical judgement.
True, hence the requirement for successful owners to produce products that are desirable and work properly, otherwise all the effort at advertising, harvesting, assembling, etc., will be worth zero dollars on the market.
Yes, already in agreement.
Not really an issue with capitalism, the same will be true in any system because individuals will congregate to markets to trade. Restrict them all you want, ban things until the cows come home: black markets will always exist.
Yeah, except the 'capitalist system' can't exactly operate as defined, what with the private ownership, if it's just state ownership that allows 'private ownership but only when we say so'. Refutes the concept.
Never been tried.
Because you are operating on a false premise: that there is no creative effort after an item is sold initially. This is demonstrably untrue, black markets refute this.
Explanation, otherwise this is an empty accusation.
Yes, so then the "creative, productive labor" is not necessarily bound by the initial transfer.
No, that's the exact opposite: I'm stating that there is a NEW production process improving upon the previous one (often illegally) in order to sell it on a NEW market.
Nice projection, don't remember anytime I claimed what I thought would happen.
Good thing Mises wasn't about state intervention, that would be contrary to the whole "private ownership in a free market" concept.
See:
Already refuted the quote-mining sophistry.
Wrong: don't bail them out.
So sayeth the capitalist who believes in a restricted market… oh wait.
Good, let them.
Says more about the business' practices and their enablers (within the government) than it does on "the system". Aren't you the same lot that whine about not judging a single attempt at socialism as being representative of the whole bunch?

To add onto that, when you inevitably bring up an implementation, if the means of production were not owned 100%, without restriction in any way, shape, or form, by the private owners, then you can claim that it was a free market. If it wasn't, then that makes Venezuela socialist.

Let me put it another way - just as the factory owner just wants to sell his stuff to whomever will buy, the worker just wants to sell his labor to whomever will buy (in this case, the factory owner). When the worker works, he enters into an exchange with the factory owner AT THAT MOMENT, and throughout his labor-time, and the factory owner expects so much output from his worker(s). For example, let's say the worker's expectation is to produce 100 widgets an hour - the worker is effectively selling 100 widgets to the factory owner in exchange for his hourly wage. Whatever happens to the widgets after they are produce is frankly not the worker's concern, at least not directly. All that matters to the worker is that he is paid, the worker personally doesn't care about the widgets and maybe (probably) hates his job.

Markets can't be entirely, forcibly erased, but there can be a situation where the vast majority of human production and distribution is not through markets. The existence of black markets doesn't negate socialism/communism, just as slavery's existence didn't negate capitalism as a system.

What is this ancap garbage? Private property rights only exist because a state defends them. Without a state and laws regarding private property, your deed to your land or car only goes as far as your and your friends' ability to enforce ownership by force.
Also, you have no proof that this magical ancap system will not have the same market crises as before. The mean old government didn't create the Great Depression because they intervened too much, and the 2007 crisis was caused in part by deregulation and a run on the banks which caused the market to panic. Pre-1929 the government was incredibly hands-off with the economy until the shit hit the fan.

I never said any such thing. I said explicitly that commodities can be used to make other commodities, by being assembled in configurations or transformed by processes. That doesn't require muh black markets, that's a normal process when an item's production cycle is traced back to its component parts. You're just repeating the same time travel nonsense that implies that when a product is built in factory A and modified by B, that A's production process or the value A creates is somehow modified from the future.

This doesn't make any meaningful point. Once a product leaves a factory, a multitude of things can happen to that product that modify its qualities, and it can be exchanged or used in a multitude of ways. So what? The introduction of that new item to a new market might have an effect on the original factory's future (for example the used car market affects the market for new cars), but it doesn't travel back in time and make the original manufacture process worth less.

Something tells me you're not up for an honest discussion about why the USSR fell, and lack the historical literacy to hold such a conversation.

USSR was state capitalism. The state can be a capitalist, worker co-ops or even a worldwide coalition of worker co-ops can be capitalist. Socialism isn't just a replacement of private capitalists with the workers collectively acting as a capitalist, either. Nor is it an arrangement of small democratically-managed co-op capitalists. It's an entirely different mode of production (look up the term "mode of production" before you bother me again plz).

