Obdicut posted:

But again, I'm not claiming that they're Marxist. Again, why do you do this? It really makes you look like an idiot. I didn't claim they were Marxist, nor did I claim their conclusions were Marxist. Instead, I said that one of their assumptions was something that was made concrete by Marx, which shows that Marx is still highly relevant: his ideas are still fundamental to a modern understanding of capitalism.

quote:

It's important to remember here that Marx and Adam Smith are really, really similar in their analysis of capitalism as an economic system. Marx almost entirely picks up from Adam Smith, rather than refuting him. This is, again, something you'd know if you actually read the subject you're attempting to discuss like a human being who actually wanted to understand, rather than just humiliate himself through horrible arguments.

quote:

Your analogy doesn't work, I think because you don't actually understand what the papers are saying. The 'cause' is incredibly simple, and Marx doesn't get it wrong. The division of profits, under capitalism, favors capital for a broad range of reasons, but the most important one being that labor spends income on class reproduction and has almost no opportunity to enter the capitalist class; those that do still are at a much higher risk of failure than those who start in the capital class. Therefore, as those papers say/acknowledge, the tendency under capitalism is for established capital to gain wealth at a much higher rate than labor.

quote:

Marx also didn't just say 'there will be crisis in capitalism'.

asdf32 posted:

My posting value approaches zero. Do not respond to me. My circuits are unable to engage with the consequences of my philosophies.

asdf32 posted:

Got it, the papers don't agree with marx.

Disinterested posted:

Disinterested posted:

I think Obdicut's point is Marx had prefigured some points that are borne out in subsequent analysis in very similar terms, so to imply that Marx dropped the ball entirely empirically is a mistake. I don't think you're going to find a lot of economists who actually make reference to Marx openly as an inspiration because for a lot of them it will effect their careers (it's a pretty ideological area of study). A lot of them are using new tools and data simply not available to Marx, too.

You could take another case like overproduction, which Keynesians also maintain is a problem, in opposition to neo-classical economists.

I don't think anyone here is trying to argue Marx is mainstream in economics.

zen death robot posted:

If you read every post in this thread you will likely wish you were dead

V. Illych L. posted:

Also, Marx's take on the Labour Theory of Value is entirely unproblematic in mainstream economics, given free-market conditions. Most modern economists don't really use it for a lot, but that has to do with what sort of questions they ask rather than the validity of the theory

JeffersonClay posted:

It is wholly incompatible with mainstream economics-- it's a rejection of marginalism.

Obdicut posted:

Yeah, I'm going to stop replying to you again. It's starting to make me feel guilty, this is like watching a blind person wander around tripping over stuff while insisting he can see just fine.

V. Illych L. posted:

The LTV and marginalism are different ways of looking at the same problem, but they're not essentially incompatible. It's entirely possible to accept a labour theory of value while talking about marginal utility as an empirical influence on prices

V. Illych L. posted:

no it isn't

Under efficient, free markets, the price of any commodity will be at equilibrium at the aggregate cost of labour put into procuring said commodity. Obviously the real world isn't efficient, free markets, but that's not really relevant to a lot of what Marx is doing with his theory of value. Marginal utility is essentially an inefficiency, something distorting the desirability of a commodity.

The LTV and marginalism are different ways of looking at the same problem, but they're not essentially incompatible. It's entirely possible to accept a labour theory of value while talking about marginal utility as an empirical influence on prices (Marx does something of the sort when he talks about use-values and so on, though that's more direct utility), and I'm sure marginalism is a more useful definition in contemporary research, but this doesn't mean that either theory inherently rejects the other as such, though many proponents of both will reject the other.

It's important to realise that the LTV implicitly encompasses supply problems in that the raw materials for any given commodity must be located and extracted, etc., and demand in the concept of use-value, like marginalism implicitly encompasses labour time as a component of supply. It's looking at the same system through different lenses, trying to do different things with it - Marx builds a theoretical case for exploitation as well as for the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, most marginalists look at the specific mechanisms of price-setting in empirical situations.

e. reading my post, I'm not super lucid right now. I'm going to bed, and if this is completely incomprehensible give me a howl

MaterialConceptual posted:

Speaking of value theories, what do you all make of "Thermoeconomics?" They seem to use an "entropy theory of value" based on information theory and thermodynamics, which at least one of their advocates claims transcends the subjective/objective value distinction (Only if we accept the premises of a psychological hedonism which sees pleasure as stimulated by the acquisition of low entropy). I am hesitant to mark them off as a completely separate school of thought because as Mirowski has shown in More Heat Than Light and Machine Dreams thermodynamics and information theory have been absolutely critical to the development of economic thought since the 19th century anyhow, but they seem to have kind of taken off along with the econophysics movement since the 1980s.

Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:

Oh hey, I missed out on the new Marxism thread. Hope I haven't missed any of Ronya's posts or the inevitable "Yeah, sure, Socialism is a complete failure but let's assume..." posts.


"Is Marxism dead?"

China, in spite of its problems, is still Marxist as gently caress in their political organizations and planning.

Marxism still heavily influences modern economics.

Marxism Leninism/Maoism is still alive and well in Nepal and India.

Seems to be coming back into vogue in some aspects in the West as well.

Not dead, just haunting.

asdf32 posted:

Is Marxism dead?
A) No because Marx is the mascot for everything left of anarcho-capitalism
B) No because I'm literally a Marxist. Enough said.
C) Yes

Thoughts?

Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:

Not dead, just haunting.

Helsing posted:

I'm not in a position to make long posts right now but will hopefully sort through the backlog of responses I need to make in a couple of days.

Before I do that I have a request for you asdf32. Can you please substantiate your arguments by citing actual evidence instead of making assertions. In particular I want to know why you think Germany suffered worse than the Russian Empire in the 1914-1933 period (in particular, why you think Germany suffered more severe economic losses in WWI and its aftermath). As bad as the treat of Versailles was it hardly compares to Brest-Litovsk. And over than a single catastrophic thrust by the Russian army in 1914 the Germans fought the war almost entirely on foreign soil.

It's frustrating when I try to make my case by referring to actual losses of materials, land and population suffered by the Russians and you respond with a one liner about how Germany suffered worse. Quite aside from the truth or falsity of that statement it's not a great way to debate. Start showing your work please.