Law of Value and Wages

Yes you can. Value is the amount of labor spend on employed on a commodity, exchange value is the price of that commodity, Both these things can be measured. Also, your speaking about why the current system is wrong reminds me of this line from Critique of the Gotha Program.

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So you're saying that skilled labor-power is paid more than unskilled labor-power simply because of the difference their in supply and demand? Shouldn't a long-term higher price of a commodity imply a higher value (that underlies the fluctuations in supply and demand)? I understand that people who went trough higher education or that work in high-profit companies would want a higher salary, but I hoped there was an explanation that involved the reproduction of the workforce.
That's true, but since the growth of capital is itself regulated by the LToV (people are replaced by machines only if it's profitable, aka the value of the labor-power is higher than the value of the machine) I think the question is still important.

Right now I'm only at the beginning of volume one, but I have already read some other shorter works on the LToV (eg. "Value, Price and Profit" that deals mostly with salaries).
Can you tell me the Volume/Chapter/s in Capital where they talk about this? Looking through the index I didn't find anything about this specific question. Thanks!

Why measure this? Why is it relevant?

By focusing on "exploitation" instead of the practical question of providing the people with what they need to live good lives, Marxists have led the socialist movement astray. Marx's theory of exploitation is controversial at best, while it cannot be scientifically disputed that the global capitalist economy is environmentally unsustainable and dooms far too many to squalor. This is why we need a centrally planned, democratically controlled economy that provides for the needs of the people. This is clearly the best argument for socialism. Marx's exploitation theory is a distraction.

Because it provides a useful tool in analysing how capitalism works and the groundwork for a critique of capitalism that isn't based on muh feels like those before Marx. Read Capital.
Oh boy, never mind, you're beyond saving.

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Without understanding the laws of motion of capitalism, you will never have a proper program of action. Just empty phrases and moralizing without truly understanding the specifics.

So all we need is progressive taxation, more social welfare programs, and greater regulation of private industry by the State.

Here's a practical question, on your account, why can't we just reform Capitalism?

The program of action is simple:
1. Reform the welfare state so that it more effectively, efficiently, and universally provides for the needs of the people.
2. Tax enough to raise enough revenue to do this, and also to provide for the other necessary functions of government, including a robust regulatory system.
2. Gradually nationalize industries.
3. ???
4. Socialism achieved without war, which would entail massive damage to our industrial capacity and the environment, along with massive bloodshed.

Unless the total amount of social labour necessary for the perpetuation of a society is negligible (post scarcity, etc.) you'd still need a way to divide labour between the components of said society.
Capitalism (and arguably previous systems too, though in different ways) exploits workers through the extraction surplus-value, and in this system value is measured in human time. Although "value" is not immediately observable in commodities, it is the central measure that describes the functioning of the capitalist economy (if this sounds strange think about how "energy" is not immediately observable in bodies, but it is the central measure that describes the functioning of the physical world).
Of course there are many reasons why one should dislike the features of the system we live in, but to change this system you need to (1) Acknowledge that the system itself is the source of these symptoms, and not some accidental things that happened in it (2) Understand the main features and laws of the system to prevent its re-formation because of an uninformed revolution.
(1) "The Jewish Question" is a brief book by Marx that explains, among other things, this.
(2) You can't avoid capitalistic or utopian features in your "new system" if you don't know what these features are. Marx in Capital also showed how commodities contain the presuppositions behind Capitalism (in this video there is a more modern/scientific approach that obtains the same result youtube.com/watch?v=BQrEEdy_uwM (also this guy is amazing)).

The only explanation involving the reproduction of the workforce is that the goods needed to reproduce labour power e.g. the standard of living is socially determined. For Marx this means socially determined for all workers though. Saying engineer labour power takes more goods to reproduce than fast food worker labour power would undermine the whole LTV.
Regarding the points I made before and where to find them: Marx discusses advanced and simple labour in one of the very first chapters of Capital, when he explains what he understands by "amount of socially necessary labour-time", but it's only like a page long.
Considerations about supply and demand and their effect on wages are mostly brought up incidentally when Marx talks about the history of capitalism in Britain in Capital Vol. 1, but also in other places.

It's not negligible, but it's not that much either. Most human labor goes into luxuries for the few or is wasted on arms races.