Freedom of association doesn't force either into parasitic relationships. The worker can sign a contract with the owner's competition if he finds a better deal. Selling your time because you prefer money in exchange, sure.
Hours worked? Yeah, but the joules aren't measured, so it isn't actually 'work'. It's just a 9-5 job.
Yeah, he's an assembly worker. He didn't actually produce the plastic for the spinners, though. Don't conflate the two things. He is an assembly worker putting the components of a product together. Then, it goes on to the final stage where it is put in a bag or container to be sold. Then, it's shipped off. It isn't just "worker makes thing", kind of reductionist and ignoring all the other parts involved, which are arguably more important than the worker, like the advertising/marketing sector.
Because he doesn't own them. He signed a contract to assemble them.
So don't be a spinner assemblyperson.
I await such a system. Until you have evidence of its necessity/inevitability, I will reject your speculation because it lacks any reasonable grounds.
False equivalence. Black markets will always exist when you enforce bans on goods/services with state power because you only lower supply, not demand. This will be true in any setting. Slavery does not always arise from capitalism, free people are not property and the entire point is mutualism: workers are paid wages as employers compete with one another.
"an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."
State control=/=private control.
Forgetting about property taxes. How convenient, because that's all the state does. Newsflash: protection does not have to be collective in its origin. I can protect my own assets, people have been hiring protection for a while now.
Laws don't exist, so deeds don't, either. See the point about the false premise of "any protection must be collective".
Difference between us is that I don't claim it won't. I don't know about the future, so I keep my mouth shut.
Herbert Hoover would like to have a word with you: econlib.org/library/Enc/HooversEconomicPolicies.html.
So let them fail.

"The merchants and retailers who distribute the goods don't add any value to the commodities, they're just a necessity of delivering the goods from the factory to the end user"
No "creative power of labour" is relevant in that end of the transaction.
Which is creative labour after the initial production.
Never said it was dependent on it, I said that we can observe it there. I can purchase an item and change it in order to resell it. People flip houses all the time.
Not from the future, in the future. In the future, its value is changed because people intervene and change it.
It means that your 'black market is where it can only happen' point against me is bunk: I said a NEW market, not necessarily a black market.
That's the point. It isn't some static value.
Not claiming it will. If I buy a house and flip it, that doesn't affect the initial production cost and worth of the house when it was first made: I improve upon it myself, that's the point. I am putting peanut butter on bread and selling it.
Bypassing my entire point: I can level the same argument against your dismissed definitions of capitalism=state control. I already have, except I've made no claim on the USSR/WHY it fell, but that calling it things it isn't is wrong in your eyes, yet you can call capitalism whatever you want.
We will see in the next quote.
See the definition above. State capitalism is to capitalism as fascism is to liberal democracy.
You're describing corporatism if you invoke state intervention. Not equivalent to state capitalism. Private owners either control the MoP or they don't. If a state controls it for them, then that's like saying capitalists can control the MoP and have the system be described as socialist because private ownership=public ownership.
Never claimed it is. Kind of like how state control=/=private control: mises.org/library/capitalism-versus-statism.

Are you capable of following an example? I'm drawing a parallel between the sale of the worker's labor and the factory owner's produce. The particulars of why the worker is there don't matter, worker wants money.

The components of the widget and the machinery used are capital outlays, which come from the products of (dead) labor. Where the components and machinery come from is not important to my example, but the components can all be traced back to the product of labors of some sort. The important thing is that no worker = no widgets, even if the factory owner has everything else he needs. Advertising doesn't add any value to the widget, it merely stimulates demand which is irrelevant to LTV (LTV affects the equilibrium price where supply and demand cancel out).

Why are you so autistic about the existence of markets? There are many things people do for each other outside of the market already, it's not a stretch to expand that to a wider range of things on a society-wide level. Read Critique of the Gotha Program (or don't, I keep trying to believe you're not a shitposter).

No one is talking about banning markets with a huge-ass police force, nitwit.

Try fending off a heavily armed gang that has you outgunned in your ancapistan and see how much your property rights mean.

Learn to fucking read what I wrote. I'm not contradicting anything about either of these things. The points you are making are entirely irrelevant shitposting that have nothing to do with LTV.

Modifying the product is applying some form of labor to it, and there is no rule that a product can't decay over time naturally. You're invoking time travel again and retroactively changing the value of a product, or you're making an utterly irrelevant point.

See above

That is a retarded analogy.

Fascist corporatism and the USSR's state-run enterprises were very different things. Learn your fucking history. Fascism was built on class collaboration with the already-existing business class, and was backed by the capitalists to crush the socialists in Germany (and later all of Europe, as much as they could try). The business leaders of Germany were willing to accept subordination to the fascist state in order to keep their private fortunes. USSR was just a shitty implementation of capitalism (state-run enterprises coordinated by a central bureaucracy) with some "socialist" aspirations that didn't work out.

Socialism is not state capitalism, retard. Did you look up "mode of production" like I told you to? Probably not.

READ ABOUT THE FUCKING MODE OF PRODUCTION, IDIOT. Socialism is not "when the government does stuff", if you can get past your libertarian autism. A state-capitalist or co-op capitalist can be every bit as ruthless as a "private capitalist" and create the same kind of environment. The most likely way state-capitalism forms is through megacorporations consolidating their power, removing "regulations" like the army and police and putting them under "private" (i.e. oligarchic) control. Then they would be "the state" in all but name (and after a while, the "in name" part can be dropped).

