Student protests: sorry kids, wait for the old gits
Posted on Thursday 30 December, 2010
Filed Under Education, Politics
TWENTYSOMETHING blogger Laurie Penny is a self-proclaimed former burlesque dancer. And an erstwhile anorexic. So if you read somewhere that she shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, remember that the girl has had an eventful life so far.
Now Britain’s Oxbridge-educated answer to Dita von Teese has emerged as the Danny the Red of the recent wave of student protests, with a widely-publicised swipe at the ‘traditional hierarchies of the left’ in a post on – where else? – Comment is Free.
She starts off by taking a pop at Ed Miliband’s ‘join Labour for just 1p’ offer to under-25s, goes on blithely to dismiss parliamentary democracy as having nothing to offer the young, notes the uncanny parallels between cockroaches and ‘sour-faced vendors of Socialist Worker’ in their ability to survive nuclear holocaust, and suggests that getting flash mobs to descend on Topshop represents a ‘direct challenge’ to big business.
‘The young people of Britain do not need leaders, and the new wave of activists has no interest in the ideological bureaucracy of the old left,’ she writes. ‘The young people of Britain are no longer prepared to take orders.’
Ah, bless, you can almost hear the petulance. Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don’t criticise what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command … and all that.
The eternal snotty-nosed teenager in me genuinely sympathises, up to a point. After all, Labourites of my generation presided over dismantling of the Labour Party as a mass presence with meaningful roots in working class communities, while Leninists of my generation messed up multiple attempts to build a more radical alternative, in a period in which the political space clearly was there. Epic fail FTW, as I believe youngsters say.
But anyone issuing proclamations in the name of ‘the young people of Britain’ should stop to ponder just what proportion of the young people of Britain participated in the student demos. However generously you do the maths, it works out to a single-figure percentage.
Only a smallish minority of students played any role whatsoever, while the average NEET in the former coalfields remained too smacked up to notice what was happening.
Moreover, a movement cannot make a strategy out of not having a strategy. The coalition has gone ahead and voted through the trebling of tuition fees and the abolition of Educational Maintenance Allowance. In other words, all that wonderful, spontaneous, situationist-inspired, principled, theoretically well-versed, Rolls-Royce thrashing campaigning did not achieve its desired end.
That was always going to be the way, because students as a social layer lack the weight to force a government to change its tack. That cannot happen unless the grown-ups get on board, in the shape of the organised working class.
If we can only get our Zimmer frames out the front door and remember where we put our Freedom Passes, I hope to see this happen in 2011.
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125 Responses to “Student protests: sorry kids, wait for the old gits”
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A shameless plug, but here’s my own two cents on this issue: http://owenjones.org/2011/01/03/leaderless-youth-will-not-bring-this-government-down/
I ask “where is the unearned profit” when non-monopoly capitalists have to compete in the markets.
JohnG replies: Marx acknowledges that. Totally oblivious to the hole he has just dug himself in. If so, then please elaborate instead of spewing insults.
If capitalists do compete, which we agree, then Marx’s Class Theory based on “unearned profit” being the unconditional exploitation of people who sell their time, breaks down. Do you know the answer to this question on economics (which you pretend you do), or do you have to find an obscure polemical statement in 1500 pages of Das Capital?
If competition reduces unearned profit to zero – where is the exploitation?
Owen Jones. Too much is being made of this student so called protest. The fact is they are just being selfish and looking after number one. The proof is in the pudding. Where have you seen masses of students going on protest to support real working class people. The spoiled middle class gits probably complained when the BA workers held up their holiday flights or the London Tube Workers spoiled their new year party. Beans on toast is all they deserve.
I’m aware taht Khalid is acting as Devil’s Advcate here, but I thought I would try to answer his point. He argues that competition means that small-scale capitalists don’t don’t make a profit and therefore are not expliting anyoe. In that case, they are bloody awful businessmen and will soon go out of business and be bankrupt. In fact many small scale businesses do close down, especially at the moment, there is a constant turnover of businesses. None of which suggests that anything Marx wrote on the question is wrong, but rather that he had correctly analysed it. The other theoretical problem is that when does a small business become a big business? As is well known, there is a law of the market that successful businesses grow ever mightier and bigger: it’s called ‘economies of scale’.
