Class Theory: A first look.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Marx and Engels made no distinction between socialism and communism. Lenin was the one who used the term "socialism" to refer to Marx and Engels' supposed "first phase" of communism and the term "communism" to refer to Marx and Engels' "higher phase" of communism.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Why don't you give me your definition of wealth, then. I'm operating under the definition that wealth is an abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. A house is a material possession. Natural resources are valuable to people who want to produce things even if they can't exchange them. Owning a house that you cannot exchange is no different in that sense than owning a house that you can exchange.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

First, the definition I gave was from Wikipedia.

Second, nothing in your comment is found in the article you linked to.

Third, even if it was, your continued insistence that it would require control of the state does not follow from Marx's use of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as that is simply a Marxist term for the proletariat controlling social power--be it through a state or not--as opposed to the bourgeoisie controlling social power.

Like I said, socialism can come with state control, but state control is not necessary for socialism.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Except there is wealth, because the person who builds the house values the house. Profits are not the same as wealth. Just because I can't trade my house with you, it doesn't make my house any less valuable to me.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Sure it is, just like the real-world form of private property ownership and capitalism is almost invariably reliant on the enforcement by and assistance of a state apparatus.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

The value of production would be realized through personal use. A person who builds their own house possesses the same amount of wealth, ceteris paribus, as a person who bought an identical house possesses.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Ebay would not exist without production. There would be no computers, no internet, and no electricity. You must produce those things in order for them to exist. How, in a society with only exchange and no production, can value be created?

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Fascism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive. Neither are fascism and communism. When public money is used to prop up private enterprises you have state capitalism. The difference between state capitalism and socialism is that in socialism the public money is used for public enterprises in which the surpluses do not go into private hands. In state capitalism public money can be used to help private enterprises, but all the profits still go to the private owners of those enterprises.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

She may be able to buy a bigger house or more consumer goods in a capitalist system or she may not. Even if she could her quality of life would not necessarily be better. Especially this particular gunsmith we are talking about. She doesn't like to see people starving in the streets because their labor doesn't produce profits for capitalists. She doesn't like making her guns from raw materials that were sold to her from corporations that exploit the labor of others. She thinks every human should have their basic needs met. And she thinks private property is theft. As such, she would be severely depressed living in a capitalist system, driving her quality of life further and further down as she has to rely on the exploitation of others to perform the work she loves.

In a socialist society you are not a slave because you have all of your basic needs met. In fact, that is the only way to be truly free to develop as a human being rather than to develop as a mere laborer. The difference between the two systems is that in a socialist society everyone gets a say in what type of labor they do, in a capitalist society only the rich have the benefit of making that decision.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

I think you misread what I stated, both combined are an act of exchange.

So what you're saying is that production combined with exchange is an act of exchange? It seems pretty redundant to say that exchange is an act of exchange.

Also exchange is not required to create a commodity, commodities exist when they are mined/created/grown and even if they are hoarded they are still commodities.

Exchange, or at least the intent to exchange, is required to create a commodity. The boat that I created in my previous example is not a commodity because I do not intend to exchange it, I built it for my personal use. Someone selling a commodity for profit may seem to create "wealth" in the form of money but that is only a product of the fetishism created by market economics. Exchange does not create value. In order to understand this, however, you are going to have to understand the difference between value and price, which I feel like you are going to have a hard time with.

Also, you gave no response to the hypothetical societies in my previous comment. If wealth is created through exchange, then why is there no wealth creation in a society with all exchange and no production?

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Because her quality of life would not be higher living as a wage slave.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Production is not the same as exchange. The fact that exchange is required to create a commodity in a capitalist system does not make production and exchange the same thing.

For example, I go out into the forest, I collect some wood, and I build a boat. This is an act of production. If I use the boat for my own purposes then there is no exchange involved.

Now that we can see that production and exchange are two separate things let us imagine two hypothetical societies. In the first society we have only production with no exchange. People gather raw materials and build things for themselves. We can see how each person's wealth will grow by adding their own labor to the natural world. In the second society, we have only exchange and no production. No one is changing raw materials into tools, or food, or entertainment. They only exchange the natural resources they find and as such they generate no growth of wealth.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Because, like I said, she likes to make guns. She gets to do what she loves.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Yes, you are. If you are not you should be able to provide some citation.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

State capitalism is capitalism. The means of production are still privately owned. Socializing losses does not make socialism. Until the surpluses are socialized as well, you still have capitalism.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Our guns don't explode when they are fired as they were crafted by a skilled gunsmith who is encouraged to do a good job because she takes pride in doing the work that she wants to do, because she is not alienated from the products of her labor, and because she knows the guns will be used to defend the collective against fascists who want to steal the product of her labor.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

We have guns. We refuse to let you steal the product of our labor.

Systems that attempt to privatize ownership require a state to enforce that theft.

You see what I did there? This can go on forever, but I'm going to stop it now because you don't seem to be getting the point. Neither private ownership nor collective ownership require a state. Both can be done with or without state power.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Then why have production at all? Isn't exchange cheaper than production? Wouldn't that make it a better wealth accumulation strategy to simply trade goods to create wealth instead of buying machines and hiring laborers?

The answer is, because exchange does not create value, production does.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

You are debating between state capitalism and "liberal" capitalism, not between socialism and capitalism. You may be interested in this article from the economist that was posted in /r/economics.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

Cooperative ownership can be cooperatively enforced by private individuals.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

In an exchange where someone has $1m of profit that $1m will be created by the act of exchange, it won't be distributed from an unrelated actor in the market.

This is just ridiculous. The act of exchange does not magically create value. Basing your support of the capitalist system on the precept that it does will lead you to many faulty conclusions.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

The same could be said exactly in reverse. Without the force of the state to enforce private ownership it would not exist, to ensure private ownership you need both statutes and enforcement.

GeneralPudding · 2 days

You are wrong on the definition of socialism. It's funny, too, because you're trying to say other people don't know the definition. Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership and control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy, not state ownership. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises, but socialism does not automatically imply state control.

bperki8

TROPHY CASE

bperki8

TROPHY CASE

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