[ckaihatsu]

I'll add that *another* way of putting it is 'What does the value of that factory building that was built ten years ago have to do with my per-hour efforts *today* -- !

[Truth To Power]

TTP, all you're doing is *repeating* yourself over and over.

Because the same self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that refuted your false claims before still refute them, no matter how many times you repeat them.

Since you don't recognize that capital-time and labor-time are *very* different quantities and qualities -- apples-and-oranges -- then you don't recognize *exploitation* of the labor commodity, by capital.

No. I recognize the fact that any difference between "capital-time" and "labor-time" is completely irrelevant to whether labor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges -- which are all quite different, but which you have to conflate as "capital."

Capital ('dead labor'),

"Dead labor" is literally nonsense.

is *not* comparable to what laborers do in the same hour that funds are 'active' as investment equity capital.

Yes, of course it is.

Just because both happen to be measured in *currency*, under capitalism, doesn't mean that labor power and equity capital can in any way be reasonably 'ratioed' per hour of time-measurement.

How their value is measured is also irrelevant.

I can't continue with anyone like yourself who can't report honestly that there's a real *difference* between something that's *durable* over time (producer goods), and something that's a *service*, *intangible*, *productive*, and that requires a person's attentions and labor, for production, for hours, days, weeks, months, and years.

I can't continue trying to communicate with someone who permanently pretends not to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality just because they have realized those facts prove their beliefs are false and evil.

This is a real impasse / sticking-point -- if you change your mind and find that you *can* bring yourself to distinguish between 'durable [capital infrastructure]', and '[labor] service', qualitatively, then maybe there'll be someone to go, but right now there *isn't*.

The differences are not relevant to the question of exploitation, you have never explained how they could be, and you never will.

<absurd Marxist claptrap snipped>

[ckaihatsu]

TTP, all you're doing is *repeating* yourself over and over.

Because the same self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that refuted your false claims before still refute them, no matter how many times you repeat them.

*Anyone* can buy their own crown at the store, so just because you're crowning yourself, like Napoleon, doesn't mean that you're in-the-right.

Try looking back and see all of the content that you've *ignored* or blithely *dismissed*. I'm doing what I can to get some kind of a system of *tracking* going so that you don't just slip out of the issues that you can't address -- slimy.

Since you don't recognize that capital-time and labor-time are *very* different quantities and qualities -- apples-and-oranges -- then you don't recognize *exploitation* of the labor commodity, by capital.

No. I recognize the fact that any difference between "capital-time" and "labor-time" is completely irrelevant to whether labor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges -- which are all quite different, but which you have to conflate as "capital."

Okay, I'm going to denote this as an 'axiom':

[TTP AXIOM #001] [L]abor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges

viewtopic.php?p=15240337#p15240337


As usual, you're *all over the place*.

According to what you *just* said, you do acknowledge that the labor commodity is not *solely* taken-advantage-of by rentier capitalists *only* (landlords), but also by owners of producer goods -- *equity capital ownership*, in other words.

You *act* as though you're accurate, and not biased, but the bulk of your political ire is directed only at *landholders*, while ignoring all-the-rest, until today, right there, with 'axiom #1'.

Capital ('dead labor'),

"Dead labor" is literally nonsense.

Surprise -- !

Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. I, Ch. 10, Section 1, p. 257.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Capital

---

is *not* comparable to what laborers do in the same hour that funds are 'active' as investment equity capital.

Yes, of course it is.

No, equity capital is *not* comparable to what laborers do because capital is *not organic*. People *are*.

Just because both happen to be measured in *currency*, under capitalism, doesn't mean that labor power and equity capital can in any way be reasonably 'ratioed' per hour of time-measurement.

How their value is measured is also irrelevant.

And yet it *happens* this way under capitalism.

[TTP AXIOM #002] How [the] value [of labor power and equity capital] is measured is irrelevant.


If you don't even have a *yardstick* to measure these fundamental quantities of mass industrial production, then you don't have any system of *economics*, or political-economy.

I can't continue with anyone like yourself who can't report honestly that there's a real *difference* between something that's *durable* over time (producer goods), and something that's a *service*, *intangible*, *productive*, and that requires a person's attentions and labor, for production, for hours, days, weeks, months, and years.

I can't continue trying to communicate with someone who permanently pretends not to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality just because they have realized those facts prove their beliefs are false and evil.

All you're doing is *side-stepping* here -- labor services for commodity production *can't* be ratioed to pre-existing inert *physical infrastructure*. It's basically dancing-to-architecture, which is fine, of course, but it definitely isn't *economics*.

This is a real impasse / sticking-point -- if you change your mind and find that you *can* bring yourself to distinguish between 'durable [capital infrastructure]', and '[labor] service', qualitatively, then maybe there'll be someone to go, but right now there *isn't*.

The differences are not relevant to the question of exploitation, you have never explained how they could be, and you never will.

<absurd Marxist claptrap snipped>

'Question of exploitation' -- ?

There's no 'question'. I've *addressed* the capitalist dynamic of material-economic exploitation already -- look back, it's all there.