I dare say that other comrades are more conversant with this stuff than myself, but I believe that this has been an issue in various Bolshevik revolutions ie the mount of small scale private economic activity that is permissible and the controls on it. So, Khalid, you are not the first person to think of this aspect of economic planning.
SueR. Did Marx suggest who the leaders would be in his vision? For instance would it be an unelected elite like N.Korea. Marx may sound godd but it is pure dictatorship. And the dictatorship would not be working class and who would want that! It would be the clever guys the grabbers the mafia the capitalists pretending to be socialists. Anyone with an objection would be traitors and given the Uncle Joe treatment.
Sue R – thanks for your reply, however it is not correct. And JohnG seems unable to defend his irrational economic theology.
Please note the equation:
Return on Capital = Cost Of Money (OK) + Cost of Risk (OK) + Overhead and management wages (OK) + Unearned Profit (very bad and exploitative).
I never argued that capitalists don’t make categories 1, 2, and 3. Of course they do or they would not be in business.
In a competitive situation it is Unearned Profit that gets hit and pared to the bone. And this is true of all goods and services including commodities and labour. If the other categories get hit, then the capitalist goes out of business and shuts down, and only those capitalists who can manage better with lower costs remain. Sometimes the capitalist even takes a loss in bad times, and makes up at good times. There is no difference between a small money fund capitalist and lets say a small rental store that rents equipment. Not all capitalists are a Goldman Sachs, you know. Even GS receives its capital from a million smaller owners and pools them (receiving some unearned profit).
Marx incorrectly analyzed this in his critique on Capitalism. Marx claimed that in a competitive market, there was still a source of tremendous unearned profit, resulting in the accumulation of capital and exploitation. So he was wrong and his Class Theory which is based on unearned profit is bunk.
Regarding “economies of scale” – your point is well taken. But that is only a secondary issue. It is not difficult to correct for that through progressive income and especially wealth taxes, and competent computerized bookkeeping by the state. Ultimately organizations that develop monopolistic or trust positions in the market would be broken up, at a small economic cost to efficiency.
Therefore I fail to see Marx’s contribution with his brain-damaged Class Theory and there is no reason for socialism, unless one is seeking blood and guts revolution and dictatorship, and an easy way to become wealthy and control and exploit others through power.
I’m sorry Khaled, you are obviously well versed in economics, so could you please explain the term ‘unearned profit’ as it is not one I have ever come across before, but then I have not read extensively in the subject such as yourself.
Dave wrote “No, I know nothing of Ms Gray. The name means nothing to me. Perhaps you can tell us all about her, Mike?”
This faux naivete is most silly. As I’m sure you know, as a follower of popular kulture, she is a hard core porn star who also appeared in a mainstream flick last year.
I find the reluctance of lefty men to admit that they know of such people so utterly hypocritical. In fact I was being serious given her real attainments and expressed views I suspect that Ms Gray would be far more interesting than the derivitive ramblings of PR.
“This faux naivete is most silly. As I’m sure you know, as a follower of popular kulture, she is a hard core porn star who also appeared in a mainstream flick last year.”
Mike,
it might have helped if you spelt her surname correctly.
Dave might have genuinely thought you were referring to a SWSSer. Just a thought.
Sewer Rat – see the equation at 1/3 23:24 and stop being condescending. Assume you have multiple suppliers of a commodity competing in the marketplace. You now remove all suppliers except for the largest one. Assume there is no capacity limitations on this supplier. Now watch the price rise. The rise in price is the “unearned profit”.
Khalid. When I attended school we had this subject called profit and loss. If you bought say 20 items at ten bob each (£10) and sold them each at 12 and a tanner then you made 2 and a tanner in profit from each item. That was a total profit of 2 quid ten bob. There was no VAT in those days and if you could evade paying tax then you could keep all your profit. SueR will get that. Old muppets never forget.
And the point is what, precisely?
Jesus, these irrelevant (senile?) ramblings become ever more obscure…
H. Jesus, who what? My point was profit and loss. Good old capitalism. Not intellectually challenging enough for you H. I have reduced you to two lines. You will get over it. Enjoy your music.
