What really is SNLT?
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LBird wrote:Marcos wrote:L Bird, it looks that you have been sharpening your knife lately. The last two answers that you have posted in this thread are totally correct.Everything in regard to Socialism and Marx is social or based on the concept of social production, even more, socialism is not going to be an economic system, it is going to be a social production.
[my bold/italics]I know Marx better than you, Marcos.Even 'nature' and 'matter' are social products.Only 18th century 'materialists', who follow Engels' misunderstanding of Marx's 'social productionism', claim that 'nature' and 'matter' are not related to social production, and so are not 'in regard to Socialism and Marx'.Marx warned where 'materialism' would lead (in his Theses on Feuerbach), to a two-fold division in society, where a minority would claim to have a special access to 'reality' (or, 'matter' or 'nature'), and so Democratic Socialism would not apply to 'everything'.So, I'm consistently 'Marxist' and my views are 'based on the concept of social production', whereas you deny that 'matter' has anything to do with Socialism, Marx or social production. You're politically inconsistent, Marcos.
Marcos wrote:Our pamphlet titled: Alternative to capitalism, written by Adam Buick covers all the questions raised on this threadExcept the issue of the social production of 'matter'. The SPGB wishes to keep the social production of science in the hands of an elite, and will not allow the producers to vote upon their own concepts (which would allow them to change their own scientific concepts, in their own interests, for their own purposes).It's the 'materialists' whose 'knife' is blunt, Marcos. They can never answer these political questions about power within social production.
i know that L bird I started to study Marx yesterday
Marcos wrote:i know that L bird I started to study Marx yesterdayYeah, it shows, Marcos!So, today, start to study the differences between Marx's 'social productionism' and Engels' 'materialism'.The political inconsistencies about 'elites' and 'socialism' run through Engels, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin and Stalin.Engels was inconsistent, and that laid the ground for Kautsky's notoriously elitist statement that workers shouldn't control 'science', and things only got worse.We have to get back to studying Marx, today and tomorrow, Marcus.
This thread is about SNLT, not for debating materialism.If people want to talk about that subject, create a new thread where it can be discussed.Anyone who keeps talking about it or replying to other people who are talking about are ruining the thread and filling it with irrelevant posts.Please start another thread.
Sympo wrote:This thread is about SNLT, not for debating materialism.In all my replies to you Sympo, I've explained your misunderstanding of the theory of SNLT.Of course, there are links between your misunderstanding of this specific issue, and the 'materialists' misunderstanding of Marx, but if you're not interested in the wider philosophical debate about your ideas, just ignore it.The SNLT is a part of a wider web of ideas.
Sympo, after a little thought, I think I can explain your misunderstanding of the theory of Socially Necessary Labour Time (SNLT).You're using the theory of Biologically Necessary Labour Time (BNLT).The essential difference between the two, is that the former assumes 'Social Individuals', whereas the latter assumes 'Biological Individuals', as their respective ideological underpinning.Once that is clear, your questions (and misunderstanding of our replies) start to make sense.SNLT is about social production (and the production of 'apples-as-commodities-for-us'), whereas your questions are about you (and 'apples-in-themselves').Of course, these differing interpretations of 'labour time' fit into the differing approaches of Marx's social production and of Engels' materialism, even if you are unaware of (and not interested in) the political and philosophical background.
Sympo wrote:What I am after are your thoughs on this reasoning:1. Labour time must determine value somehow. No other theory makes sense. For example, marginal utility is extremely flawed. We cannot determine which use-value that's "better" than the other, because use-value is subjective, and can therefore not explain why commodities exchange at stable ratios.2. Claiming that two identical apples have different values because one apple took longer than the other to produce makes no sense.3. But remember, labour time must determine value somehow.4. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that SNLT determines value. It doesn't matter how or if the SNLT of a commodity can be calculated or established. There is no other explanation that we can think of.3 doesn't follow 4. I think you're missing some major premises.(these are slightly clunky, but more to the point)1: Commodities are goods that are exchanged between human beings.2: Rational humans will exchange equally (i.e. no-one wants to get the worst of an exchange).3:The physical qualities/uses of goods are incomensurate. The only universal property of commodities is that they are the products of human labour. Therefore only human labour can form the basis for equal exchange.4: Labour expended on a good that is not exchanged is wasted and does not add to value.I think that's all that's needed, the operation of the market means that instances of types of good containing excess labour will find themselves disfavoured, and they will only be exchanged at around the same value as other instances of the type.
I'll just add that (2) is the logical plank of the entire of Marx' theory, disprove that, and all of it falls down.
