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Sorry to hear that mate. Get well soon.
Have a cake. :birthday:
No, it's spot on. My dismissal of it is also spot on. For reasons already stated.
Interestingly, there is no definition of what money actually is in the article, it's just assumed, which is another reason it's based on false premises.
It's things like this that make laugh most of all.
No, they are valuable because they are shiny and pretty, lot's of people want them and they are rare.
You haven't stated any reasons.
Its based on a critique of capitalist economics where money is the symbol of exchange value.
Exactly. Lots of people want them and they are rare, therefore demand exceeds supply so to meet that demand, more labour is required which costs and adds to the final exchange value.
Thank you.
Which is wrong. That's not what money is at all, in a capitalist economy. Money is what the "state" will accept in payments for taxes, under threat of force for not providing them. This is how crappy bits of paper come to be accepted, needed and desired in a capitalist economy, they keep the awesome force of the state away from your door.
No, they are rare - full stop. There just aren't enough of them to go around, no matter how much labour you put into it. They are valuable purely and simply because of their rarity. Rarity in itself can create value. You can make crystals with very similar properties very easily using chemicals and water. No one wants those at all. Why? Because they are easy to obtain. They are wanted purely and simply because they are rare.
Their value is in itself rarity. No labour involved anywhere. As an example, I could destroy several faberge eggs (using labour!) and it would only make the remaining ones more valuable, and the ones I have worthless?
Why? because value is only determined by rarity.
No things are rare just because they are. That doesn't give them the value they have, but your confusing the two does show something, doesn't it?
Nah.
Well, duh. If something is common but there is no demand for it, then it has little value too. No matter how much labour you put into it, geddit?
Again, this isn't how real buisness works. You make a product and hope like fuck it sells. You don't really know until you jump in how deep the water is. If there is a demand more than you provided for, then you might go make more. OR, and this is the popular option, you nail the price through the roof until some competition comes along.
The more demand there is for something, the more likely it is that it won't be produced.
Either way, the labour is done, spent, gone when it's time to sell. Only if people want stuff at the end of the process does it sell. You would like to cover your costs and make a profit, sure. It's irrelevant to the buyer though.
Quick question though, who, in our wonderful economy, sets the price of items for business?
If something is rare but not in demand, it has no value.
Good comeback.
Yes, exactly. That is my point.
I'd hate to be your business partner. Most people do some market research first.
Yes, incurs labour costs.
and no one buys it
Yes, definitely glad I'm not your business partner.
But you're ignoring the market. How does a buyer determine whether to buy a particular product? Its exchange value in relation to other similar products. Therefore your argument is circular - to explain exchange value you require the consumer to make choices, based on exchange value and your argument chases its own tail.
Its a complex relationship between supply and demand and labour costs. However, the only real measure is how much it costs to produce something.
So neither labour put in or scarcity creates value? That's right. It's value is determined by what you can get for it, regardless of the labour or scarcity. Scarcity can create value in people's minds all by itself. Labour can't. Therefore labour isn't in any way a determinant of the value of an item.
My point exactly.
You are still trying to scry the future. And it really is the case that in the back of every businessman's mind that they don't really know what will happen. All the research in the world won't mitigate against a fickle public or circumstance. So, they make some stuff and hope like fuck it sells.
Erm, nope. That cash is gone, sell the item or not. It takes labour to produce things, that labour costs resources, and ideally the market will pay enough to recover that loss. If it doesn't, the business dies, but the resources spent on labour have still gone, and still have nothing to do with whether you can sell what you produced.
No, you have an inelastic demand situation. You find the price that gives you the highest profit for the least effort. Hence you produce as little as possible.
so -
is true.
To address the last bit - it's not complicated, the bank decides. The bank runs everything in our economy. We have a collectivist system already, it's just run for the benefit of a handful of men in London.
In a capitalist economy, the bank decides everything. They create money at the flick of a pen, can destroy business or create them at whim. Using the mechanism of the state, which they also control they can legislate things as they see fit. It's quite brilliant and I wish I had thought of it.
my local mp is a minor minister and he's annoying as hell, stephen timms
You haven't been reading a word I've been saying. Look - the ltv does not deny supply and demand, it is an integral part of the theory. All you're doing is showing that you have completely misunderstood what it is saying. The exchange value is determined by a products position in the market - if it was all in the mind of the consumer then its a circular argument. The cost of production ultimately determines the equilibrium exchange value as exchange value has to recoup a profit. Your example of digging a hole is a straw man as if no one wants the hole, then it has no exchange value, therefore it is not part of a market therefore not part of the system under discussion.
The only point you've proved is that you haven't understood the labour theory of value.
Good businessmen will thoroughly research the market first.
Yes, and if there is no market for something, then it has no exchange value. The exchange value however, has to be determined by the labour costs to recoup a profit however.
You're crazy.
this is kind of hard to get my head round when smacked out of my head on opiates
So the labour costs ultimately determine the price.
I understood the LTV. All I have done here is dismiss it as horseshit. Which it is, for the reasons gone through already.
Really? Who provides the "money" for everything in our economy? Is the money really there or is it just ledger entries in a banks book? Who decides who gets these pretended "loans", how do they decide who to give those pretended "loans" to? Do you know about the history of money and how the country was bought in the 30's? Do you know where inflation comes from?