Workers seek out different employment opportunities precisely because of the financial motivation (and personal preference).
Multi-faceted, not attributable to a singular origin because it is the effort of many individuals/companies put together. Call it what you will.
Except when the machinery is sold, the company forfeits ownership because of the exchange. And the labour exerted from the workers who first assembled the machinery was already forfeited on the employment contract (they aren't self-employed).
Workers. Multiple, many all working together. No one individual can be called the sole 'creator'.
That's how consumer demand is created and portrayed. It is the most important step. You must be unfamiliar with advertising, because it is the most pivotal role: a lack of advertising=no sales. Nobody will know. That's why word of mouth, adverts on the side of buses, etc. are so important. It highlights the value. The advertising portion is the final, crucial step. The people who do that are worth more than those who assemble it, they add all the value by creating the demand or showing people what it is they have desired.
Or creates it. Depends. Again, still adding value to the product. Without them, the product does not sell if nobody knows what it is.
It actually is: it's called a fallacy of composition. What may be true in part is not always true in whole, and extended it to the whole is irrational unless you can provide evidence, which you have not. "Read" isn't a citation, learn to cite works: owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/06/.
"Read Smith, I'm sure my argument is there somewhere because this is how people cite literature in academia".
Pseudo-intellectuals: when will they learn?
No one is talking about banning markets with a huge-ass police force, nitwit.
Don't remember stating that. Manipulating quotes to make it sound like something else was said sure is intellectually honest. And you expect the same courtesy to be extended to you and have the audacity to whine when people aren't "accurate".
With another heavily armed gang I paid to protect against other gangs. Easy. Been done before, that's what mercenaries are.
Learn to quote passages properly.
Was discussing creative labour present after initial production of 'x', a tangent from the issue. You have also gone on tangents, so your "shitposting" is just as "irrelevant". Talking about autism? I guess that means your argument can be discounted off the bat.
Or improve from creative efforts, which is what happens when you flip a house. You buy a house for 200k, flip it, costing you 50k, then sell it for 300k, making a 50k profit. That analogy does nothing to make a claim to truth on the original 200k sale point; instead, it highlights the road from 200k to 300k after the house itself was constructed (from the architect's mind to the hammer). Conflating the two points only shows your desire to latch onto something that isn't being said.
See above.
Statism is not equivalent to private control.
Never called the USSR fascist. Quote me on that.

Until the capitalists escaped to Europe, like the Warburgs.
At least you admit the private owners were subordinate to the state, meaning that they had limited/restricted power. That isn't capitalism. If it is, then restricted public ownership=socialism, too.
Explain, with citations from historically relevant sources, how private enterprise was allowed to operate without restriction. If there was a single law against its freedom, it is not capitalist, by definition. State control=/=capitalism.
The simile that followed was highlighting the inaccuracy of your assertion, extended to socialism. That's the point, it's clearly gone over your head. Just as partial public control=/=socialism, partial private control=/=capitalism. Restrictions on what can be done by a state=state authority, not private or public control.
Never claimed that, citation on that point.
Never made an assertion on its 'ruthlessness', you mentioned it for the first time there, you aren't even bothering to quote me on anything, you're just making up shit to bolster your strawmen. I said that socialism is not restricted public ownership just as capitalism is not restricted private ownership. Venezuela is not socialist because the workers don't own, entirely and without restriction, the MoP. Any capitalist system that follows the same methodology (replace public w/ private) has the same judgement extended to it. You're only getting upset and emotionally flustered because I'm extending the same logical framework used on "not true socialism" to capitalism.
It's through state intervention, restricting what private owners can and cannot do. It isn't capitalist, sorry. I already provided the definition above, you've only manipulated it, not refuted it.
Corporations cannot set regulations upon one another.
Can't write legislation, can't enforce taxation, can't elect, by board or by popular vote, leaders/cabinets, then it isn't a state.

Marx makes a distinction between "living" labor that is active in a particular production process and "dead" labor that created the components/machinery/consumables/etc. that go into the capital outlays. Wait, do you know what a capital outlay even is? Anyway, the "dead" labor is only represented in the capital outlay the factory owner spends to obtain the components of the widget, tools, etc - and for the producer of the components, they are reduced by a similar process, and so on and so on, until you reach a point where there are no capital outlays, there is just variable labor and surplus value (for example, the raw extraction cost of oil which is turned into plastic which is molded at the widget factory). I know you're a shitposter and all, but this is not a difficult concept to grasp. There is nothing "too multi-faceted" about it.

Read above about "dead labor". If multiple workers are required to assemble a widget in the factory's production process (say it's an assembly line process), the living labor is simply aggregated.

You're invoking time travel again.

More time travel. Also, LTV explains equilibrium prices so supply and demand are irrelevant to the predictions it makes.

Since you are too illiterate to understand the worker example I laid out, I'm not going to comment on it any further.