The point is that ethics cannot be a justification for any of the actions. For starters, Kant decoupled ethics and morals from God (i.e. the (claim to the) highest kind of truth) and this alone shows that we are able to subsume and then supercede ethics and morals as a terminal and final justification for doing things. Liberalism transcends and can, given certain conditions, permit religions and moral codes. It does away with the religious-and-moral doctrines' claims to being representative of the highest truths. But we have already gone two steps further! The consciously known part of our praxis is, in fact, not even reducible to philosophy any more, due to philosophies recounting and reproducing their own developments and becoming qualitatively greater than themselves - turning into sciences. Furthermore, we have sciences of sciences (Marxism), which initially form from sciences of history (the application of the best scientific methods to history, including the development of science itself).

This is unbelievably naive given the crass failures of the social democratic movement and the coopting of that movement by the bourgeois themselves. New Labour might ring a bell.

Imagine that the entire industrial economy is centrally planned, and it is determined that with the available technology, 20 hours a week from 5% of the population is enough to produce everything we all need to live comfortable lives. Could not this 5% be volunteer workers, who would choose to do this work for similar reasons that soldiers choose to go to war, love for their community and a sense of duty? Would they be being "exploited" in this case?

What if we measured human suffering (or suffering among sentient beings), and then acted in a scientifically informed way to reduce that measurement of suffering?

How about everyone works 1 hour a week, you bloody genius?

Yes, given modern technology, this would probably be plenty of labor if only we used it thoughtfully.

You forgot:
0. Kill Rosa

I think a significant group of talented people would volunteer to do the necessary work to provide for the needs of the people. They could also be given special privileges in exchange for their service. But not everyone would have to work; everyone would be guaranteed a basic, comfortable living.

Thanks, I'll see what I can find.

this is the power of retardation

you fool, reformism hasn't worked
if it even gets remotely close to it's goal, there's massive bloodshed due to fascism

How scientific of you. Aren't the material conditions quite a bit different now? Meaning that other variables have changed? So how can we say for sure how things would play out?

MADE BY SOCDEM GANG

Yes, actually. Using previous instances to illustrate a point is "scientific".
You're still under capitalism. In fact, a lot of the fundamental laws haven't even changed.
Parliamentary democracies still work fairly similar than they used to. It's not like it's gotten "easier" to push "socialism" through. In fact, in places like the United States, it's probably gotten harder.
Gee, I don't know, how about every other time capitalism has been in decay? You get big wars and/or fascism. Remember the entire 20th century?
Assuming you're the same person making these nuclear takes on economics and the LTV, please read Marx, Engels, and Lenin. I am begging you to learn more.

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Listen, when you have capital by the throat, you don't put it down and ask it for concessions. You keep strangling it until it dies. If you don't do that, then it will stab you in the back the first chance it gets.

If we had the numbers, why couldn't we take control of the state via elections. What exactly would stop us?

But we don't. We could improve our position dramatically by organizing electorally.

It's a bourgeois institution. It's made to suit their interests. If they don't think they have control over it anymore, they'll turn to various forms of Fascism. See Chile for a perfect example.
Also, I'd argue the bourgeois state's mechanisms aren't particularly good for suiting the will of the proletariat. However, that's another subject.
I'm not saying don't participate in elections. Despite my armchair tendencies, there's not really a problem with trying to do it. However, it's not like the bourgeoisie will let you just win and then roll over without fighting back.

Yeah, but what I am saying is that in order to implement what you are talking about, we will need to grab capital by the throat. And at that point, you may as well drop all pretenses of collaboration. If you decide to loosen your grip at that point, then we will lose.You need to kill it at the first chance at power we have, because those chances are few and far between.

Don't you think this would be much harder to do in the US, considering how well established the democratic process is there?

They'll do their best to defeat us within the law, but as soon as they break the law to stop us, they've actually helped our cause, as now THEY become the illegal revolutionaries, not us.

Reforming the welfare state so that it actually cares for people would be a massive step in the right direction, no?

You clearly don't live in the US if you think that. Trump could declare himself Godking right now and 30% of the population would support him.

Of course that is a good thing. No one is denying that. But if we have the political strength to do that, we might as well go all the way. Historically the bourgeoisie have found ways to cut and undo social welfare programs whenever they can. If we simply try to make "capitalism with a human face" it will quickly turn into "capitalism in your face" as history has shown.

Please tell me you're joking. The US of A is one of the least democratic countries in the first world. Even BernieBros recognize that the government is instituted in a way that it will always represent the ruling class.

Which way is that, exactly?

This sort of welfare reform would be a million times easier than seizing the means of production, come on!