And, now, you've also *acquiesced*, with this 'axiom' of yours:


[TTP AXIOM #001]

[L]abor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges

viewtopic.php?p=15240337#p15240337

[Truth To Power]

*Anyone* can buy their own crown at the store, so just because you're crowning yourself, like Napoleon, doesn't mean that you're in-the-right.

The fact that I am willing to know indisputable facts and their logical implications means I am in the right.

Try looking back and see all of the content that you've *ignored* or blithely *dismissed*. I'm doing what I can to get some kind of a system of *tracking* going so that you don't just slip out of the issues that you can't address -- slimy.

The stuff I have not responded to -- mostly your diagrams -- makes so little sense, I am unable to discern what you think it means.

Okay, I'm going to denote this as an 'axiom':

[TTP AXIOM #001] [L]abor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges.

That's more an implication of a more basic axiom -- people can only be exploited if their rights are abrogated without just compensation -- and a definition: privilege is a legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation.

As usual, you're *all over the place*.

No.

According to what you *just* said, you do acknowledge that the labor commodity is not *solely* taken-advantage-of by rentier capitalists *only* (landlords), but also by owners of producer goods -- *equity capital ownership*, in other words.

No, because ownership of producer goods is not a privilege: it abrogates no one's rights. But ownership of natural resources (land) and privileges like IP monopolies and bank licenses does abrogate others' rights.

You *act* as though you're accurate, and not biased, but the bulk of your political ire is directed only at *landholders*, while ignoring all-the-rest, until today, right there, with 'axiom #1'.

No. See above. Landowning is by far the most important privilege that enables exploitation of workers -- as proved by the astronomical unimproved value of land -- but it is not the only one.

No, equity capital is *not* comparable to what laborers do because capital is *not organic*. People *are*.

Being organic is not relevant to the economic relationship. A cow is also organic, and it can be owned. Bees are organic, and they certainly work hard, but what they do is not labor in the economic sense.

And yet it *happens* this way under capitalism.

Value is what something would trade for, so it can't exist without a market. But capitalism is about ownership, not exchange.

[TTP AXIOM #002] How [the] value [of labor power and equity capital] is measured is irrelevant.

But that it can be and is measured is relevant.

If you don't even have a *yardstick* to measure these fundamental quantities of mass industrial production, then you don't have any system of *economics*, or political-economy.

They are measured by exchange value. See above.

All you're doing is *side-stepping* here -- labor services for commodity production *can't* be ratioed to pre-existing inert *physical infrastructure*. It's basically dancing-to-architecture, which is fine, of course, but it definitely isn't *economics*.

Garbage. They are commensurable in exchange value. Surely that is the point, and what makes them economic.

'Question of exploitation' -- ?

Yes: who is exploited under a given system or set of conditions, and more importantly, how?

There's no 'question'. I've *addressed* the capitalist dynamic of material-economic exploitation already -- look back, it's all there.

But what you call exploitation actually isn't, because the workers you claim are "exploited" by the factory owner are actually made better off by the latter's existence and activities.

And, now, you've also *acquiesced*, with this 'axiom' of yours:
[TTP AXIOM #001]

No. See above.

[Truth To Power]

I'll add that *another* way of putting it is 'What does the value of that factory building that was built ten years ago have to do with my per-hour efforts *today* -- !

If you are working in that factory, everything.

[Rancid]

One of my dreams to to get into the upper echillons of class and buy a politician.

[Deutschmania]

It would seem to me , from what I have been reading in this thread, that a number of people have failed to understand the general formula for capital . This infotainment video should help to illustrate what is meant , and how labor as a commodity relates to capital.

[ckaihatsu]

TTP, all you're doing is *repeating* yourself over and over.

Because the same self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that refuted your false claims before still refute them, no matter how many times you repeat them.

No, I haven't made any false claims.

Since you don't recognize that capital-time and labor-time are *very* different quantities and qualities -- apples-and-oranges -- then you don't recognize *exploitation* of the labor commodity, by capital.

No. I recognize the fact that any difference between "capital-time" and "labor-time" is completely irrelevant to whether labor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges -- which are all quite different, but which you have to conflate as "capital."

Can we simply agree that there are *different types* of capital, as in *rentier*-type capital, and *equity*-type capital -- ?

Capital ('dead labor'),

"Dead labor" is literally nonsense.

Marx's theory

Marx defines value as the number of hours of labor socially necessary to produce a commodity. This includes two elements: First, it includes the hours that a worker of normal skill and dedication would take to produce a commodity under average conditions and with the usual equipment (Marx terms this "living labor"). Second, it includes the labor embodied in raw materials, tools, and machinery used up or worn away during its production (which Marx terms "dead labor"). In capitalism, workers spend a portion of their working day reproducing the value of their means of subsistence, represented as wages (necessary labor), and a portion of their day producing value above and beyond that, referred to as surplus value, which goes to the capitalist (surplus labor).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_problem

---

is *not* comparable to what laborers do in the same hour that funds are 'active' as investment equity capital.