Stating the obvious that added nothing to the discussion and, couched in your usual, rambling, disjointed yet smug prose, only served to leave one wondering, WTF???
Feel like sharing your real name with us yet, by the way, coward?
*irony alert*
I looked up ‘unearned profits’ on the interweb, and it is an accounting term and refers to interest payments and royalties. I think you need to study your text books a bit more closely.
‘When I hear that whistle blowin’, I hang my head and cry…’
I just want to reiterate that I’m not styling myself as a representative or voice of anything, least so the student movement, but taking the piss because I happen to have had a moderately difficult adolescence is below par, David, something I’d expect from Guido or Tory Bear but not from you.
Darren wrote “it might have helped if you spelt her surname correctly.”
Point taken but I suspect that Dave is far more conversant with the sex industry in general than he admits given his reference to Dita Von Teese.
H. Three lines now. You are getting back on form. Were you a bit inebriated over the festive season?
SueR. Strange term ‘unearned profit’. It is like the eighties when old folk bought their council houses for peanuts, say 15k. Although it was actually their relatives that bought the house. So when the oldies that did not give a fuck about the youngsters on the housing list snuffed it the relatives sold the houses at a profit. That is my version of ‘unearned profit’.
Sewer Rat, you are so boring with your babyish word games. If you knew how to read an equation, or had some scientific training, you would be able to read the equation at 23:24 and get your answer.
Marxists simply call it surplus value, unable to distinguish the nuances of return on capital. Since you are so well versed in Marxist theology, maybe you can show me your equation for profit, and stop trolling around?
Laurie – exactly how much time did burning two copies of SWP rags keep you and your group warm on the street? Surely less than it takes to read your sob story about how you were freezing your arse off. At least you could be believable?
JohnG – Please cut the childish condescension. I have a real, productive, and well paying job that is also a great service to my society. I don’t need to indulge in Marxist theology to be of more service.
Since you and Sewer Rat are such knowledgable on economics, then why don’t you answer my question instead? Why are you holding back after a half a dozen posts? Are you developing doubt in Marxian theology?
I repeat: If capitalists have to compete and cut their rate of return on capital to the minimum sustainable – then where is the surplus value (unearned profit) that Marx claimed the capitalist expropriates, accumulates, and is the source of all known evil to mankind, including the fact that my toaster oven this morning burnt my toast?
Well Dave,
Whilst thumb nail biographies can be amusing they often come over at petty and pointless, bearing in mind that it cuts both ways.
You do yourself no favours by not accepting the *positive* side of Penny’s arguments:
1) The LP’s attempt(of which you happen to be a member) seeking to recruit out of these protests is both cheap and transparent.
2) There is a clear rejection of parliamentarianism.
3) The protesters see thru the limitations of the NUS and its reformist leaders (something which I seem to remember old Trotskyist groups used to go on about, in a similar fashion, etc)
4)Penny invokes “situationism and guerrilla tactics” which is surely something that the inheritors of 1968 would understand?
5) She sees thru the transparent opportunism of the SWP, and echoes many of the criticisms which have been placed against that organisation in the past 30+ years, etc
6) She emphasises the pluralistic nature of the protesters, an attitude which is guaranteed not to endear her to authoritarianists, of which there are many on the old British Left
So you could, if you took a positive approach (generally unheard of amongst the Last Century’s Left in Britain), say she brings out many worthwhile points which took the post-1968 Left years to come to…
The downside as far as I see it is the invocation of Daily Mail typed language “we are seeing here is no less than a fundamental reimagining of the British left: an organic reworking which rejects the old deferential structures of union-led action and interminable infighting among indistinguishable splinter parties for something far more inclusive and fast-moving. “
I think had she said “rejects the posturing of a Labour aristocracy and trade union bureaucrats” then probably more people would agree with her (after all that’s what many on the Left have argued for decades)and that seems to be her point.
Her comment on splinter groups is noncontentious and factual.
So there’s much to be said for this article, if you read it in a positive light.
