I have tried to read "Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie"(1859) [On Critique of Political Economy], but, my goodness, it is really theoretical and abstract. Yet, let's look at some details
Every day we buy goods and find it totally normal to pay an amount of money for them. Sometimes we think we have a bargain, sometimes we don't buy it because we think it is too expensive or highly prized.
But what we hardly ask ourselves is: how do goods get their value? What is a reasonable price for this or that? In his publication of 1859 Marx analyzes this issue.
His idea is thus: -quote- The wealth of bourgeois society, at first sight, presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities, its unit being a single commodity. Every commodity, however, has a twofold aspect -- use-value and exchange-value.
To begin with, a commodity, in the language of the English economists, is "anything necessary, useful or pleasant in life", an object of human wants, a means of existence in the widest sense of the term.
Use-value as an aspect of the commodity coincides with the physical palpable existence of the commodity.
Exchange-value seems at first to be a quantitative relation, the proportion in which use-values are exchanged for one another. In this relation, they constitute equal exchangeable magnitudes.
Thus one book and one pound of potatoes may have the same exchange-value, despite the dissimilar use-values of potatoes and stories. (...)
Use-values serve directly as means of existence. But, on the other hand, these means of existence are themselves the products of social activity, the result of expended human energy, materialized labour. -end quote-
And here we are at the heart of Marx's historical materialism. The social activity that creates wealth is labour. The idea is not unique. Adam Smith concluded a hundred years earlier the same.
The next thing Marx does is look at the history of mankind and what the role of labour was through the ages. He divides the history of mankind in stages. in which the role of labour changes due to the changes in the ways of production of commodities.
His idea is that depending on how we produce commodities, creates the cultural, social, juridical, and political beliefs and convictions in society.
The history of the material world creates the way we think about society. And when you look around in the judicial world, we have tons of laws that concern all aspects of private property, for instance.
Ever thought about the question, who invented the idea of the possibility of private property, and what makes something private property?
Thank you for your attention again....
Main Sources:
MacMillan The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition
TABLE OF CONTENT -----------------------------------------------------------------
1 - 100 Philosophers 9 May 2009 Start of
2 - 25+ Women Philosophers 10 May 2009 this blog
3 - 25 Adventures in Thinking 10 May 2009
4 - Modern Theories of Ethics 29 Oct 2009
5 - The Ideal State 24 Febr 2010 / 234
6 - The Mystery of the Brain 3 Sept 2010 / 266
7 - The Utopia of the Free Market 16 Febr 2012 / 383
8. - The Aftermath of Neo-liberalism 5 Sept 2012 / 413
9. - The Art Not to Be an Egoist 6 Nov 2012 / 426
10 - Non-Western Philosophy 29 May 2013 / 477
11 - Why Science is Right 2 Sept 2014 / 534
12 - A Philosopher looks at Atheism 1 Jan 2015 / 557
13 - EVIL, a philosophical investigation 17 Apr 2015 / 580
14 - Existentialism and Free Will 2 Sept 2015 / 586
15 - Spinoza 2 Sept 2016 / 615
16 - The Meaning of Life 13 Febr 2017 / 637
17 - In Search of my Self 6 Sept 2017 / 670
18 - The 20th Century Revisited 3 Apr 2018 / 706
19 - The Pessimist 11 Jan 2020 / 819
20 - The Optimist 9 Febr 2020 / 824
21 - Awakening from a Neoliberal Dream 8 Oct 2020 / 872
22 - A World Full of Patterns 1 Apr 2021 / 912
23 - The Concept of Freedom 8 Jan 2022 / 965
24 - Materialism 7 Sept 2022 / 1011
25 - Historical Materialism 5 Oct 2023 / 1088
The Discussion
[14:18] herman Bergson: By the way....makes me think of John Locke
[14:18] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): speaking of laws and material value, i had to get new winter tirees for the car today cause the ones were finally worn down
[14:18] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): NOT cheap, 7500 SEK
[14:18] herman Bergson: He declared that ownership of land relates to how much you can work on in a day
[14:19] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but required by law but of course in the end for my opersonal saeety on the road, those others were as old as the car it seems
[14:19] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): now at least im safe this winter during transport
[14:19] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): depends what machines you have I think Herman
[14:19] herman Bergson: In Locke's days personal muscles and the help of a horse or ox Beertje :-)
[14:20] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): no excavators back then
[14:20] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): ah ok:)
[14:20] herman Bergson: 1620 or so
[14:20] Max Chatnoir: One thing you implied is that one of the things that contributes to value is accessibility and the work associated with making a commodity accessible to a consumer.
[14:20] Max Chatnoir: Supply chains.
[14:20] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): still houses are EXTREMLEY expensive today, today u need to be a millionare to afford even the smallest new built apartment
[14:20] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): house prices have skyrocketed
[14:21] herman Bergson: Yes, Max...commodities are assumed to get a value in relation to the amount of work you have to invest in creating them
[14:21] herman Bergson: But there is a catch.....used by capitalism....
[14:21] herman Bergson: the free market.... demand and supply
[14:22] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[14:22] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): and what happens when you can't work ?
[14:22] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): then ur f*cked
[14:22] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): sad reality
[14:22] herman Bergson: and that approach is invented by those who possess the means to procude products
[14:22] Max Chatnoir: But a truly free market means that you can't just get together with a bunch of your buddies and decide that the price is going to be.
[14:23] herman Bergson: Why not Max....?
[14:23] herman Bergson: Monopolies do
[14:24] herman Bergson: ANd when you can't work Beertje, you simple live in povertty and on welfare, I guess
[14:24] Max Chatnoir: Because then it isn't competition. If part of capitalism is competition, then you shouldn't do an end run around it.
