My socdem friend told me that Marxism was irrelevant because the Labor Theory of Value was wrong and the relative theory of value is a better analysis of value. I read the first few chapters of Capital to make sure I had a good understanding of it and explained it to him. He told me that I had a convincing argument but said it was void because the consensus of mainstream economists didn't use it. How do I convince him otherwise or is it just a lost hope.
My socdem friend told me that Marxism was irrelevant because the Labor Theory of Value was wrong and the relative...
Jack Peterson
Kayden Carter
mainstream economists are destroying this country as we speak. tell your friend to watch Steve Keen.
Jose Wilson
Doesn't he think that capitalists doesn't exploit workers because we all exploit the energy in the universe or some bs like that
Nolan Taylor
he doesn't like that it divides automation and labor. his opinion is that the spirit of Marxian analysis of capitalism can be continued without it. he's basically just a neo-Marxist, but I find he's a lot more relevant than the more orthodox Marxist economists like Wolff, who is publically more of a politician.
Ayden Kelly
Refer him to Cockshott if you want to give him empirical evidence.
One thing you can tell him is that Marxism is a critique of bourgeois economics from a working-class perspective. This means that the labor theory of value is sensible because of two reasons: (1.) Bourgeois apologists invariably emphasize "hard work" as the root of success in the capitalist system. Marx's economic writings are an immanent critique of that notion. It starts by assuming that people who work more create more value, and then analyses the consequences of it in our economic system. By taking a core normative assumption of the bourgeoisie for granted, Marx's writings serve to undermine it and assert its opposite. You can read it through that lens. (2.) For working class individuals labor is the only source of income. Thus, if we want to make an analysis from the perspective of the proletariat, it makes sense to define labor as the source of all value.
Jordan Adams
That's Peterson's meme. You probably meant post-Marxist.
Lincoln Flores
should not that I'm referring to the LTV, which is his main criticism of Marxism
whatever. he doesn't identify as a Marxist of any sort, but he maintains fewer criticisms of it than Neoliberalism.
Hunter Smith
here's a handy link
Jeremiah Bailey
Automation can't be a labor inducing process, robots don't buy commodities.
Dominic Ross
*value inducing
Zachary Watson
I'm just saynig his ideology shouldn't discredit any of his ideas about mainstream economists.
Owen Jackson
or if you wanna be cheap just point out that appeal to authority fallacy is not an argument.
Parker Allen
The LTV doesn't have to be true for exploitation and capitalist domination to be real. Even if you assume a basic neoclassical framework, it is in the interest of the employer to treat the worker as poorly as he can get away with, and pay them as little as possible.
Easton Morales
Tell him he's arguing *ad numerum*.
Gabriel Moore
This. It also doesn't change the fact that practically speaking, labour is the only force that actually turns raw materials into valuable goods. Thus workers are capable of creating everything they need without capitalist exploitation, and the capitalist by definition appropriates value that they did not produce. The role of the bourgeoisie is parasitic no matter how you look at it.
Jackson Watson
Tell him that it is EXCEEDINGLY obvious that the commodities produced in a process must be sold in such a way as to cover all of the things used to produce them. This is the simplest possible interpretation of the labor theory of value and if he rejects this, I have two ideas.
If you don't really care for him, do nothing.
If you have ever cared for him, you should put him out of his misery. He has no capacity for thought and I don't think he would really be missing anything.
Noah Rodriguez
Nolan Richardson
Well there's a difference between descriptive and prescriptive economics, and most modern Keynesians are more prescriptivists whose main job is to come up with ways to work within the current system maintain it. If you take your shitty, broken down car to a mechanic and pay them to fix it then they'll try to fix it, not design you a better car.
Anthony Hughes
Eli Rodriguez
do not engage with
1. friends
2. family
Noah Gomez
I would agree but he was the one that got me into leftism from reactionary politics even if it was soc dem
Thomas Kelly
That would be a fallacy fallacy, because those economists base their opinion on studies based on empirical evidence. It's like saying climate change is a fallacy only because most scientists agree with it.