Yes, of course it is.

No -- it's the difference between inert / inorganic *pre-existing* infrastructure (capital goods), and *current*, *realtime* labor efforts on the parts of *people*, or 'labor'. These are *not* comparable quantities.

Just because both happen to be measured in *currency*, under capitalism, doesn't mean that labor power and equity capital can in any way be reasonably 'ratioed' per hour of time-measurement.

How their value is measured is also irrelevant.

I can't continue with anyone like yourself who can't report honestly that there's a real *difference* between something that's *durable* over time (producer goods), and something that's a *service*, *intangible*, *productive*, and that requires a person's attentions and labor, for production, for hours, days, weeks, months, and years.

I can't continue trying to communicate with someone who permanently pretends not to know self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality just because they have realized those facts prove their beliefs are false and evil.

This is a real impasse / sticking-point -- if you change your mind and find that you *can* bring yourself to distinguish between 'durable [capital infrastructure]', and '[labor] service', qualitatively, then maybe there'll be someone to go, but right now there *isn't*.

The differences are not relevant to the question of exploitation, you have never explained how they could be, and you never will.

<absurd Marxist claptrap snipped>

(See the following.)

*Anyone* can buy their own crown at the store, so just because you're crowning yourself, like Napoleon, doesn't mean that you're in-the-right.

The fact that I am willing to know indisputable facts and their logical implications means I am in the right.

There's *no agreement* on 'value' here -- you dispute *real estate* valuations only, while I dispute the validity of *equity* valuations as well.

Try looking back and see all of the content that you've *ignored* or blithely *dismissed*. I'm doing what I can to get some kind of a system of *tracking* going so that you don't just slip out of the issues that you can't address -- slimy.

The stuff I have not responded to -- mostly your diagrams -- makes so little sense, I am unable to discern what you think it means.

---

Okay, I'm going to denote this as an 'axiom':

[TTP AXIOM #001] [L]abor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges.

That's more an implication of a more basic axiom -- people can only be exploited if their rights are abrogated without just compensation -- and a definition: privilege is a legal entitlement to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation.

It's *important*, though -- as long as you don't *retract* it, that statement of yours is *acknowledging* the politics that I've been arguing-for, and discussing, all along, that the labor commodity *is* economically exploited by the owners of producer goods.

As usual, you're *all over the place*.

No.

According to what you *just* said, you do acknowledge that the labor commodity is not *solely* taken-advantage-of by rentier capitalists *only* (landlords), but also by owners of producer goods -- *equity capital ownership*, in other words.

No, because ownership of producer goods is not a privilege: it abrogates no one's rights. But ownership of natural resources (land) and privileges like IP monopolies and bank licenses does abrogate others' rights.

Now you're being *contradictory* -- which *is* it, is labor exploited by the owners of producer goods, or aren't they?

[TTP AXIOM #001] [L]abor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges.

---

You *act* as though you're accurate, and not biased, but the bulk of your political ire is directed only at *landholders*, while ignoring all-the-rest, until today, right there, with 'axiom #1'.

No. See above. Landowning is by far the most important privilege that enables exploitation of workers -- as proved by the astronomical unimproved value of land -- but it is not the only one.

(See the previous segment.)

No, equity capital is *not* comparable to what laborers do because capital is *not organic*. People *are*.

Being organic is not relevant to the economic relationship. A cow is also organic, and it can be owned. Bees are organic, and they certainly work hard, but what they do is not labor in the economic sense.

You're being *evasive*, and *dissembling* -- the point / scenario here is about (organic) people's *labor* / work, in relation to *inorganic* production goods.

How can something *inorganic* and durable -- buildings and machinery -- be reasonably compared per-hour, to the realtime *organic* labor that workers do? It's apples-and-oranges, or 'dancing-to-architecture', materially-economically-speaking.


---

Just because both happen to be measured in *currency*, under capitalism, doesn't mean that labor power and equity capital can in any way be reasonably 'ratioed' per hour of time-measurement.

How their value is measured is also irrelevant.

And yet it *happens* this way under capitalism.

Value is what something would trade for, so it can't exist without a market. But capitalism is about ownership, not exchange.

[TTP AXIOM #002] How [the] value [of labor power and equity capital] is measured is irrelevant.

But that it can be and is measured is relevant.

Again, which *is* it -- is the measurement of (exchange-) value *relevant*, or is it *irrelevant* -- ?


---

If you don't even have a *yardstick* to measure these fundamental quantities of mass industrial production, then you don't have any system of *economics*, or political-economy.

They are measured by exchange value. See above.

Okay, in this case we're back to my previous point, then:

Just because both happen to be measured in *currency*, under capitalism, doesn't mean that labor power and equity capital can in any way be reasonably 'ratioed' per hour of time-measurement.

---

All you're doing is *side-stepping* here -- labor services for commodity production *can't* be ratioed to pre-existing inert *physical infrastructure*. It's basically dancing-to-architecture, which is fine, of course, but it definitely isn't *economics*.

