ckaihatsu wrote:
No, I haven't made any false claims.
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
On this issue, as with all others, you've been consistently *reluctant* to drill-down -- mere superficial *pronouncements* aren't going to suffice.
Truth To Power wrote:
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.)
ckaihatsu wrote:
Can we simply agree that there are *different types* of capital, as in *rentier*-type capital, and *equity*-type capital -- ?
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
Truth To Power wrote:
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*.
ckaihatsu wrote:
No -- it's the difference between inert / inorganic *pre-existing* infrastructure (capital goods),
Truth To Power wrote:
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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ckaihatsu wrote:
and *current*, *realtime* labor efforts on the parts of *people*, or 'labor'. These are *not* comparable quantities.
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
There's *no agreement* on 'value' here -- you dispute *real estate* valuations only,
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
while I dispute the validity of *equity* valuations as well.
Truth To Power wrote:
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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ckaihatsu wrote:
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.
Truth To Power wrote:
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).
ckaihatsu wrote:
Now you're being *contradictory* -- which *is* it, is labor exploited by the owners of producer goods, or aren't they?
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're being *evasive*, and *dissembling*
Truth To Power wrote:
No, I am reminding you of the relevant facts of objective physical reality.
ckaihatsu wrote:
-- the point / scenario here is about (organic) people's *labor* / work, in relation to *inorganic* production goods.
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
How can something *inorganic* and durable -- buildings and machinery -- be reasonably compared per-hour, to the realtime *organic* labor that workers do?
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
It's apples-and-oranges, or 'dancing-to-architecture', materially-economically-speaking.
Truth To Power wrote:
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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Truth To Power wrote:
Value is what something would trade for, so it can't exist without a market. But capitalism is about ownership, not exchange.
ckaihatsu wrote:
[TTP AXIOM #002] How [the] value [of labor power and equity capital] is measured is irrelevant.
Truth To Power wrote:
But that it can be and is measured is relevant.
ckaihatsu wrote:
Again, which *is* it -- is the measurement of (exchange-) value *relevant*, or is it *irrelevant*?
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, in this case we're back to my previous point, then:
Truth To Power wrote:
Refuted above. The workers themselves know better, even if you don't.
(See above.)
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Truth To Power wrote:
Garbage. They [labor services and physical infrastructure] are commensurable in exchange value. Surely that is the point, and what makes them economic.
ckaihatsu wrote:
All you're doing is saying that it-is-what-it-is, and *that* approach / attitude isn't even *political* then --
Truth To Power wrote:
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' -- ?
ckaihatsu wrote:
where did the system of exchange-value valuating come from, then, and why do you consider it to be valid -- ?
Truth To Power wrote:
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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ckaihatsu wrote:
I maintain that *organic* processes -- human labor -- *cannot* be validly ratioed to pre-existing, *inorganic* valuations, meaning all production goods and *equity* values.
Truth To Power wrote:
But you are just objectively wrong.
(See from previously.)
ckaihatsu wrote:
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 --
Truth To Power wrote:
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
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ckaihatsu wrote:
in reality that's 'dead-labor' commanding *living labor*, economically.
Truth To Power wrote:
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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ckaihatsu wrote:
(See the previous segment.)
Truth To Power wrote:
See your nonsense demolished.
See your political rhetoric increasingly resemble the bellowing of a *professional wrestler*.
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Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
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' -- ?
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
ckaihatsu wrote:
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.
Truth To Power wrote:
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.
Truth To Power wrote:
GET IT??
<absurd and disingenuous Marxist garbage snipped>
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ckaihatsu wrote:
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* -- ?
Truth To Power wrote:
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.)