I'm just a little crazy.
Except in this thread.
You said that the ltv states that just digging a hole (labour) creates value. it doesn't. You have misunderstood it.
You're using it in an abstract way, so divorced from reality as to make it useless. What product are you talking about? One which is required by consumers? Or one which people can do without? One in which there are no alternatives? Your example is useless without a context.
No, it claims that labour is a factor in determining the exchange value of an item. It isn't. So it's bollocks. Pretty simple.
No, I gave you a context. Read again.
Yes, it does. Which is not what you initially claimed when trying to refute it. Try again. It is, however, perfectly obvious that production costs help determine price for the very fact that to make a profit you need to sell for greater than production cost. You're trying to argue that price is determined by utility value, which is bollocks as I have shown - you end up in a circular argument.
No you didn't. Try again.
No, it doesn't. I already wrote why not. This is why LTV is horsehit.
Look, it's simple. You spend a million quid making a million items. you ask for 2 quid for each item. No one wants them until they have dropped in price to a penny. No one gives a fuck how much you spend on labour to produce an item, it has nothing to do with the value of it.
Scenario number two. You wander into the jungle and find a diamond. It took you five minutes. It's worth millions. No one gives a fuck how much labour you put into finding it.
You haven't done anything of the sort.
Neither of which actually prove anything as they have absolutely fuck all to do with the realities of capitalist production (especially your 2nd example).
[edit to add]
If you insist on using examples divorced from what actually happens in markets, you ain't gonna get anywhere.
Your second example has nothing to do with capitalist production. However, the price in the market would be determined by what it costs other people to mine diamonds. It ain't that hard to grasp - all you're doing is chucking out examples in a vacuum, divorced from any other relationships in a capitalist economy. Taken on their own they would seem to back up your pov, but they can't be taken on their own as economics is a system of relationships, not a reified objective reality (surprised you can't see this klintock - its one of your fave subjects).
Your claim that subjective utility value alone determines price is obvious bollocks as all it says is price = utility = price = utiltity ad nauseum. There is no reality to hang it on. That reality is how much it costs to produce something.
No mate, they go pop, bust, bankrupt. You can try to sell things that no one wants all day but if no one wants them they will eventually be sold for tuppence to the one person who does want them, or destroyed. Guess what though, the labour has already been paid for and isn't a factor of what price you can get for them.
Nope, the labour of the first lot has been spent and is gone. You have a time machine now?
No, it really isn't. It's rarity value + value of the rarity that gives diamonds their value.
I already told you. In our economy, the bank decides what works and what doesn't.
Yeah, I know. It's still how it works though, Like money itself it's a fucker to get going but almost ustoppable once you have done. That IS how it works, AND it's a fiction, bollocks. What you can get people to believe will be true.
What relationship between a group of men building a road and another making bread? None, but what we arbitarily decide upon or is decided for us by those who can convince. This is the one in place in a capitalist society. This is again why I like to start with the nature of fiction and fact.
No, that's another fiction. And one that doesn't hold any water in a capitalist economy.
Look - if you're going to continue to ignore the real world, this is pointless.
:banghead: The costs will be recouped.
No, in a capitalist economy, it is the labour required that determines the average market price, as I have shown and you have completely failed to refute.
The rest of this bears no relation to any of my points.
What the fuck? In the real world, if you offer a product or service for more than it has already cost you to produce it, you go bankrupt. Did everything change while I was asleep or something?
You have to use resources on labour to make stuff. If that stuff isn't wanted by anyone, then it's worthless.
On a closed buisiness they are gone mate. The costs have been paid out, nothing of value has changed hands for them, so nothing is recouped. It's expenditure with nothing of value being made. i.e. waste.
No, it isn't.
It's the amount of other goods that you can trade that determine price. Labour has nothing to do with it. If you only have one substance being made, there is no market at all. As you add in new products, then the prices start changing, relative to each other, because it's governed by the relative scarctiy of each good, measured in the good that the highest number of people recognise as being useful. Tobacco and wheat in 18th century america, gold all over the world at all times as examples.
Money, in a free market economy, being that good which has value to the most number of people, not fiat currency imposed by a state through force and fraud, as we have now in our collectivist/capitalist economy.
Or you borrow money while trying to recoup your loss.
Yes, this is my point.
Yes, this is also my point. If no one wants it, there is no exchange value.
Or, in the real world, you borrow the money and recoup the costs.
yes it is, I have shown it is and you have repeatedly failed to refute it
You're arguing in circles again. You're saying that utility is exchange value is utility is exchange value is utility etc. Its nonsense. People have to make a profit, therefore they have to sell at higher than production costs. That's it. Otherwise, businesses wouldn't seek to minimise their labour costs. Which they do - you're barking mad if you can't see it.
Oh dear. You don't know how modern banking works, do you?
Oh dear. You don't know how modern banking works, do you?
So we have found a synonym. Amazing.
Do you know why they have to make a profit?
Do you know why they do that? Labour is a cost, which in order to keep producing, a business must cover. It has nothing to do with the value of the end product. Your barking mad if you can't see it.