Elijah Clark
I think this only works if you're not already implicitly arguing against mainstream economics in being for social democracy, which the friend supposedly is by .
Also, economics is not equivalent to climate science, and the current utility-based theory of value is not empirical but rather axiomatic and, insofar as it can be quantified, the empirical evidence demonstrating non-utility-maximizing behaviors has to be explained away.
Zachary Gomez
It's not that saying "most people believe it" is a fallacy, it simply is not an argument.
Cameron Morgan
and this is a fallacy fallacy fallacy
retard
Joseph Butler
I know next to nothing about mathematics but this is very interesting stuff. Will definitely be watching more of his stuff.
Nolan Sanchez
Tell him that the ruling ideology (what he calls "mainstream economics") is the ideology of the ruling class (the bourgeoisie if you haven't already told him).
James Martin
You guys are missing the point. By telling this friend that he's following an argument on authority fallacy you don't prove yourselves right, you just trash an "argument" on unjustified grounds. Those economists are not inherently "right", but they are not "right" just because they say so, they are because they have studied the subject, which is something this friend will understand. You will never convince him otherwise by just telling him "saying climate change is real because every climate change scientists say so is an argument on authority", you are just missing the point.
Jack Price
Point out most of the basics of economics (relative, comparative advantage) are based in the LTV. If it was irrelevant, most of Adam Smith's works are founded upon an incorrect base.
Liam Allen
They are according to mainstream economics. He was influential, but not everything he said turned out to be correct.
Sebastian Roberts
Lamo literally every major school of economics is based on Adam Smith's concepts. And again, the fundamental of trade arguments (Comparative and Absolute advantage) are reliant on the LVT. Ricardo also operated on LVT, everyone did: it was the only thing that existed back then.
Adrian Butler
If you weren't well read before engaging with him, why do YOU even believe it?
Also just ask him to disprove it or reference an economist that does it, if it's so simple.
Kayden Cook
Not OP but now you have the Austrian school becoming more and more mainstream and who don't use the LTV but the relative theory of value.
I know the Austrian school is the worst bourgeois economic school and if you want some hotakes I would say the rising popularity of relative theory of value and the schools based on it is due to the financialization of the economy requiring less and less work for the capitalists to make high profits.
Henry Brown
Sure, everybody built on Smith's works, but contemporary mainstream economics (while rooted in those early Smith concepts) have already abandoned them, and are now being justified on other concepts. The LTV, on mainstream economic theory today, is not used.
What you are saying is something like "humans have gills because humans descended from fish".
Good point. This kind of "tribalism group-think" only hurts.
That is indeed very simple, you are just rooting for his friend now.
Xavier Gray
Being right isn't equivalent to "studied the subject." It may mean one is more likely to be right, but if one has studied the subject incorrectly, then having studied hardly matters. If someone were to interpret every illness in terms of demonic possession and study intensely the types of demons and forms of possession, he would be no closer to understanding the etiology of disease than someone who had never had any interest in the subject.
You misunderstand the point of refutation. Showing reasoning to be fallacious isn't about proving oneself correct but showing the other's reasoning to be incorrect.
Ryder Reyes
I disagree. asking every Socialist to be well-read on Economics, Culture and History is a fool's errand.
John Moore
Yeah like I never said I assumed the LTV was correct he just told me that Marx was outdated because it wasn’t. I read Marx to gain a better perspective and told him about what I read. I wouldn’t have considered myself a Marxist before I read Marx.
Jayden Reyes
Wow, this nigga really let the human face slip right there.
Jeremiah Reed
Economics is not a strict science which would make a "consensus of economists" worth anything, it's about as convincing as a consensus of sociologists (probably less). Neoclassical economics was effectively created by taking away the larger and richer perspective in classical political economy and leaving only those concepts which could be conveniently shown on a graph. It takes abandoning economics to explore why the utility-maximizing individual is a social product.