Garbage. They are commensurable in exchange value. Surely that is the point, and what makes them economic.

All you're doing is saying that it-is-what-it-is, and *that* approach / attitude isn't even *political* then -- where did the system of exchange-value valuating come from, then, and why do you consider it to be valid -- ?

I maintain that *organic* processes -- human labor -- *cannot* be validly ratioed to pre-existing, *inorganic* valuations, meaning all production goods and *equity* values. Just because something was built in the past doesn't mean that it should be accepted as the *valuation system* for all future labor *done* on it -- in reality that's 'dead-labor' commanding *living labor*, economically.

'Question of exploitation' -- ?

Yes: who is exploited under a given system or set of conditions, and more importantly, how?

(See the previous segment.)

There's no 'question'. I've *addressed* the capitalist dynamic of material-economic exploitation already -- look back, it's all there.

But what you call exploitation actually isn't, because the workers you claim are "exploited" by the factory owner are actually made better off by the latter's existence and activities.

So then why isn't *that* system being used, with the bosses checking off on their clipboards 'Worker #58392 was made better-off due to our employment' -- ?

In other words, what you're touting is actually officially *incidental* to the material-economic system of valuation (exchange-values) that *is* used, for the sake of *profit-making*, *from* workers' labor, which does *not* benefit the worker economically -- it *exploits* the laborer economically.


[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

Spoiler: show

---

And, now, you've also *acquiesced*, with this 'axiom' of yours:
[TTP AXIOM #001]

No. See above.

I'll add that *another* way of putting it is 'What does the value of that factory building that was built ten years ago have to do with my per-hour efforts *today* -- !

If you are working in that factory, everything.

I'll *rephrase*: How is the valuation of the previously-built, pre-existing building and equipment to be *ratioed* to the hours of work that I put in *today* -- ?

[ckaihatsu]

*pre-existing* infrastructure (capital goods)

To elaborate, all I have to do is *ask* 'What kinds of labor, and how much of each, did it take to build that factory?'

The implication here is that *my* labor, today, isn't being formally valued in relation to the actual past labor that it took to source and build the company / building at which I work -- there's no direct 'pay-it-forward' dynamic from the work of the past, as an 'input' to the similar-type labor that I'm doing *today*.

Instead the inherited social convention is to use a kind of 'nationalist scrip', for lack of a better description.

By contrast, I have a *better* formulation for labor value, that *does* turn it into a strictly 'pay-it-forward' kind of vehicle of (labor) value:

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way, and uses a system of *circulating* labor credits that are *not* exchangeable for material items of any kind. In accordance with communism being synonymous with 'free-access', all material implements, resources, and products would be freely available and *not* quantifiable according to any abstract valuations. The labor credits would represent past labor hours completed, multiplied by the difficulty or hazard of the work role performed. The difficulty/hazard multiplier would be determined by a mass survey of all work roles, compiled into an index.

In this way all concerns for labor, large and small, could be reduced to the ready transfer of labor-hour credits. The fulfillment of work roles would bring labor credits into the liberated-laborer's possession, and would empower them with a labor-organizing and labor-utilizing ability directly proportionate to the labor credits from past work completed.

This method would both *empower* and *limit* the position of liberated labor since a snapshot of labor performed -- more-or-less the same quantity of labor-power available continuously, going forward -- would be certain, known, and *finite*, and not subject to any kinds of abstraction- (financial-) based extrapolations or stretching. Since all resources would be in the public domain no one would be at a loss for the basics of life, or at least for free access to providing for the basics of life for themselves. And, no political power or status, other than that represented by possession of actual labor credits, could be enjoyed by liberated labor. It would be free to represent itself on an individual basis or could associate and organize on its own political terms, within the confines of its empowerment by the sum of pooled labor credits in possession.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201211050 ... ?p=2889338

[Truth To Power]

No, I haven't made any false claims.

You most certainly have, perhaps the most fundamental one being that the difference between what workers produce without a factory and with a factory is somehow due to the workers' contributions of (less and easier) labor and not the factory owner's contribution of the factory.

Can we simply agree that there are *different types* of capital, as in *rentier*-type capital, and *equity*-type capital -- ?

Sure, if we are talking about accounting, and don't want to understand economics. You are using "capital" in the Marxist or accounting sense: assets devoted to obtaining income. That is not an economically meaningful quantity. In particular, if you persist in calling everyone who owns such assets "capitalists," you have simply decided never to know, and to make unanimously false claims about, the relevant facts of economics.

No -- it's the difference between inert / inorganic *pre-existing* infrastructure (capital goods),

Producer goods are not pre-existing, they have to be provided by their producers/owners. Land really IS pre-existing. See the difference?

and *current*, *realtime* labor efforts on the parts of *people*, or 'labor'. These are *not* comparable quantities.

They are most certainly comparable: the only difference is in when and how the contribution to production is made.

There's *no agreement* on 'value' here -- you dispute *real estate* valuations only,

See? You ALWAYS HAVE TO PRETEND that there is no relevant economic difference between land and fixed improvements thereto.

while I dispute the validity of *equity* valuations as well.