[14:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm indeed
[14:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): monopolies are an issue here regarding the free market, its not self regulating
[14:25] herman Bergson: monopolies and kartels negate completion
[14:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): however the real free market is not self regulating either it seems
[14:25] Max Chatnoir: Example: I once had a bio text book that I really liked. But the publisher sold it to a "competitor", and the competitor promptly stopped publishing that book.
[14:26] Max Chatnoir: Basically removed it from the "Free" market.
[14:26] herman Bergson: Why was that? To promote its own titles?
[14:26] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the buy up and shut down aproach
[14:26] Max Chatnoir: Presumably because he couldn't compete with it in a really free market.
[14:27] Max Chatnoir: But I don't really know, of course. I just know that that book disappeared.
[14:27] herman Bergson: Weird...
[14:27] herman Bergson: Maybe it contained the evolution theory
[14:28] Max Chatnoir: I don't think it was a matter of content. I think one of them just explained everything better.
[14:28] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): problem is companies today only listens to the shareholders and not the customers
[14:28] herman Bergson: Anyway....I am that far that I understand that labour was the central theme of Marx's ideas
[14:28] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): thats the big issue here
[14:29] herman Bergson: Marx had a whole theory about how society had developed through the gaes, which eventually led to capitalism
[14:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the latest example i have would be the Unity game engine that i use a lot, since the company went public developers have complaied that the focus is not on the developers anymore ending with the install fee scandal recently
[14:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and every game developer threatened to leave Unity
[14:31] herman Bergson: And an other idea related to this was that the way prodiction, i.e. labour , is organized in society, created the cultural and political way of thinking in a society
[14:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ah
[14:32] herman Bergson: That is capitalism in action, Bejiita :-)
[14:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes
[14:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and EAs former CEO
[14:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but he have left Unity now after that scandal
[14:32] herman Bergson: another idea of Marx is, that society got divided into classes
[14:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well I still like the game engine and since i make games just for fun its not affecting me really
[14:33] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but still a shoddy thing
[14:33] herman Bergson: social classes, the bourgeois and the working class for instance
[14:33] Max Chatnoir: In a way, having mass production, in which each worker just contributes one piece of something to a object, tend to devalue labor, since the actual labor is very restricted.
[14:34] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ah
[14:34] herman Bergson: That was Marx's idea too, Max
[14:34] herman Bergson: the alienation of labour
[14:34] herman Bergson: We'll have to lookk in to that next time...
[14:35] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): at my company I at least do every step on a particular project from material cutting to welding to packaging and also at least quite a lot of the CAD work
[14:35] Max Chatnoir: You can make a good economic argument for it, I guess, if it makes cheap production possible, but it must make the labor not much fun.
[14:35] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but we are a smaller company nisced at golf and other outdoor activities
[14:35] herman Bergson: Pretty rare situation, Bejiita
[14:35] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): not a huge car manufacturer ect
[14:36] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): thats why
[14:36] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i guess
[14:36] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and it feeld good to be a larger part of it, i feel my work makes a bigger dent on each part, i contribute more to every thing
[14:36] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): not just putting 1 screw into a hole
[14:37] herman Bergson: yes, sounds good indeed
[14:37] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): plus most important its not repetitive = gets boring
[14:37] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i do all kind of stuff
[14:38] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the only downside i guess is we cant as a small company afford state of the art machines like CNC, laser or waterjet machines and similar
[14:38] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): but what er have works really good
[14:38] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): we
[14:38] Max Chatnoir: So labor should be respected by not being restricted to some repetitive action.
[14:39] herman Bergson: That was the new thing in Marx's time....mass production in factories
[14:39] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): agree max, thats the mest but i guess only works for small companies now
[14:39] Max Chatnoir: It would be like teaching by having 20 people each walk into a classroom and say one thing.
[14:39] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes sort of
[14:40] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i guess
[14:40] herman Bergson: Ok...next step is to figure out what the relation is of labour, capitalism and socialism
[14:41] Max Chatnoir: And maybe they each say that one thing really well, because it's the only thing that they do. How are you going to pay them?
[14:41] herman Bergson: For capitalism labour is a matter of exploiting people
[14:41] herman Bergson: what is the alternative?
[14:41] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the next revolution i say is everyone have their own factory at home, we see it already, 3D printers and other smaller CNC controlled machines making into everyones own home
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): i have one myself and it works good, only thing is its a quite slow process compared to say injection molding or a fast 5 axis machine
[14:44] herman Bergson: Ok....:-)
[14:44] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): plus im restricted to plastic materials but they hold up well and i can make stuff on my machine that is even impossible to make on other types of machines, thats quite cool
[14:44] herman Bergson: If you have all asked your final question and make tyour final remark.....
[14:44] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): for halloween i made a death scream whistle, works perfect
[14:44] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hehe
[14:45] herman Bergson: Let's get ready for the next lecture this Thursday :-)
[14:45] Max Chatnoir: Are we really 44 minutes past the hour?
[14:45] herman Bergson: Thank you all again.....
[14:45] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): time flies here Max
[14:45] herman Bergson: 45 even Max :-)
[14:45] Max Chatnoir: That doesn't seem possible...
[14:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): time flies
[14:46] herman Bergson: We think and move fast here Max :-))
[14:46] Max Chatnoir: Marxing time....
[14:46] herman Bergson: Well...
[14:46] herman Bergson: Class dismissed....:-)
[14:46] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): Thank you Herman
[14:46] Max Chatnoir: OK, Thursday then! Thanks, everybody !
[14:47] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): :9
[14:47] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): bye Max:)
[14:47] bergfrau Apfelbaum: thank you!! Herman and class:-)
[14:47] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): cu Max
[14:47] bergfrau Apfelbaum: clapclap
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