Modernity,
Situationism was always a wank even in 68. While I like the idea of wandering the streets randomly to capture the essence of urban life under capitalism, I doubt it has the bourgeoisie quaking in their boots.
What I find interesting is that such ideas resurface in contexts like the student upsurge repolished in 21st century garb. Perhaps the position assumed by Laurie Penny should be reversed and us old gits have a role to play (‘memory of the class’) in ensuring that historic idiocies, including those we have ourselves committed, are not repeated whether as tragedy or farce.
I am sorry Khalid, I have a philosphical problem with calling it ‘unearned profit’. Surely the whole essence of the capitalist system that profit is earned. Actually, I asked my husband who is an accountant if he had heard the term ‘unearned profit’ before and he immediately said ‘You mean ‘unearned income’.’. I think YOU mean unearned income, because I think there is a linguistic misundderstanding here, The page I found that defined ‘unearned profit’ was written by Indians, and I fancy that the difference between ‘income’ and ‘profit’ is not firmly distinguished in their minds. In your rather unsophisticated equation earlier, the term ‘unearned profit’ could be substituted for ‘unearned income’ and would make more sense.
The other point, Khalid, is that the questions you raise have been debated ad nauseum by politicians and economists since Marx first put pen to paper, and even before, as he did not originate the labour theory of value. I suggest if you are genuinely interested that you go away and read up on it. Feed your head, as the Red Queen said. (In Alice in Wonderland).
To be less theorietic and more pragnmatic: Khalid, what do you think ‘globablization’ is all about? Why do you think producers/capitalists are locating their factories in countries where they only pay a penny a day and there are virtually any loabour laws?
Eh Jimmy, still at it I see. I would say Happy New Year were it not for me thinking your happy year would not be mine. A ‘Thousand Year Reich’ for Cameron and Clegg seems to be all you can still tirelessly work for. In your perverse gut wrenchingly cynical way.
As in this.
‘Owen Jones. Too much is being made of this student so called protest. The fact is they are just being selfish and looking after number one. The proof is in the pudding. Where have you seen masses of students going on protest to support real working class people.’
Do ‘working people’ not do ‘Student’, and visa versa? Are you so Moseley Right wing in your slavish service of Murdoch you still believe you are talking to 5 year olds here. No of course you are not. At least the Moseley bit?
You still know exactly what you are doing. Divide and Rule. Any spark of protest against your vile paymasters and you work night and day to scoff and stamp each one in turn out. Murdoch forbid if they can join up. Frightening Jimmy isnt it?
Of course if astroturfers like you get your way you are right. No working person could ever afford again to be a student. Why should they?
The very thing you wanted to say, is it not?
Sewer Rat – I explained to you once: “unearned profit” in Marxist jargon is the “surplus value”. you obviously don’t understand simple economics and can’t make sense of economics without turning the substance into a word-game play, due to your defective language-based education (or psuedo-education) in the humanities. As a science-based person, I am not interested in linguistics or word-games, if you haven’t noticed yet.
Your capitalist husband is wrong. Please refer to the Wikipedia definition to set him straight.
If you could understand my simple rational equation (you call it “unsophisticated” what a blast LOL! – obviously you have no science/economics background it appears) – then the ambiguity would go away in your mind. failing that, let me repeat myself for your benefit through an empirical example:
Assume a liquid competitive market for product x provided by suppliers s0 thru sN, where N is a very large number and where the suppliers are ordered in size, such that s0 is the largest supplier.
Product x trades at price xp.
Assume for some hypothetical reason, s1 thru sN cease to supply, and s0 being a large entity is able to ramp up production at no extra fixed costs to supply all demand.
You will see that price xp will increase to xP. This BTW has been empirically proven.
Unearned profit = (xP – xp) * xQ, where xQ is the quantity of the product x traded.
Now, take this to your accountant husband and see if he understands basic economics. If not, pls. have him enroll in Economics 101, The Supply-Demand curve.
Sewer Rat – just like JohnG who also doesn’t understand basic economics, you refer me to the bible (Marxist eschatology). So obviously neither of you understand economics and just parrot the established narratives by the apostles, and neither can refute my critique of Marx’s Class Theory and the stupid reductionist Labour Theory of Value. As said before, you can reduce all production to energy or iron or carbon or capital or technology and come up with an identical Energy Theory of value….