It's not their valuations that are in dispute, it's the rightfulness of their ownership as private property.

It's *important*, though -- as long as you don't *retract* it, that statement of yours is *acknowledging* the politics that I've been arguing-for, and discussing, all along, that the labor commodity *is* economically exploited by the owners of producer goods.

Only when private ownership of land, as under capitalism, enables it by depriving workers of their options and thus their bargaining power without just compensation. Exploitation is therefore NOT inherent in the employer-employee relationship, and geoism does not enable it.

Now you're being *contradictory* -- which *is* it, is labor exploited by the owners of producer goods, or aren't they?

I have already explained that to you, very patiently, multiple times, in clear, simple, grammatical English: UNDER CAPITALISM private ownership of land enables employers to exploit labor because workers are stripped of their rights, their options, and thus their bargaining power without just compensation. This condition DOES NOT APPLY in a geoist economy where every resident citizen gets just compensation for being excluded from land held in secure, exclusive private tenure.

You're being *evasive*, and *dissembling*

No, I am reminding you of the relevant facts of objective physical reality.

-- the point / scenario here is about (organic) people's *labor* / work, in relation to *inorganic* production goods.

No, you have no point. The fact that labor is effort while producer goods are physical objects previously produced by labor is entirely irrelevant. Both are contributions to production.

How can something *inorganic* and durable -- buildings and machinery -- be reasonably compared per-hour, to the realtime *organic* labor that workers do?

By their market value, for one. The workers themselves - unlike you -- know that their labor is comparable to inorganic money: that's why they willingly trade their labor for it.

It's apples-and-oranges, or 'dancing-to-architecture', materially-economically-speaking.

GARBAGE, as proved above. The workers themselves know better, even if you don't.

Again, which *is* it -- is the measurement of (exchange-) value *relevant*, or is it *irrelevant*?

Of course it is relevant. You just refuse to know how.

Okay, in this case we're back to my previous point, then:

Refuted above. The workers themselves know better, even if you don't.

All you're doing is saying that it-is-what-it-is, and *that* approach / attitude isn't even *political* then --

Sure it is -- if your politics respects facts.

where did the system of exchange-value valuating come from, then, and why do you consider it to be valid -- ?

It comes from people's desire to relieve scarcity by trading what they value less for what they value more, and it is valid because unlike socialism, it is based on consent, not force.

I maintain that *organic* processes -- human labor -- *cannot* be validly ratioed to pre-existing, *inorganic* valuations, meaning all production goods and *equity* values.

But you are just objectively wrong.

Just because something was built in the past doesn't mean that it should be accepted as the *valuation system* for all future labor *done* on it --

What on earth do you incorrectly imagine you think you might be talking about? Producer goods aren't a "valuation system." They are just things their owner is contributing to the production system to get something of value produced.

in reality that's 'dead-labor' commanding *living labor*, economically.

GARBAGE. In reality, it is the labor and material resources of the production system's owner paying for workers' labor in consensual exchange.

(See the previous segment.)

See your nonsense demolished.

So then why isn't *that* system being used, with the bosses checking off on their clipboards 'Worker #58392 was made better-off due to our employment' -- ?

WTF do you think the payroll department does, hmmmmmmmmmm? Have you ever actually had a job, in any capacity?

In other words, what you're touting is actually officially *incidental* to the material-economic system of valuation (exchange-values) that *is* used, for the sake of *profit-making*, *from* workers' labor, which does *not* benefit the worker economically -- it *exploits* the laborer economically.

It indisputably benefits the worker economically, or he wouldn't agree to it.

GET IT??

<absurd and disingenuous Marxist garbage snipped>

I'll *rephrase*: How is the valuation of the previously-built, pre-existing building and equipment to be *ratioed* to the hours of work that I put in *today* -- ?

By their respective market values.

[Rich]

Yet this most backward extremity of the great Eurasian continent was eventually to become the birthplace of a new civilisation which would overwhelm all the rest.

Seriously how can people write such rubbish? Western Europe and Britain wee not more backward than what is now far eastern Russia.

[ckaihatsu]

Seriously how can people write such rubbish? Western Europe and Britain wee not more backward than what is now far eastern Russia.

I think Harman means in relation to *Arabia*, and to *China*, at the time (circa 1000).

[ckaihatsu]

No, I haven't made any false claims.

You most certainly have, perhaps the most fundamental one being that the difference between what workers produce without a factory and with a factory is somehow due to the workers' contributions of (less and easier) labor and not the factory owner's contribution of the factory.

I haven't denied the role of industrial *infrastructure* -- *of course* it leverages labor power, for increasing-returns, materially.

Where we differ is on how to *valuate* that industrial infrastructure, or 'dead labor'. Anything built, anywhere in the world, required *labor*, thus making that now-existing inorganic infrastructure 'dead labor', or the past labor efforts of workers in the past.

On this issue, as with all others, you've been consistently *reluctant* to drill-down -- mere superficial *pronouncements* aren't going to suffice.