I'd hardly call it a democracy. We just get to pick between two people who get to oppress us. We already have constant wars anyways despite people not liking them. Your opinion doesn't matter.
Jesus, you're an imbecile. The law doesn't matter. You think governments don't do "illegal" shit all the time? The United States tortures people all over the world, and that's illegal. Do they stop? No. Legality doesn't matter. The bourgeoisie will do anything to maintain power.

Better != Enough (an btw the only way to understand why it isn't enough is by analyzing and understanding the laws of the system we live in (so that's why it's relevant))

One, I don't agree, and two the courts certainly wouldn't support him.

I don't think it's enough either, but it's an important first step. Once the people are liberated from squalor, then they can organize to achieve further reforms.

You understand that the US was founded by a bunch of slave-owners who deliberately set up the government to be hard to modify, right? Have you ever wondered why it was such a pain in the ass to modify the constitution here?
The government is such a fucking obfuscated mess that it'd be hard to utilize to accomplish our goals.

We don't give a shit about "welfare", we want to abolish exploitation and capitalism.

We have to found a new socialist party to represent our interests.

Because we're not organized well enough.

All of that was legally justified according to their lawyers. And they're much more restricted domestically than internationally. If they tried to do some sort of deep state coup, and there was evidence, we could nail them in court, which would be a major political victory.

They made it hard, but not impossible. We could amend the constitution if we had the numbers.

This is also ultimately my goal. See

Bernie Sanders constantly talks about how "the establishment is corrupted " and how it "does the bidding of wall street" and that "we need a political revolution" (youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig c'mon it's not that hard). But as socialists we should go further and recognize that any form of parliamentary democracy is unable to represent anyone but high status people (the ruling class).

Welfare is a minor good for the working class and a distraction that the ruling class uses to dissipate the labour movement in rich countries (see Bismarck).

"Political revolution" refers to changing the government through elections.

Tell that to the people, especially the children, who depend on it to survive.

Prove it.

We could try, but if you could create a socialist movement strong enough to overcome the power of the bourgeoisie in the US (imagine something like three times the slander that Bernie or Corbyn received), being elected would be a silly and tiny goal.

(the nearest acceptable thing to you position is I believe DeLeonism, but you still have a lot to read)

Disagree. I'm pretty sure about which paragraph you got your impression from:
Please read a bit further:
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm

...

No, being elected should be THE goal. If, once we control the government, we find that we don't actually have the power to nationalize industries, then revolution is necessary. But revolution before this point would be foolish.

Recent then, well established now. It's a real level of power, the vote, and we should organize to use it more effectively.

This point is important. In the very concept of the bourgeois state – regardless of whether it may be more or less “democratic” in form – there is a fundamental premise, linked, moreover, to the very origin of the state: By its nature the state remains antagonistic, or rather non-adaptive, to the needs of the collectivity. The state is, by definition, a group of men who exercise the functions that in the beginning were exercised by all members of the collectivity. These men contribute no productive labour but are supported by the other members of society.

In normal times, there is not much need for watchdogs. Even in Moscow, for example, there is no one in charge of collecting fares on buses: passengers deposit their kopeck on boarding, whether or not anyone is watching them. In societies where the level of development of the productive forces is low, where everyone is in a constant struggle with everyone else to get enough to live on for himself out of a national income too small to go around, a large supervisory apparatus becomes necessary.

Thus, during the German occupation [of Belgium], a number of specialized supervisory services proliferated (special police in the railway stations, supervision of printshops, of rationing, etc.). In times like that, the area of conflict is such that an imposing supervisory apparatus proves indispensable.

If we think about the problem a bit, we can see that all who exercise state functions, who are part of the state apparatus, are – in one way or another – watchdogs. Special police and regular police are watchdogs, but so are tax collectors, judges, paper pushers in government offices, fare-collectors on buses, etc. In sum, all functions of the state apparatus are reduced to this: surveillance and control of the life of the society in the interests of the ruling class.

It is often said that the contemporary state plays the role of arbiter. This statement is quite close to what we have just said: “surveillance” and “arbitrating” – aren’t they basically the same thing?

Two comments are called for. First, the arbiter is not neutral. As we explained above, the top men in the state apparatus are part and parcel of the big bourgeoisie. Arbitration thus does not take place in a vacuum; it takes place in the framework of maintaining existing class society. Of course, concessions to the exploited can be made by arbitrators; that depends essentially on the relationship of forces. But the basic aim of arbitration is to maintain capitalist exploitation as such, if necessary by compromising a bit on secondary questions.

marxists.org/archive/mandel/1969/xx/state.htm

I know, but his choice of words shows how even centrists in the US find the situation serious.
That's exactly my point. If you give welfare to the people, they will stop looking for social change until the next crisis wipes the welfare state away. It's not like you'd have paid healthcare in socialism.

