Damnation I lost an enormous reply, fuckin mobile piece of shit. I'll summarize.
Marx's analysis of capitalism is highly flawed and intellectually dubious for several reasons, some of which I will elaborate on.
Firstly that his theories are predicated on the labor theory of value, which had been debunked a century prior. Labor inherently has no value unless it is desired, warranted, and has a beneficial outcome.
Secondly that he misconstrued the concept of capitalism, conflating it with greed and covetousness in order to argue against what capitalism really is. In essence he strawmanned it. Capitalism in reality means nothing more than the free exchange of goods and services. Something that is a fact of human existence and is in a literal sense harmless. One man trading a horse to another man in exchange for wheat doesn't effect you in the slightest. To bypass that truth, Marx relied on an externality theory, the idea that any and everything other people do somehow effects you, and therefore justify laying collective claim to not only the possessions of others, but to those other people themselves. Externality theory is really where the lies of his philosophy evolve into tyranny, because it allows the adherent to reach out and declare that so long as anyone else exists who is allowed not to bow to the ephemeral collective good(which as a reminder is entirely based on the jealousy and covetousness of the Marxists themselves), then somehow theft is occurring.
I've never read the author you quoted, but it seems myopic. The idea that the modern time is a period of unparalleled greed or excess of the self styled elites flies in the face of history.
one such example being diversity officers, gender studies
Capitalism absolutely did not create any of that shit.
You could argue that "free market capitalism" created an environment so successful that parasites were able to latch onto institutions and perpetuate themselves, but people did that, not "capitalism."
Parasitic losers do that in any environment. The stakes are just bigger here because the whole pie is bigger ... thanks to free markets.
And you also prove GP's point: these useless people provide "labor," but clearly provide no value. If every person on the planet labored as a DIE commissar, we'd all starve to death. Because "labor" doesn't have any inherent value.
Beyond that, debunking the labor theory of value also helps establish under what circumstances labor can have value.
Suppose you own a nice house. You worked hard to save up money for it and you cut your grass every weekend so it looks presentable. You are justifiably proud of your home.
One morning you wake up and there is a huge hole dug in your lawn. The man who dug it says that he worked all night digging the hole in your lawn, and it was really hard and therefore you owe him money. How do you respond?
No normal person will say that they pay the guy. Most people will respond by calling the cops or kicking his ass. The vast, vast majority of people will not pay this guy.
And why?
Because you didn't want a huge hole in your lawn. Labor must be desired.
Because the hole he dug now makes your lawn look ugly, where before it was fine. Labor must be warranted.
Because now you have to fix the hole and plant more grass. Labor must have a beneficial outcome.
All three of these things must be true, or else labor is inherently worthless.
When you talk about jobs that only fulfill ideological needs, I am immediately reminded of my memories of the Soviet Union.
What you describe isn't capitalism at all. It's a contortion of business, a contortion of human life even, made to serve the dictates of the government first and above all else. There is no free exchange of goods and services with the presence of external coercion, especially from a government.
Additionally I am not referring to free market. Nor am I referring to the abject myth of free trade.
As for "society", I don't think that's correct at all. Society has no claim and cannot legitimately lay claim to the success and possessions of individuals. Horses, and taming animals in general, is something that existed far before any idea of society. Same thing with farming. Simply put, transactions are not deterministic, nor do they owe their existence to factors outside of the transaction.
By definition, they can't. If a man offers to buy a lock of my hair, and I give it to him, I don't owe society anything. This doesn't cease to be less true merely because what I'm selling isn't a literal part of my own body.
As for history. As you mentioned the quote is from a century prior. Degeneracy existed in abundance a hundred years ago from our perspective. It certainly existed in the author's past as well, far more than he, or you, realize. For goodness sakes at one point entire continents conducted heart eating, demon worshipping child sacrifices. Present degeneracy is not new or novel, we're merely proximate to a large and loud pustule of it emerging into view. Once excised, they'll go hide again for a few decades.
You lost this very shortly into the post. The biggest point was that labor theory of value has been disproven and you handwaved that away with an excuse that you didn't have the energy to reply, then put down a wall of text anyway. What disingenuous bullshit.
"Free market," to which you're referring to, is as utopian as communism, its inherently premised on the idea of free, equal, (read: liberal) individuals, which has no basis in reality.
This is reading into what he said. Props to Marx for supposedly inventing the idea of Capitalism, but at the core it's really just economics. It doesn't imply belief in an idealized free market. Free just means not a planned economy. (I suppose buyers, sellers, and "Capitalists" are planning things though.)
I don’t know if there’s a word for this behavior, but it’s a staple of Marxist debate. They jump back and forth from the common definition of words to the technical or “jargon” definition. You caught a perfect example: “centrally planned” is a very specific idea in economics, but it is also a phrase made up of common words, and a bad actor (as all leftist debaters are) can use this fact to twist definitions and “win” arguments.