Regarding your “globalization” change of subject, the fact that labour is less costly in a 3rd world country shows that equivalent unskilled labour is over priced in developed countries. If there were no borders, the cheap labour would move to a developed country and cut labour costs there. This would immediately cut the price of goods because capitalists competing with one another will have to cut their prices or go out of business as their competitors ramp up production.
Khalid, this is a site for SAOCIALISTS. By all means make your contribution, but with all due respect, we are entitled to think you are talking rubbish. Sorry if a reference to the real world is a change of subject to you. Also, I prefer to look at it another way, why not RAISE the living standards of thd poor in the underdeveloped world? Why not redistribute some of that magnificent wealth that exists in these countries? Then, they wouldn’t have to undertake perilous journeys to reach an uncertain West and modern life? Modernise the East, that’s what I say. Why do you want to keep Indians, Pakistanis, Middle Easterners, Africans etc in debt slavery with no modern facilities, depended on international aid handouts? Are you a racist?
What’s your feeling about the riots in Tunisia and Algeria, over unemployment and the increase of the the price of foodstuffs, Khalid? Could be the start of things to come?
Khalid said,
“the fact that labour is less costly in a 3rd world country shows that equivalent unskilled labour is over priced in developed countries.”
It could show the opposite of course. It should also be noted that in the ‘third world’ economies wages are rising fast and domestic markets are being developed – empirical evidence to question your assertion here. Remember Khalid someone needs to buy all that shit that is produced. Simply believeing in the logic that workers are over paid in the West is an article of faith over reason. You really need to be more concrete if you are to make the grade as an economist, are we talking relative or absolute categories here? Precision is all important to enable a proper debate in this area. We can only make assumptions as to what you actually mean, which tells me you really don’t know what you are talking about. Otherwise you would have been mopre precise.
“If there were no borders, the cheap labour would move to a developed country and cut labour costs there. This would immediately cut the price of goods because…..”
This could raise prices, as assuming your fantastical project came about then all the potential cheap labour would end up in a market where labour is more expensive – developed nations are more expensive due to better infrastructure etc. So the assumed cheapening of developed nation labour may not be enough to compensate for the loss of cheap undeveloped labour. And of course because the third world would be de-populated to an extent (though in reality it wouldn’t I am just indulging your fantasy here) then the cost of Labour in those nations would rise as the supply would dry up.
And this midget of a thinker thinks he can take on Marx, get back on planet Earth.
The Marxist definition is, of course, objectively based. It is that the Value of Labour Power (around which wages gravitate) is determined by the socially necessary labour-time required for the its production. This is historically conditioned, by the fact that Capital itself requires Labour of different kinds at times i.e. the more technological Capital becomes, the more it needs an educated, and healthy workforce, and by the fact that the development and accumulation of Capital itself involves the production of a wider array of Use Values, for which it has to create a market amongst workers, thereby extending the living standards of workers over time.
For so long as the world essentially functioned as a series of national economies trading against each other, the determination of what was socially necessary was widely divergent between national economies, and the consierable difference in the Capital that stood behind workers in developed economies, meant that higher wages were sustainable in these economies, because unit labour costs were lower than in less developed economies, where there was less Capital, and where other external costs (e.g. lack of infrastructure) increased unit costs.
However, we increasingly live in a global economy, and it is the calculation of socially necessary labour time on a global scale that is determinant. Simple proof of that is that an economy like China is able to out compete most other economies on a global basis. Consequently, if we adopt the Marxist criteria we would have to say that it is the socially necessary labour-time determined in China, India and elsewhere that is the standard, and not that in the US or UK or Western Europe, and wage levels will increasingly be determined on that basis.
Sewer Rat – You still have not answered to my critique of Class Theory, surplus value, and the assinine Labour Theory of Value. Obviously neither you or your accountant husband and JohnG have the faintest idea of any of this and just like fundamentalist believers in religious texts and theological treatises and debates, your understanding of this matter is purely religious.