I'm not saying that you need a violent revolution from the start. You need to organize the workforce in revolutionary trade-unions/workers'-councils/soviets/or-whatever to get what you want. Parliamentary participation is ok but not enough.
What happened in many places is that the state repressed these workers' institutions (even when controlled by "marxist" SocDems (see Rosa)) and then kept on doing nothing.
Of course we should have a political plan for reform of the law, but we should be prepared to act in non-republican ways if you want to abolish the republic.

The state might have originally been created to protect the interests of the powerful: nobility in the past, the bourgeois today. But, if it is democratic, it could protect the interests of any group with the numbers and organization to win elections and control the government. Even if it's true that there is much that is undemocratic about the US election system, like corrupt parties and corporate campaign financing, I see no reason that if on election day the people elected a socialist party to power, that party would not take power.

I have more faith in people than this. By giving them enough to eat and a warm place to sleep, they will be able to focus on their education so that they can become socialists.

We undermine our electoral, education and outreach efforts by associating ourselves with illegality.

That is true. But you need to consider that the system itself is designed in such a way so that wouldn't happen. First of all, everyone in government that is not elected will almost always side with the bourgeoisie. That means that a large part of the state machinery will not function if they willed it. Second of all, the two party system as it exists today has a leadership which is fully controlled by elites. It is possible to go against the wishes of these elites in small local elections, but on the national stage it is impossible. Just look how the DNC sabotaged Bernie Sanders for instance. And he was just a SocDem! Imagine what would happen to a socialist candidate. We can't use a third party either, because the entire electoral system of the US is designed in such a way as to make it impossible for third parties to win.

Electoralism sounds nice in the abstract, but when you actually look at how these systems work in the real world, you will find that they are HIGHLY undemocratic. There is no real way to vote in socialism, at least in the West.

If, even after passing a "Congressional Authority to Nationalize Industries" amendment, we still cannot manage to gradually nationalize industries, THEN revolution would be justified/prudent.

I think that if we had the numbers and organization (and Sanders did NOT), then we could overcome these anti-democratic obstacles.

Maybe the point didn't come across.
Since the political institutions of the capitalist state are continually produced to serve capital, and not represent the people, we should not accept current systems of representation, but create our own alternatives to them.

You can see how the socialist movement died in Europe and North America after we exported most of the misery that capitalism creates overseas.
I knew I didn't word it well. I'm not saying that we should go around killing politicians or anything like that. But we shouldn't rely on current structures to organize the proletariat. Creating alternative structures is not illegal (as illegal as creating a new church afaik), but will clash with the interests of the ruling class (that unlike you is ready to fight for its power, that it already holds, and we should be ready to react).

But that's exactly my point! If we have those numbers and that organization outside the political system already, why not go all the way? With that kind of power on our side, there is no need to ask the bourgeoisie state for power. We would simply need to seize it.

We could have a supermajority and be well enough organized to win an election without having the much greater organization and resources necessary to win a war. It's a much lower, more realistic threshold.

Yes, I agree, but this organization should be a first step in an electoral strategy. We should organize an education and outreach campaign, grow our numbers and organization, and then win elections.

As a scientist, you should understand that there were so many more variables at play than this. What about the relentless anti-communist propaganda campaign they were exposed to?

A violent revolution is justified if the capitalist state tries to violently oppress the socialist movement.
Although many would say that the violence that the system already uses on the proletariat everyday is enough of a justification.
And many others claim that current morals are bourgeois (as they are part of the ruling ideology), and that the only thing that matter is gaining power.

An electoral strategy would be both more effective, and more ethically justified, as it would prevent massive destruction and bloodshed.

Read Zizek. He addresses this exact point. Your focus on the obvious subjective violence of revolution misses the far greater systemic violence that goes on as a result of the current system. You cry about how much violence is necessary to abolish the current system, but have you every considered how much violence is necessary to keep things the way they are?

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Obviously the entire system is predicated on violence. Law is inherently violent, and in this case that violence is being used to allow private interests to control our Earth's natural resources and means of production and force people into wage slavery. We should reform the law so that its violence is used to protect the interests of the people. But communists insistence on violent revolution is terrible optics and holds the socialist movement back. We should be very clear that war is an absolute last resort, and we should officially distance ourselves from Marx's praxis and Marxist states like the USSR.