Please tell me the differences between what workers produce with a factory, and without a factory -- also what the factory owner (equity capital) produces with a factory, and also *without* a factory, just to cover all the bases. Thanks.

(See the previous segment.)

Can we simply agree that there are *different types* of capital, as in *rentier*-type capital, and *equity*-type capital -- ?

Sure, if we are talking about accounting, and don't want to understand economics. You are using "capital" in the Marxist or accounting sense: assets devoted to obtaining income. That is not an economically meaningful quantity.

Assets-devoted-to-obtaining-income is 'not' an 'economically meaningful quantity' -- ?

That's utter *horseshit* -- *of course* capital is an *economic* quantity, and that's what capital *does*. It's either rentier capital, or equity capital.

In particular, if you persist in calling everyone who owns such assets "capitalists," you have simply decided never to know, and to make unanimously false claims about, the relevant facts of economics.

Is 'capitalist' a *swear word* now, and no one is supposed to use the term -- ?

There's equity capital, and there's rentier capital, and the owners of either or both are *capitalists*.

No -- it's the difference between inert / inorganic *pre-existing* infrastructure (capital goods),

Producer goods are not pre-existing, they have to be provided by their producers/owners. Land really IS pre-existing. See the difference?

For any given stint (or longer) of *employment*, yes, the producer goods *are* pre-existing. A factory or office building isn't built once someone gets a job at the company -- the factory or office was *pre-existing*.


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and *current*, *realtime* labor efforts on the parts of *people*, or 'labor'. These are *not* comparable quantities.

They are most certainly comparable: the only difference is in when and how the contribution to production is made.

Capital's 'contribution to production' is *inorganic* ('dead labor' / past labor), while labor's 'contribution to production' is *organic*, meaning live efforts / labor-power, measured by the hour.

These quantities are *not* comparable, because inorganic quantities (of capital, and/or infrastructure) have *nothing in common* with live labor, and yet these quantities are spuriously ratioed to each other, as though an hour of machine time can be measured in the same way as human activity.

There's *no agreement* on 'value' here -- you dispute *real estate* valuations only,

See? You ALWAYS HAVE TO PRETEND that there is no relevant economic difference between land and fixed improvements thereto.

There *is no* difference between land-as-a-commodity, and fixed improvements -- they're *synonymous*.

Land in its raw form, from nature, only has *use value* at best (picking fruit off a tree), but there *has* to be labor done to it for it to become 'real estate', meaning a commodity that can be valuated with exchange values, as part of the larger economy.

No one's 'pretending' -- 'land' is *not* rentier capital *until* labor is applied to it, to commodify it.

while I dispute the validity of *equity* valuations as well.

It's not their valuations that are in dispute, it's the rightfulness of their ownership as private property.

'Private property' is a form of *social relations*, for capitalist economics.

No one will disagree that both rentier capital (as with land), and equity capital (as with buildings and equipment) are both forms of *private property*.

'Rightfulness' is a function of *what's enforced* -- both rentier and equity capital enjoy *enforcement* of their social conventions / definitions, from the bourgeois nation-state.

Without the threat of organized bourgeois ruling class *force* (statism), there would be no way for society to *enforce* the convention of private property -- land is just land, and buildings are just buildings, after all, and either can always go disused.

More proactively, and *regardless* of your 'private property' typing, labor can always say that *they* should be the ones to control any given land, buildings, or equipment, because *labor* is what brought such commodities into existence in the first place, and workers are the ones who are actually *present* on any given day, *with* any given infrastructure.


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It's *important*, though -- as long as you don't *retract* it, that statement of yours is *acknowledging* the politics that I've been arguing-for, and discussing, all along, that the labor commodity *is* economically exploited by the owners of producer goods.

[TTP AXIOM #001] [L]abor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, owners of land, or owners of other privileges.

Only when private ownership of land, as under capitalism, enables it by depriving workers of their options and thus their bargaining power without just compensation. Exploitation is therefore NOT inherent in the employer-employee relationship, and geoism does not enable it.

No, sorry, but the exploitation of labor is *not* strictly a function of *geography*, as you're indicating -- your statement / axiom said that labor is exploited by the owners of producer goods, and the *location* of any given workplace / producer-goods, could be *anywhere*, even next-door to an employee, and they would be *exploited* by that workplace nonetheless.

So, *contrary* to your position / statement here, exploitation *is* inherent in the employer-employee relationship, because it's obviously *not* a function of geography (as with land).

Now you're being *contradictory* -- which *is* it, is labor exploited by the owners of producer goods, or aren't they?

I have already explained that to you, very patiently, multiple times, in clear, simple, grammatical English: UNDER CAPITALISM private ownership of land enables employers to exploit labor because workers are stripped of their rights, their options, and thus their bargaining power without just compensation. This condition DOES NOT APPLY in a geoist economy where every resident citizen gets just compensation for being excluded from land held in secure, exclusive private tenure.

In other words 'Land is a birthright', in your geoist conception of political economy -- that's fair-enough, it's 'the commons' from past eras in history.