Damnation I lost an enormous reply, fuckin mobile piece of shit. I'll summarize.
Marx's analysis of capitalism is highly flawed and intellectually dubious for several reasons, some of which I will elaborate on.
Firstly that his theories are predicated on the labor theory of value, which had been debunked a century prior. Labor inherently has no value unless it is desired, warranted, and has a beneficial outcome.
Secondly that he misconstrued the concept of capitalism, conflating it with greed and covetousness in order to argue against what capitalism really is. In essence he strawmanned it. Capitalism in reality means nothing more than the free exchange of goods and services. Something that is a fact of human existence and is in a literal sense harmless. One man trading a horse to another man in exchange for wheat doesn't effect you in the slightest. To bypass that truth, Marx relied on an externality theory, the idea that any and everything other people do somehow effects you, and therefore justify laying collective claim to not only the possessions of others, but to those other people themselves. Externality theory is really where the lies of his philosophy evolve into tyranny, because it allows the adherent to reach out and declare that so long as anyone else exists who is allowed not to bow to the ephemeral collective good(which as a reminder is entirely based on the jealousy and covetousness of the Marxists themselves), then somehow theft is occurring.
I've never read the author you quoted, but it seems myopic. The idea that the modern time is a period of unparalleled greed or excess of the self styled elites flies in the face of history.
Capitalism absolutely did not create any of that shit.
You could argue that "free market capitalism" created an environment so successful that parasites were able to latch onto institutions and perpetuate themselves, but people did that, not "capitalism."
Parasitic losers do that in any environment. The stakes are just bigger here because the whole pie is bigger ... thanks to free markets.
And you also prove GP's point: these useless people provide "labor," but clearly provide no value. If every person on the planet labored as a DIE commissar, we'd all starve to death. Because "labor" doesn't have any inherent value.
Beyond that, debunking the labor theory of value also helps establish under what circumstances labor can have value.
Suppose you own a nice house. You worked hard to save up money for it and you cut your grass every weekend so it looks presentable. You are justifiably proud of your home.
One morning you wake up and there is a huge hole dug in your lawn. The man who dug it says that he worked all night digging the hole in your lawn, and it was really hard and therefore you owe him money. How do you respond?
No normal person will say that they pay the guy. Most people will respond by calling the cops or kicking his ass. The vast, vast majority of people will not pay this guy.
And why?
Because you didn't want a huge hole in your lawn. Labor must be desired.
Because the hole he dug now makes your lawn look ugly, where before it was fine. Labor must be warranted.
Because now you have to fix the hole and plant more grass. Labor must have a beneficial outcome.
All three of these things must be true, or else labor is inherently worthless.
To Marxists, capitalism is simultaneously:
an all-encompassing human behavior so ubiquitous that it is literally responsible for everything bad about the world
something it is possible to abolish
When you talk about jobs that only fulfill ideological needs, I am immediately reminded of my memories of the Soviet Union.
What you describe isn't capitalism at all. It's a contortion of business, a contortion of human life even, made to serve the dictates of the government first and above all else. There is no free exchange of goods and services with the presence of external coercion, especially from a government.
Additionally I am not referring to free market. Nor am I referring to the abject myth of free trade.
As for "society", I don't think that's correct at all. Society has no claim and cannot legitimately lay claim to the success and possessions of individuals. Horses, and taming animals in general, is something that existed far before any idea of society. Same thing with farming. Simply put, transactions are not deterministic, nor do they owe their existence to factors outside of the transaction.
By definition, they can't. If a man offers to buy a lock of my hair, and I give it to him, I don't owe society anything. This doesn't cease to be less true merely because what I'm selling isn't a literal part of my own body.
As for history. As you mentioned the quote is from a century prior. Degeneracy existed in abundance a hundred years ago from our perspective. It certainly existed in the author's past as well, far more than he, or you, realize. For goodness sakes at one point entire continents conducted heart eating, demon worshipping child sacrifices. Present degeneracy is not new or novel, we're merely proximate to a large and loud pustule of it emerging into view. Once excised, they'll go hide again for a few decades.
You lost this very shortly into the post. The biggest point was that labor theory of value has been disproven and you handwaved that away with an excuse that you didn't have the energy to reply, then put down a wall of text anyway. What disingenuous bullshit.
Classic Marxist.
This is reading into what he said. Props to Marx for supposedly inventing the idea of Capitalism, but at the core it's really just economics. It doesn't imply belief in an idealized free market. Free just means not a planned economy. (I suppose buyers, sellers, and "Capitalists" are planning things though.)
I don’t know if there’s a word for this behavior, but it’s a staple of Marxist debate. They jump back and forth from the common definition of words to the technical or “jargon” definition. You caught a perfect example: “centrally planned” is a very specific idea in economics, but it is also a phrase made up of common words, and a bad actor (as all leftist debaters are) can use this fact to twist definitions and “win” arguments.
Marxist insanity.
I hope you continue learning.