How are you going to reform a system to protect the interests of the people when it was made to protect the interests of the ruling class? You may as well try to reform a dog into a cat while you're at it.

By "hacking" it.

It's much easier to change legal code than genetic code.

I can't talk for other countries, but here in Italy electoral socialism was defeated numerous times by Giolitti, that at first tried to split the party and then created many political alliances against the rise of the socialist movement after WW1 (political alliances that included the fascist party, that explicitly used violence against unions but it was seen as a smaller evil).
After fascism and WW2 the Communist Party was the biggest party in the parliament, but because of economic threats from the US it was prevented from being in the government, and it slowly died (also the party quickly became shit).
Now there are some socialist parties that in this election gained a grand total of 2% of the vote (and 0% of parliament because of the electoral law) and the proletariat is fully convinced that migrants are what is causing all its problems.
We should not ignore the possible path to change through parliamentary elections, but if we institute a properly organized movement the most probable thing that will happen is the election of a Constituent Assembly independent of the current republic.

After the nth time of me repeating this point I thing you simply don't want to understand. THE STATE IS CONTROLLED BY CAPITAL, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Any action that the state takes is to favor capital in one way or another. The extreme complexity of all electoral systems is not arbitrary, but it filters away most possibility of social change. This without considering the fact that everything our economy produces (both commodities and information) is produced under direct control of the ruling class. The only way to overcome this hegemony is through structured worker cooperation, and that is basically the definition of a union. Even fucking Aristotle recognized that republics tended to be oligarchies. If you seriously think that we should create a party simply because it is more noble I don't even know what to say.
Our goal is to change the state to become a democratic state (not a republic) and to change the system to fight class distinctions.
A socialist party can be useful for this goal, socialist unions are more useful. Full stop.

I think I will stop relying now. I hope my contributions were useful to the discussion, even if I'm not the best English writer. If you want to do research yourself you should seriously read about Historical Materialism.

No, I think it'd be more effective. And while I agree there are non-democratic aspects to the current system, I do think they could be overcome if we had the numbers and organization. And by "republic" do you mean "representative democracy" ? If yes, then call me a republican.

OK, then your countries government should have been exposed as undemocratic, and revolution would have been justified. If you had a majority at the time, why wasn't there a revolution?

So, if for example an average engineer works 40yrs and the public education necessary to become an engineer has a value of let's say 40yrs (books, teachers, attendance, school,…), the value of his labor-power will be double (40+40/40) the value of unskilled-labor-power (assuming equal life standards)?

The worker's movement had been torn into pieces during fascism. We had no strong socialist unions, only the communist party.
If you don't have organization at the low level you can't expect great popular uprisings nor class consciousness. And if you have organization at the low level you can't expect to bend your system to fit into a republic – it should develop as something independent (with or without the help of a party).

What is your definition of socialism?

It is the cost of producing labor power. Charlatans will tell you it is supply amd demand because that is what it looks like on a cursory glance. It is like watching a Jurassic Park movie and saying it is a real T-rex, when it is actually CGI. A high "supply" really lowers prices because it means that a lot of items are produced, meaning that less value is passed through to the product from labor, machinery, etc…
Anyways, the price comes from the difficulty of aquiring these people, but only due to the resources hidden within the people, not some mystical actions from the numner of them. For example, lawyers take years of schooling, and thusly get higher salaries. Im not smart enough to cut up all careers into pricing, especially not in a rigorous enough way to be universally convincing. Ill go over another though. Take being a fastfood worker. It takes nothing, and thusly they are paid as loe as physically possible.
By the way, Marx describes the movement of Capital en masse, Im not sure he ever argues for individual pricings. If you dont know what I mean by any of this, feel free to ask, Im pressed for time so this is definetly a veritable pile of shit.

Democratic control over the means of production, and to each according to their needs.

In the US the constitution can be amended, but it requires a supermajority. You say the communist party was the biggest in parliament, but I imagine it was less than a majority? Is it possible to amend your constitution if you have a big enough majority?

...

Oh yeah its mental gymnastics. Go ahead and tell me how you calculate price using supply and demand? Im waiting.
I can, however, tell you the price of a good. It is the fixed costs and the variable costs. I may have botched the technical wording, but its the value produced by labor and the resources used in an items production. But I guess that is just mental gymnastics too…

Yes, the labor AND the natural resources, not just the labor, which both contribute to the production of goods which are valued SUBJECTIVELY. The aggregate subjective valuation determines what people are willing to pay for a good, which influences its price, but that price also influences investment in production, so there's a complex, dynamic relationship between prices, supply, and demand which I admittedly don't understand very well. But the notion that labor is the only source of "value" is absurd.