Then you try to change the thread to “globalization” so you can narrate some of your language-based and unscientific talking points.
I have no problem with massive help to poor nations. But you need good governance first and the average socialist or Islamist despot there, and the established elites are too corrupt to allow for development aid to get distributed unmolested. So instead of helping the racist socialists and Islamists over there that you propose, there should be clean governments installed.
I have no interest discussing globalization or Africa when you refuse to stick to the thread.
Dean – Not all workers are overpaid. Depends if they are competitive – same as with capitalists. It is the unionized government workers who commend higher and sometimes twice market salaries who are certainly overpaid – due to political power. This has been empirically established.
You mean you find the equation for unearned profit to be “imprecise”? What an idiot – what is your definition of “precision” then? You have a language more “precise” than mathematics, genious? Can I put this gaffe to your lack of a proper formal education? What is your “more precise” equation or economic model, genious?
Have you tried reading your own rubbish Dean? You say if cheap labour migrates to a country or area with higher labour costs, this would drive up labour prices. The reason you give is that in the areas that the labour is coming from, there will be depopulation and then the cost of labour would go up in those places, and hence the cost of labour on the globe will go up forcing labour rates to go up in developed countries. Which is a non sequitur.
The price of labor in a closed system is independent of that in another closed system. If a few million from Africa or Indonesia move to the UK, I will assure you that it has little or no real impact on labour rates in those countries or on the globe.
On the other hand, it will have a massive impact on the unskilled labour rate in the UK as these new immigrants will compete for jobs and bring the rates down.
I can’t believe how unsophisticated and spiteful some of you hard lefties are that you can’t even build a semi-believable case for your cheap ideological rant. Is it because I have insulted and challenged your God that makes you so spiteful? Does that make me a blasphemer? They stone blasphemers in Islam. What do you do to blasphemers under communism?
But back to the meat of the topic after this silly diversion by SU Rat. I made a concrete critique of Marx’s stupid Class Theory and surplus value. Can you defend that or do you wimpishly need to refer me to his theological writings?
Khalid,
You claimed if there were no borders the cheap labour would move to a developed country and cut labour costs there. You never put a number on this so I had to assume all the cheap labour would move. Your scenario seemed to assume complete freedom of movement for anyone without barriers, government legislation on wage rates, trade union rights etc etc etc. Now you are talking about 2 ‘closed’ systems where millions move and this only has an affect on the developed market. Well we have the example of the USA to test your theory. Millions of people from around the globe settled in the USA and this had the affect of almost uninterupted wage increases! Your idea has not yet stood the empirical test, unless you can give concrete examples of wage rates being reduced in developed nations.
You have made no attack on any ‘god’ as far as I can tell. I mean will that be the title of your academic paper “My attack on Marx’s stupid class theory and surplus value”? And try responding to Boffy’s points, he is the Marxist economist among us after all.
Khalid: you make me laugh! I guess you agree with Dr Johnson,’Hearing a woman preach is like seeing a dog walking on its hind legs; it is not done well, but you are surprised to see it doe at all.’. By the way, what do you think about freeing Asia Bibi?
Khalid, again, why comment on something you know nothing about? Marx does not make any of the claims you attribute to him, and his entire account of capitalism is based around the idea that capitalists have to compete and re-invest profits in order to accumulate and stay in the game. Again, its best not to discuss things you know nothing about whether or not you have a ‘well paid job’ which you imagine is of great ‘service to society’ (are you per chance a hedge fund manager?).
Didn’t Marx write about the coercive laws of competition and the tendency for the rate of profit to fall? And the idea that capitalists would move capital to areas where profit rates are higher, thus equalising profit rates? Maybe it would be better if Khalid cited passages from Marx and made a direct critique rather than confuse the hell out of all of us.
John G says: … his [Marx] entire account of capitalism is based around the idea that capitalists have to compete and re-invest profits in order to accumulate and stay in the game.
So Marx acknowledges that capitalists do compete.
But then you say “re-invest” the profits in order to accumulate.
But where do they get that extra profit (the unearned or surplus profit) to re-invest? Were they not competing to the point that they had to cut their gross incomes to the bare bones?