But *even after this*, the socio-political implementation of geoism -- factories / workplaces / employers would *still* continue to exploit the labor commodity / workers, in line with your previous, axiomatic statement that '[L]abor is exploited by either owners of producer goods, [...]'.

Since the economic exploitative process is *not* dependent on geography, as land / real estate is, it would continue to function uninterruptedly, past the start of the geoist-society implementation.

You advocate a politics of 'the-state-is-the-monolithic-even-handed-landlord', *plus* you have no idea whatsoever of how to possibly get to *there*, from *here*, which is kind of a *prerequisite* for actual geoism.

You're being *evasive*, and *dissembling*

No, I am reminding you of the relevant facts of objective physical reality.

-- the point / scenario here is about (organic) people's *labor* / work, in relation to *inorganic* production goods.

No, you have no point. The fact that labor is effort while producer goods are physical objects previously produced by labor is entirely irrelevant. Both are contributions to production.

Sure, you can *argue* this, and I don't *contend* it at all -- I explicitly *acknowledged* this earlier, near the beginning of this post, that capital / dead-labor is a material *input* into the capitalist production process, one that exploits labor for its surplus labor value.

Anyone can simply ask how those (pre-)(existing) producer goods were *themselves* made / created, meaning that it's *past labor efforts* that are at the source of *today's* material infrastructure and its pricing-type valuations.

How can something *inorganic* and durable -- buildings and machinery -- be reasonably compared per-hour, to the realtime *organic* labor that workers do?

By their market value, for one. The workers themselves - unlike you -- know that their labor is comparable to inorganic money: that's why they willingly trade their labor for it.

You're *contradicting* yourself, because labor can't both be 'willing', and 'exploited' at the same time -- why would anyone 'willingly' be exploited, as in I-want-to-be-exploited-today-and-where's-the-place-to-do-that.

I just want to take a moment here and pause to observationally point-out that you're *hinging everything* -- both (organic) labor *and* (inorganic) infrastructure -- on the standard definition of 'market value'. Let that sink in. Take a few deep breaths. (grin)

Okay, here it comes -- what part of 'market value' is *organic*, exactly -- ? Why is active, organic, biological *labor* (people's life-time and efforts), being quantified according to the valuations of *inorganic* objects, basically -- ?

Doesn't this mean that AI-has-already-taken-over, in a sense -- ? That the initial *financialization*, particularly, immediately turned everyone into living *placeholders* under an authority of deadly violence that *enforces* this regime-of-value-abstraction-through-market-values. Don't we *all* have a certain *number* floating over our heads, as a result -- ? That, to the next person, I'm basically that-number, as a commodity, to be considered 'financially', or not.

You may be surprised to know that *many* take exception to this kind of societal *commodification* -- sure, people *do* stuff, but we don't necessarily have to have a world where this impersonal 'invisible-hand' market valuation governs our lives for us, particularly our *working* lives.

It's apples-and-oranges, or 'dancing-to-architecture', materially-economically-speaking.

GARBAGE, as proved above. The workers themselves know better, even if you don't.

I'll elaborate -- the workers' labor commodity, as a commodity, is *always* a *service*. Some labor produces *tangible* goods (blue-collar), including producer goods and capital goods, while other kinds of labor are either *intellectual* (white-collar), or an *in-person* service (pink-collar).

*Dancing*, too, is potentially a 'service', and there may be a way to *commodify* it that way, as a service. But this particular kind of dancing is only possible because of a particular *inspiration*, from the existence and sight-of a particular kind of *architecture* that happens to exist.

*Likewise*, any blue-collar-type labor (etc.) is *also* a physically-oriented service, like dancing, but it, too, requires certain physical infrastructure, and it may happen to produce tangible commodities (or *intangible* ones -- the pink-collar service-commodity, and the white-collar intellect-commodity).

So my characterization *stands*, that materially-economically the (organic) role of labor is contained and quantified / valuated in relation to the role of *inorganic*, non-living physical infrastructure -- this relation is formally / officially *ratioed*, per hour of labor-time and capital-time.


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Value is what something would trade for, so it can't exist without a market. But capitalism is about ownership, not exchange.

[TTP AXIOM #002] How [the] value [of labor power and equity capital] is measured is irrelevant.

But that it can be and is measured is relevant.

Again, which *is* it -- is the measurement of (exchange-) value *relevant*, or is it *irrelevant*?

Of course it is relevant. You just refuse to know how.

Okay, so, to *clarify*, you're saying that the measurement of exchange value *can* take place reliably / relevantly, but it cannot be *measured* relevantly / meaningfully.

[Q #004] Why should any society favor a system of economic-type valuation that itself cannot measure (exchange-) value reliably / relevantly?

I recently used the term 'nationalist scrip' to describe national currencies, and their valuations, in the post-Bretton Woods era, and I think it's appropriate to mention that here.

Okay, in this case we're back to my previous point, then:

Refuted above. The workers themselves know better, even if you don't.

(See above.)


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Garbage. They [labor services and physical infrastructure] are commensurable in exchange value. Surely that is the point, and what makes them economic.