Yeah, that's what I think should be the explanation. Is this example I made right even if education is public? Would from this follow that a hypothetical basic income wouldn't lower the value of labor-power (even if it would grant subsistence)(assuming no change in living standards)?
Is the value produced by an engineer equal to his labor-time, or is the work of the teacher transfered to the product as well?
Also I'm puzzled about actors and managers and similar employees that can become rich through wages. Are they outside of the system and gain money by participating in surplus-extraction (actors participate in the extraction of rent in the form of copyright - managers participate in exploitation of the workers)? Or maybe when capitalists acquire actors for movies they are sometimes not buying reproducible commodities but unique artists?

If you are the same guy that has been arguing for social democracy, this is amazing.

Oh I forgot about the last bit. I think that labor power can come in different forms. The price of a commodity arises from competition, and while there can be competition between different types of cheese producers, there can't be competition between a cheese producer and a sock producer.
In the same way a doctor-labor-power producer (aka a doctor) doesn't compete with an unskilled-labor-power producer for the determination of the price of doctor-labor-power.
[I use price, but value is long term price]

So does that mean that all hours of socially necessary labor are not equally valuable.

Natural resources are worthless until labor transforms them into something useful.

Heterogeneous subjective valuations cannot account for prices that are set at aggregate levels. They are not set at each instance of interpersonal exchange, they are set long before. At best, intra-industry prices fluctuate around prices of production, affected primarily by temporary comparative advantage, competition, rates of profit, world events, and then lastly consumer demand.

The value of labor power is primarily determined by the length of the workday, the intensity of the work involved, and the productivity of the production process. ~ Ch. 17, 18 or 19 Capital I.

Doctors often work long hours, the mental labor required can be demanding, and most importantly, the labor they do cannot be easily divided into simple tasks or automated, yet.

It's a moneyless society. Ready to work for nothing?

/thread

labor-power != labor. Capital buys labor-power from the worker, but the value of the product is determined by the act of social-labor itself. That's the basis of exploitation. Saying that there are different labor-powers at different values is like saying that there are different wages for different job-types (true).

Maybe you are responding to the wrong post. Anyway I don't think this is a sufficient explanation; intensity and simplicity of work are subjective concepts that cannot be measured (and would therefore fall back to the worker's demands, as an explanation of wages); the length of the workday can influence the cost of reproduction of labor-power but not linearly (if one works 12h he doesn't need twice the amounts of goods of someone who works 6h – assuming equivalent living standards); productivity is synonymous with rate-of-surplus-value, and saying that it affects wages is tautological.
I'm not really sure that Marx goes this much into detail, but there should be some further development of the theory that can answer this clearly.

What the hell are you talking about?

We should not be hung up on simply the perpetuation of society but rather than qualitative and quantitative growth of the productive forces in the sense that is used here (apologies for huge image): dialectics.org/dialectics/Applications_files/Module_one_of_three_,_Human-Social_Self-Reproductive_Force_--_A_Quanto-Qualitative_Metric_,_14APR2017.jpg

This image almost gave me a seizure. I'm sorry but I really can't read it.
I talk about perpetuation and reproduction because it is the minimum amount of production that is needed for a society to survive – any society that is unable to produce and distribute what it needs to consume will rapidly die and be replaced (at least in part).
Of course there is and should be a surplus in any society (in terms of reproduction), and one of the aims of socialism is to invest the surplus not only in consumer goods but in the emancipation of man from work (automation).

Yes.

For starters OP is talking about economics in a capitalist society, and secondly moneyless society doesn't necessarily mean no pay, it just means no circulating currency: there will almost certainly be a labour credit system (at least at first).

One of the surest signs of a crank has to be using multicoloured text. Unironically kill yourself for linking to this shit.

Skilled labor AKA developed labor power costs more because it took more work to develop the labor power. EG, it took many hours of studying or practice. That's it.

Ok so this explains most of it.
Basically ALL social work that goes into the production of labor-power determines wages (and therefore welfare programs have little effect on wages?).

Still, do managers gain their revenue from selling their labor-power, do the high paying jobs of movie stars and the wages of other actors average out to this value, or do some of these people acquire revenue (at least partly) from capital? Or do these jobs require people performing them to be richer than normal working people? I doubt that the education of rich wage earners was really that valuable.