Sorry for being so late in continuing our conversation. You caused me to think. That is commendable and gets you high praise.
You have given me more than a few things to think about, and sound-bite replies don't examine the concepts for your, mine, and any silent readers (Lurkers) edification. Also, real life is making demands on my attention and time, as well as the days I have been spending on this: https://www.synapticsparks.info/dialog/index.php?topic=1767.0
You claim to be a "Marxist". I claim to be a "Pedantic Asshole".
The definition under pedantic does not quite fit; It comes close. I am quite pedantic in regard to Voltaire's Admonition: If you wish to communicate, define your terms. I have read discussions, (I use the word loosely), between Capitalists & Anti-capitalists. At present, I have not defined the terms Capitalists & Anti-capitalists, except that whatever Capitalists & Anti-capitalists are, they are diametrically opposed to each other... Yet both sides fail to present the details of their positions and beliefs.
You put the concept of "Marxian analysis" before me. As a result what I started as a reply to your post has turned into an essay as I research and discover points of "Marxian analysis".
Here: https://www.synapticsparks.info/dialog/index.php?topic=1764.0
Having read Volume One of Capital, I found Marx's logic to be "self-consistant"... Yet a Capitalist leaning person got pissed at me for presenting that factoid on his group page.
[JS, I am referring to you; I will send you a link to this essay/discussion as an FYI.]
Though Marx's logic is self-consistent, Marx failed in regard to his First Principals as compared to the environment that exists now. His First Principals started because he was observing the interactions between Capital & Labor during the rise of the industrial era.
A Christmas Carol written by Charles Dickens, published in 1843, Is in my opinion, a good starting point for painting the backdrop of the stage of that era. (In looking up dates I found Dickens' Tail of Two Cities. I do not recall ever reading the story, Yet I know the first sentence. Now I will need to read the story. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/old/2city12p.pdf])
Marx's Das Kapital three volumes were published in 1867, 1885, & 1894.
Between Marx's story (his observations of the era) and Dickens' story (using the same era as a backdrop for his story), I am left with an imagined mental image of the era. I have another memory that supports this image where health workers discussed the squalid conditions that existed with open sewers and humans packed too close together in 'shelters'. This was an anti-immunization outlook claiming better living conditions helped discontinue the diseases running through the human population.
Those conditions of the beginning of the industrial age are not the conditions that presently exist. Some of the pressures still do though; Greedy, selfish MF's with no moral compass willing to screw their fellow humans. These are details I think are good discussion/discussing points.
➽ Labor creates wealth.
I mostly agree with this concept... But... The definition of wealth is assumed to be knowledge in common. So I will do a quick lookup of the Dicta-History (Dictionary is the common list of word meanings; As the meanings have become commonly agreed to).
www.wordnik.com wrote: ⇉ from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition wrote: ⇉
An abundance of valuable material possessions or resources; riches.
The state of being rich; affluence.
Goods and resources having value in terms of exchange or use.
A great amount; a profusion.
www.wordnik.com wrote: ⇉ from The Century Dictionary wrote: ⇉
Riches; valuable material possessions; that which serves, or the aggregate of those things which serve, a useful or desired purpose, and cannot be acquired without a sacrifice of labor, capital, or time; especially, large possessions; abundance of worldly estate; affluence; opulence.
The Century Dictionary supports your contention that: ➽ Labor creates wealth.
Absent a useful or desired purpose all the dog feces in my yard has no value (or a negative value since it must be gotten rid of; disposed). So I think of wealth as things others are willing to trade value for value. Who wants dog crap.
➽ Devaluing currency encourages labor.
I can see the logic behind that claim. I don't think Marx had that thought~~
Inflation did not exist in the U.S. money system until 1913 when the Federal Reserve System fraud was perpetrated on the U.S. people.
I will return to my thoughts on this later when the focus changes to Marx's observation (and self-consistent logic) of the Capital Class screwing (Scrooging) the Labor Class and the Labor Class' failure to know their cost of living.
➽ Capitalists can use this to maintain a loyal workforce.
Yes, but...failure to know their cost of living.
[C]apital and automation both come [from] labor.
I agree.
➽ Devaluing currency is a helpful technique capitalists use to keep workers hungry.
This technique did not exist in Marx's time. I did not create the technique of the horseless carriage or its improvements over time. I do use the technique of driving the modern horseless carriage in going about my affairs of life.
Devaluing currency is technique the Banksters (sic) and politicians created so they could steal value from humans.
➽ Labor creates wealth. Capital is the accumulation of labor that can be reinvested to amplify labor. The capital itself doesn't produce wealth- labor does, and capital is the result, which in turn has an exponential effect.
This is correct and aligns with what I read in Marx's Capital.
➽ It's an important distinction because it's a reminder that the capitalist does not contribute to production, and only subtracts from it.
I must disagree on this point. The Capitalist does contribute to production. After production and production is converted into capital, then the Capitalist does subtract from that wealth that Labor created as you presented in your next sentence.
Note to self: Return to the math.
➽ Workers create wealth and the capitalist extracts, accumulates, and reinvests the wealth they create in order to accumulate even more wealth.
No contention on this claim.
➽ Workers could do this on their own, and more efficiently (without having to pay profits to capitalists who themselves do not contribute) if they were responsible for their own capital investments and retained ownership of their capital.
I am not understanding what you are claiming is being done "more efficiently"
I personally borrowed $52,000 which became my capital that I invested in purchasing a Semi-truck tractor. I brought home more money as employed Labor than I did as a Capitalist owning my tractor. I paid off the loan and was just starting to get ahead when medical issues forced me out of that industry.
Capital investments require... Capital. There is a side topic here regarding the fraud called the Federal Reserve System. And there is a second side topic about the Government Indoctrination Centers (a.k.a Public Schooling), also a.k.a. in some minds as Day Jail for youths.
