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Marxism, good, bad, both?

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Oh Kibalchich is back. I seem to remember that he could not engage in a proper debate the last time before he went into hiding due to sheer embarrassment. How he knows I've never read Capital (considering that I have) is beyond me. Perhaps he has the superhuman abilities that Marxists believe central planners have?

Reply 161

Rhadamanthus

Original post by MercuryHail

Really? I find it one of the easiest ideas to understand. Almost every single person that has ever had a job will agree that after work, you get the feeling that you have been robbed, that you are being paid less than you worked, and that this money goes to the employers. You don't even need Marx to explain this to you using the surplus value idea to conclude this. It's just something that workers know.

Especially in Third World countries like China.

Whether it's understandable or not, what workers think or not, and what you feel is happening to your labour is totally irrelevant. The 'surplus value' is the cost of risk that the capitalist takes for having a lower time-preference value than his workers. The man who wants employment and a bettering of circumstances for workers ought to desire more productive capitalists.

Reply 162

Kibalchich

I know you've never read Capital 'cos you demonstrated the same woeful misunderstandings of LTV that Observatory has. It's quite comical seeing you splutter your pomposities and get it all wrong. :biggrin:

Reply 163

Kibalchich

So surplus value is a workable theory now? Make your mind up.

Reply 164

Rhadamanthus

Original post by Kibalchich

I have read Capital. Stop trolling me now.

Reply 165

Kibalchich

If you say so :biggrin:

You clearly haven't understood it.

Reply 166

Rhadamanthus

Original post by Kibalchich

So surplus value <i>is</i> a workable theory now? Make your mind up.

I don't know how you deduced that one. It is not surplus value, it belongs to the capitalist as an opportunity cost for his having a lower time preference. What a person's valuation of their labour has to do with it I cannot quite tell. If someone wants to make a profit then they must trade something with person B and gain something more valuable to them in return. Labour doesn't come into it.

Spoiler

Reply 167

Rhadamanthus

Original post by Kibalchich

If you say so :biggrin:

You clearly haven't understood it.

I do say so, yes, and I understood it better than you or any of the other trolls on here. Of course complimenting Capital with texts like Human Action only helped to further my understanding.

Reply 168

Kibalchich

Woeful pomposity. Love it! :biggrin:

Reply 169

Kibalchich

An easily demolished argument. Labourers do not enter into the agreement freely. Having no access to the means of production, all they have is their labour power. If they want to eat, they have to sell their labour power. This is not free choice.

Reply 170

Kibalchich

Basically, again, your argument comes down to "poverty is not unfreedom". I demolish that one every visit here. Must I do so again?

Reply 171

Rhadamanthus

Original post by Kibalchich

They do enter it freely, unless you can prove that they were not acting in legal capacity at the time your argument is a meaningless word-game.

Reply 172

Rhadamanthus

Original post by Kibalchich

Basically, again, your argument comes down to "poverty is not unfreedom". I demolish that one every visit here. Must I do so again?

On your last visit here you insulted everyone and ended up being told to shut up by a fellow anti-capitalist.

Reply 173

Kibalchich

And here we have it - work or starve is free choice in Rambo's world.

Reply 174

Harmonic Minor

Marxism is a varied, multifaceted doctrine. I guess one could say that as a theory of history, it is quite brilliant yet deeply flawed, and as a political doctrine it is ambitious but quite bad.

Reply 175

Kibalchich

Oh look, a blatant lie.

Last time I was here I was involved in a discussion about mental health and the nature of mental illness. I got fed up with the abuse thrown my way by someone fixated on the medical model.

Reply 176

Kibalchich

Original post by Harmonic Minor

Marxism is a varied, multifaceted doctrine. I guess one could say that as a theory of history, it is quite brilliant yet deeply flawed, and as a political doctrine it is ambitious but quite bad.

Flaws such as...?

Reply 177

Harmonic Minor

Original post by Kibalchich

Flaws such as...?

I think the ultimate flaw is it being monocausal, i.e. 'all history is the history of class struggles'. So all historical events/epochs are reduced to a single set of socioeconomic factors. It also prescribes a 'logic of history' to historical processes.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 178

Kibalchich

Original post by Harmonic Minor

I think the ultimate flaw is it being monocausal, i.e. 'all history is the history of class struggles'. So all historical events/epochs are reduced to a single set of socioeconomic factors.

What other factors do you think are at play?

Reply 179

Harmonic Minor

Original post by Kibalchich

What other factors do you think are at play?

Political, cultural, religious? There are many, and often times history moves unexpectedly and randomly and has less to do with the socioeconomic structure/arrangement of society than politics or powerful individuals.

The problem with Marxism is that it tends to view all human interactions as an accurate reflection of an individual's or group's own socioeconomic interest, rather than as what may be perhaps a political interest or less 'rational' religious/cultural one. But this is all speaking very generally (and I won't pretend to be an expert of Marxism, but one can spot its general flaws quite easily).