So you see how contradictory you talk? On the one hand you admit that capitalists make no surplus profit above their costs and risks and overhead, but on the other hand you contradict yourself saying they re-invest the “profit”.
What profit JohnG ???
Are you one of the brighter ones in the sewer?
Irrational – I am not going to read the “passages” that you suggest. Do I need to read the Bible to show that there is no empirical evidence for a stupid thing called God?
Same here – there is no empirical evidence for a surplus profit that Marx claims to have seen. He was just delusional. And you Believers are no different than Christian and Islamic fundamentalists who have seen God.
There is no surplus profit in a competitive market. Now if you have monopoly capitalism, then I would agree with Marx. But funny that socialists love to have state ownership and monopoly state capital and socialists deny competition is of benefit. So I guess you can’t use the monopoly argument, can you?
SU Rat – I will not take the bite again (bibi aisha). You managed to get me to bite on your “globalization” trolling bait once. And before I knew the cockroaches (Dean) and the rats came out of the sewer – and I had to waste precious time to drive them back in. Sorry, no bite this time.
Boffy: The Marxist definition is, of course, objectively based.
And why of course objectively – Because he said so?
Boffy: It is that the Value of Labour Power is determined by the socially necessary labour-time required for the its production.
Can’t you write a proper sentence? Are you trying to say that time of labour determines value of products? (Hint: you don’t need to talk like a stiff high commissar of theory to make sense.)
So you are saying that the value of a product has nothing to do with the capital that goes into its production? No problem, since capital is free in your theology, give me a bundle.
And what if the same product takes different times to get produced by different people. Which time productivity will you choose?
Buffoon: This is historically conditioned, by the fact that Capital itself requires Labour of different kinds at times i.e. the more technological Capital becomes, the more it needs an educated, and healthy workforce, and by the fact that the development and accumulation of Capital itself involves the production of a wider array of Use Values …
This is silly Labour Theory of Value all over again cloaked in commissar language (the irrelevent and revealing use of “different” and so on). You make the premise that since capital can be reduced to Labour, then everything reduces to Labour, and value is simply labour. So now we are back to square zero – the LTV !!!
How different is this from Energy Theory of Value where both capital and labour require energy. No worker can live without food and energy. Therefore all value including Labour is reduced to Energy, and Labour and Capital have no value.
And your next sentence about worker living standards is so unrelated to the discussion.
And then the next two pragraphs you go on the same Sewer tangent on globalization and again fail to answer my critique.
So all you said about my criticism that Marx is wrong and that there is no unearned or surplus profit in a competitive market – your reply is that Marx is right, because Labour Theory of Value says so.
Just like a Christian Believer telling an atheist that he is wrong because Jesus says there is god.
Is this the best of the Sewer?
So Khalid you have not read Marx and think you don’t need to in order to make grand pronouncements on his work. And you have the nerve to throw around accusations of fundamentalism.
What is the point in engaging with someone who has such a weak grasp of the subject?
I know that you are a nitwit Khalid, but I would just like to point out that Energy is Labour. Think about it.
Khalid,
Marx did not identify a ‘surplus profit’. In Marxian terms, borrowed from Ricardo and Smith, returns on capital, including bank interest, ground rent, and ‘return on risk’ are all aspects of surplus value, being parts of the value generated over the capital invested in the enterprise. The price of their goods being determined by the costs of production plus the prevailing rate of profit (plus absolute rent, sometimes – that’s the thing you’re calling ‘unearned profit’).
Khalid: I love it when you say ‘so marx acknowledged there was competition…’. All I can reflect on is that your head has been stuffed with real bargain basement propaganda, and you ought perhaps not to believe everything you read. You come across as a rather uneducated buffoon. Blame your teachers.
And what if the same product takes different times to get produced by different people.
It’s the socially necessary labour time that determines the value.
So you are saying that the value of a product has nothing to do with the capital that goes into its production? No problem, since capital is free in your theology
It isn’t free, and is necessary for capitalist production, but its diminishment over the course of production is equal to its cost(or one capitalist is cheating another ,but still no net profit is realised. It is the difference between the value of goods produced and wages paid that represents the surplus value and thus profit.