➽ The capitalist system is inefficient because of the parasitic nature of the capitalist.
You are painting with a very broad brush and brush strokes. They are not all parasites. This comes back to the games government uses in defining words. A human is a person; A corporation is a person. Is the capitalist a natural human or a corporate entity? Written law often makes the distinction.
1 U.S. Code § 1
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—
the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;
1 USC Code § 8
(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
➽ Marxian analysis has developed a lot in the better part of two centuries.
Marxian analysis is a term I am not familiar with. A DuckDuckGo (DDG) search presented these links to me:
Did not have its linked article behind its paywall. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21598282.2023.2296167
ABSTRACT
The subject of economics, which was once famous for several views and schools of thought, has been limited to just one school neoclassical: where markets usually find equilibrium, meaning government intervention is not needed, and any such intervention could hinder the economic growth process and smooth functioning of the economy. The neoclassical theory focuses on the behaviour of individual agents, which are assumed to be economic decision-makers. There is an attempt to emphasise the importance of the Marxist approach to analysing capitalist crises logically and historically. The study of economics must stay close and keep unity between different social sciences, especially sociology, political science, and history, which classical economists had established but marginalist economists had tried to undermine. The study concludes that economics is embedded in society and politics, and the mainstream school of thought ignores this. They cannot effectively address the main economic issues of our times, which include combating rising inequality, economic and environmental crises, and biodiversity loss.
Marxian analysis does expand the focus I must examine; this focus is not the narrow focus I have had. Marxian analysis concludes that economics is embedded in society and politics; Unlike the neoclassical economic theories that ignore these other factors and consider the economy solely on the mathematics. As an admonition claims, Without math, it ain't science. I do wish to examine that math in the light of the thoughts triggered by my reading the linked article discussing Marxian analysis.
➽ to analyze power systems
"Government" is a power system. One that is provably corrupt and lies to people all the time. It is a system that has been used to create crony capitalism. The anti-Marxist position is that crony capitalism is not true capitalism... But capitalism has not been defined to my satisfaction. I do know that capitalism has something to do with Capital. I do agree with this definition: Capital - Is wealth available to make more wealth. That wealth can be an accumulation of money or currency.
Currency is not money since money has been defined as a measure and store of value. Currency, due to government school brainwashing, has been accepted as a measure and store of value. Currency shares this trait with money: Both are used as a medium of exchange, or “widely accepted as a method of payment.”
"Inflation" is not he cost of items increasing. Inflation is the value of the currency you own going down. A currency that loses value can not be a store of value. Trivia question: Why do dimes and quarters have ridged edges? (Government is not the only thief that debases metal money.)
Adam Smith's words from Wealth of Nations are by the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in the Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746 (1884) case:
'the property which every man has is his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands, and to hinder his employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman and of those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he thinks proper, so it hinders the others from employing whom they think proper.' Smith, Wealth Nat. bk. 1, c. 10.
I interpret that as claiming Labor is Capital; and I agree. One sells their labor for money or currency; thus converting the capital of labor into wealth that can be used to create more wealth by purchasing investment tools to create more capital by increasing your labor's value. E.g. If your employment is creating widgets by driving four nails into some wood, purchasing a pneumatic-nailer will increase the efficiency of your labor.
Saving one's labor capital that is converted to a widely accepted method of payment is hard to do when the banking system with and via government rules consistently devalues the worker's converted labor-capital (currency).
I do not accept Marx's logically self-consistent definitions of what "profit" is. What he saw during the beginning of the industrial age is what he correctly wrote about.
On page 133 Marx wrote:
We know that the value of each commodity is determined by the quantity of labour expended on and materialised in it, by the working-time necessary, under given social conditions, for its production.
On page 152 Marx wrote:
We have seen that the labourer, during one portion of the labour-process, produces only the value of his labour-power, that is, the value of his means of subsistence.
Marx was describing the actions of the Capital class taking advantage of the Labor class. I have no reason to doubt or deny what Marx observed and wrote about. Marx's math WAS correct. I find it is no longer correct. GIGO. (Garbage In, Garbage Out- A well known First Principle in the computer sciences industries.) In today's financial environment the cost of purchasing labor is not just the cost of the laborer's subsistence.
In the same paragraph Marx continues:
If the value of those necessaries represents on an average the expenditure of six hours' labour, the workman must on an average work for six hours to produce that value. If instead of working for the capitalist, he worked independently on his own account, he would, other things being equal, still be obliged to labour for the same number of hours, in order to produce the value of his labour-power, and thereby to gain the means of subsistence necessary for his conservation or continued reproduction.
"{O}ther things being equal." Minimum wage, or as I think of it, warm body pay, is $7.25 per hour -- $1,257 per month. Two bedroom apartments near here average $1,300 per month. Skilled labor can make much more. Getting the wanted skill set requires learning. Absent the desired skill sets Marx does seem to have correctly assessed how unskilled warm body laborers were being taken advantage of. If the wage offered doesn't cover the costs of one's subsistence then one shouldn't take the job.
After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the pound was divided into twenty shillings or 240 pennies. It remained so until decimalization on 15 February 1971, when the pound was divided up as it is still done today.
£1 (one pound) equalled 20 shillings (20s or 20/-)
240 pennies ( 240d ) = £1
There were 240 pennies to a pound because originally 240 silver penny coins weighed 1 pound (1lb).
https://www.exploring-economics.org/en/orientation/marxist-political-economy/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian_economicshttps://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/965/Marx_0445-01_EBk_v6.0.pdfsearch term:
SECTION 2.—THE PRODUCTION OF SURPLUS-VALUE.
pdf pg: 133