"Creative efforts" is exactly what labor is, nitwit. If you're just talking about buying a house and reselling it at a higher price, you're not adding any value, you're just shifting value around and profiting from unequal exchange.

I'm not going to write on this idiotic example you keep citing again, either.

So the capitalist fled Europe to… Europe?

Private property and production for exchange is capitalism, you nitwit. It doesn't matter if the private property owner lives under a totalitarian regime, or if the state runs its own enterprises / agencies alongside capitalism.

Private property and production for exchange is capitalism, you nitwit.

Private property and production for exchange is capitalism, you nitwit.

Ever heard of regulatory capture?

Learn what a state actually is. You said yourself that "laws don't exist", yet you expect a corporation that literally owns the army and police to abide by democratic government?

Anyway I'm tired of feeding the troll.
Fun link of the day: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-autistic_economics

Machinery that assists in production is not 'dead' labour, needlessly dividing these two concepts is stupid because it's already been done: people make things that produce items, whereas other items are produced directly. Nothing 'dead' about it if the labour lives on through the machinery.
Not dead labour, efforts still attributable to a separate entity that cannot be discounted. Nothing dead about it. They are more useful and their work is worth more than the assemblymen on the production line. If they are the ones who create the machinery the assemblymen utilize, for example, they allow employment opportunities for the assemblymen to begin with. Allocating the necessary components to be able to, say, produce a car and have your employees assemble the parts (assisted with machinery) is, like I said, a multi-faceted operation. Assembling the parts=/=owning the car or contributing a massive part. The people who transport the parts to/from the factory provide a service, the people who advertise the car provide a service, the people who test the car's safety features to see if it is market-ready provide a service. All of these individuals have more of a claim to the value of the car than the people who just assemble the parts (assisted with machinery that another company created, with other workers who created that machinery). Reductionism does not work in this case.
And if 4 workers are responsible for assembling it, the sale of the widget is in no way related to what they earn because they do not own what they merely assemble (also, the contract that relinquishes any ownership to begin with). The subsequent disputes of 'he said, she said' and 'I did more than you did' will not result in any settlement (in terms of who really 'created' the widget). If the workers are self-employed, then they own it because they own the business. If not, then they don't and they merely assemble the item.
If you do not advertise a product, nobody will know about it. Does not relate to travelling through time. You must first advertise the product for it to sell at a profitable rate, or at any reasonable rate.
See above.
"As Burkeman notes, American workers, like so many others, mistakenly think that work has economic value in itself, and not the product of the work."
From the very first link I cited. The demand of the product is what is relevant to determining its price (in accordance to the supply ratio). It's because LTV is nonsensical: nobody cares how hard you work and socially necessary labour refutes the concept because it rests on the foundational concept of subjectivity/preferences of the consumer (or, relative demand for a wide scope of products).

Yet you still cannot defend your points from the criticisms I'm making, you have to rely on making up quotes that I've said without citing them properly, or glossing over the points I make entirely.
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipping#Real_estate_flipping
When you flip the house, you can either just sit on it as the market fluctuates, or you can, and this is the context I was referencing when I said "spend 50k fixing it", fix it and re-sell it.
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_family#American_and_German_Warburgs
Nope, unless you mean to say those exiled to Sweden. All the rest went to the US.
Great, so restrictions upon private property are anti-capitalist, like property taxes or restrictions on private land ownership.
Then they don't own the land, the state does.
Corrupt government agencies. Does not impact my business, I don't care what a government agency says if I am in a capitalist society where private owners operate without restriction. Already defined capitalism above, if private owners are restricted and denied their freedom, it isn't a capitalist system.
[context required]
I said: Laws don't exist, so deeds don't, either. See the point about the false premise of "any protection must be collective".
Responding to a scenario you laid out where there is no state ("Without a state and laws regarding private property"). Of course, in that context, there is no law, no deeds, no nothing.
No, there is no state, full stop. If the state doesn't infringe on the private ownership, then that's fine. If it does, then that isn't capitalism, by definition. Totalitarian control=/=private ownership. You're describing corporatism, not capitalism.

You can withdraw yourself from the discussion at any time, it just means you are incapable of defending your position any further. You are not even willing to respond further because you can't be asked to defend your viewpoints anymore. Be my guest.

I sure do. And when I'll trade my goat for the nice arrows you made, I sure as hell will check first if it wouldn't take less effort to make the arrows myself than to raise the goat.

You don't buy a "service" per se. What you actually buy is labour power, just like a capitalist does when he hires an employee – the difference being that you will directly consume the labour power you bought, rather than using it in a cycle of production.

Now what if you are a capitalist "selling services"? Well then you buy labour power, as any capitalist does, but then use part of it as the object of the other part, effectively improving its value, and then sell this higher-valued labour power.

No wonder, a leftcom would already know the answer to that question.