All you're doing is saying that it-is-what-it-is, and *that* approach / attitude isn't even *political* then --

Sure it is -- if your politics respects facts.

But on *who's* say-so -- ?

In other words, why aren't we using cowrie shells, or whatever? How did the current economic 'boss' become the one to put little squiggles or whatever on the face of the currency note?

If any given national currency happens to function exactly like 'nationalist scrip', then aren't we all essentially living in 'nationalist company towns', with each currency floating or rafting-down on larger, global *financial* trends -- ? Who's at the wheel? Why are the populations of entire *nations* at the mercy of 'nationalist scrip' -- ?

where did the system of exchange-value valuating come from, then, and why do you consider it to be valid -- ?

It comes from people's desire to relieve scarcity by trading what they value less for what they value more, and it is valid because unlike socialism, it is based on consent, not force.

Actually, it *is* based on force -- here's a little peek:

Johnson government passes scab agency laws as train drivers vote to strike

Laura Tiernan
12 July 2022

A Tory government in disarray—whose deposed leader squats inside 10 Downing Street—has passed new laws aimed at breaking strikes and imposing crippling fines on unions for taking industrial action.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/0 ... n-j12.html

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I maintain that *organic* processes -- human labor -- *cannot* be validly ratioed to pre-existing, *inorganic* valuations, meaning all production goods and *equity* values.

But you are just objectively wrong.

(See from previously.)

Just because something was built in the past doesn't mean that it should be accepted as the *valuation system* for all future labor *done* on it --

What on earth do you incorrectly imagine you think you might be talking about? Producer goods aren't a "valuation system." They are just things their owner is contributing to the production system to get something of value produced.

Don't the valuations / exchange-values / prices *count* for anything, though -- ?

Formal / official *pricings* of producer goods *are* a valuation system, otherwise they wouldn't be needed, and wouldn't be used.

You're *contradicting* yourself again -- are valuations used, or aren't they?

(Then it follows that the *labor commodity*, per-hour, is economically valued according to a ratio imposed on it, that values it *in terms of* a pre-existing, inorganic 'producer goods' capital allocation -- and that's apples-and-oranges, or dancing-to-architecture, or *bullshit*, because of that ratioing of something organic and living to something that's inorganic, from *past* labor done.)


[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified

Spoiler: show

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in reality that's 'dead-labor' commanding *living labor*, economically.

GARBAGE. In reality, it is the labor and material resources of the production system's owner paying for workers' labor in consensual exchange.

It's *not* consensual, because anyone without private property *has* to cover the ongoing costs of life and living, and all that the capitalist economic system values from them is their *labor power*, which they then have to sell, at a loss, for wages.

A worker who is sufficiently productive can produce an output value greater than what it costs to hire him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value#Theory

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(See the previous segment.)

See your nonsense demolished.

See your political rhetoric increasingly resemble the bellowing of a *professional wrestler*.


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But what you call exploitation actually isn't, because the workers you claim are "exploited" by the factory owner are actually made better off by the latter's existence and activities.

So then why isn't *that* system being used, with the bosses checking off on their clipboards 'Worker #58392 was made better-off due to our employment' -- ?

WTF do you think the payroll department does, hmmmmmmmmmm? Have you ever actually had a job, in any capacity?

I'm saying that the system isn't *for* the bettering of the workers themselves -- that *may* happen incidentally, at times, because of the overall economic activity, but it's not that the capitalist system is set-up for the sake of the *workers*. It's actually the *opposite*, in the context of capitalist commodity production. The capitalist system is *named* capitalism because the capitalist system favors the role of *capital*, as you yourself often *argue* for -- particularly the real-estate form of *rentier* capital.

In other words, what you're touting is actually officially *incidental* to the material-economic system of valuation (exchange-values) that *is* used, for the sake of *profit-making*, *from* workers' labor, which does *not* benefit the worker economically -- it *exploits* the laborer economically.

It indisputably benefits the worker economically, or he wouldn't agree to it.

Bullshit. Employment is *not* a consensual economic relation, as I covered above.

'Exploitation', as from your own statement, is, *by definition*, not a 'benefitting' of the worker. Exploitation is a *diminishing* of the labor value actually paid back to the worker in the form of wages.

GET IT??

<absurd and disingenuous Marxist garbage snipped>

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I'll *rephrase*: How is the valuation of the previously-built, pre-existing building and equipment to be *ratioed* to the hours of work that I put in *today* -- ?

By their respective market values.

Again, I'll remind that you're *hinging everything* on your reliance on market values. (See my treatment of this above.)

[ckaihatsu]

When Greed Goes Too Far - The Worldcom Fraud

[ckaihatsu]

I'll elaborate -- the workers' labor commodity, as a commodity, is *always* a *service*. Some labor produces *tangible* goods (blue-collar), including producer goods and capital goods, while other kinds of labor are either *intellectual* (white-collar), or an *in-person* service (pink-collar).

Clarification: *All* kinds of labor, blue, pink, and white, are capable of *adding value* to the point of purchase of producer goods and/or capital goods.