Young Master Smeet wrote:2: Rational humans will exchange equally (i.e. no-one wants to get the worst of an exchange).I'll just add that (2) is the logical plank of the entire of Marx' theory, disprove that, and all of it falls down.The problem with your assertion, YMS, is that 'rational', 'equally', 'worst' and 'logical' are all social products.So, it's entirely possible that 'the entire of Marx' theory' can 'all of it fall down' for one viewpoint, but not for another.Unless you openly tell Sympo about your political assumptions, it's possible for Sympo to assume that you're making a universal/absolute statement, which is simply 'True'.This will lead Sympo to think that either Sympo or you have the individual ability to determine this 'falling down'.'Falling down' is a political opinion, socially produced by social groups. Within a democratic group, it would be voted upon. 'Falling down' is subject to election, not an obvious state of affairs which an elite (or an individual) can simply 'objectively know'.
At a slight risk. This is Marx' own working:
Quote:Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things – in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.A simple geometrical illustration will make this clear. In order to calculate and compare the areas of rectilinear figures, we decompose them into triangles. But the area of the triangle itself is expressed by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by half the product of the base multiplied by the altitude. In the same way the exchange values of commodities must be capable of being expressed in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they represent a greater or less quantity.If the above is not true, then the entire ediface of Capital, all three volumes, is refuted.
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Young Master Smeet wrote:Thanks for replying Young Master Smeet"I think you're missing some major premises."I'll take a look at these premises. "Commodities are goods that are exchanged between human beings."I agree."Rational humans will exchange equally (i.e. no-one wants to get the worst of an exchange)."Well…people want to exchange equally. But do they always manage to do so?"The only universal property of commodities is that they are the products of human labour. Therefore only human labour can form the basis for equal exchange."I agree."Labour expended on a good that is not exchanged is wasted and does not add to value."I agree."I think that's all that's needed, the operation of the market means that instances of types of good containing excess labour will find themselves disfavoured, and they will only be exchanged at around the same value as other instances of the type."I'm sorry but I still don't get it. I think it might have something to do with how you use the word "value" in the above sentence.Do the 6 hour socks of a seller actually have the value of the 3 hour socks that are being sold on the market? Or is it that the price of his sock has to be below its value in order to be sold?
iFYI This; …..Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third….. Goes back to Greek logic. The first person to have a bash at this was Plato in 400BC in his The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/ari/nico/nico048.htm Just needed to add that money or gold was a commodity produced by labour power etc. And labour power could be bought and sold liked beds and houses? Karl gives Plato credit for making a start on it in volume one; after Karl is finished with it. the first reference to SNLT was circa 1740 9.“The value of them (the necessaries of life), when they are exchanged the one for another, is regulated by the quantity of labour necessarily required, and commonly taken in producing them.” (“Some Thoughts on the Interest of Money in General, and Particularly in the Publick Funds, &c.” Lond., p. 36) This remarkable anonymous work written in the last century, bears no date. It is clear, however, from internal evidence that it appeared in the reign of George II, about 1739 or 1740. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm From Rubin; ……….For the simple commodity producer, the difference in the conditions of production in two different branches appear as different conditions for the engagement of labor in them. In a simple commodity economy, the exchange of 10 hours of labor in one branch of production, for example shoemaking, for the product of 8 hours of labor in another branch, for example clothing production, necessarily leads (if the shoemaker and clothesmaker are equally qualified) to different advantages of production in the two branches, and to the transfer of labor from shoemaking to clothing production. Assuming complete mobility of labor in the commodity economy, every more or less significant difference in the advantage of production generates a tendency for the transfer of labor from the less advantageous branch of production to the more advantageous. This tendency remains until the less advantageous branch is confronted by a direct threat of economic collapse and finds it impossible to continue production because of unfavorable conditions for the sale of its products on the market…….. In the labour power commodity market if lorry driving work and graft get less than computer programming then lorry drivers become computer programmers if they can. Skilled or specialised ‘concrete’ labour power puts a bit of a crimp on the assumption of the “complete mobility of labor in the commodity economy”.
Sympo wrote:"I think that's all that's needed, the operation of the market means that instances of types of good containing excess labour will find themselves disfavoured, and they will only be exchanged at around the same value as other instances of the type."I'm sorry but I still don't get it. I think it might have something to do with how you use the word "value" in the above sentence.Do the 6 hour socks of a seller actually have the value of the 3 hour socks that are being sold on the market? Or is it that the price of his sock has to be below its value in order to be sold?Well, per the chain of logic, if it can't sell at 6 hours worth, it doesn't have six hours worth of value. The basis of value is it assumes that there is an open market, with replaceable goods, the buyers are trying to get the best deal they can. If, generally, socks are available at 3 hours, then a 6 hour sock only has a 3 hour value.Its important to note that value is not concrete within a commodity, it is abstract and represented by the commodity, and represents a general inter-human effort.Here's Charlie again:
Charlie wrote:Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour power. The total labour power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labour power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value.We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour time socially necessary for its production.[9] Each individual commodity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average sample of its class.[10] Commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the same time, have the same value. The value of one commodity is to the value of any other, as the labour time necessary for the production of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other. “As values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed labour time.”[11]I've bolded the key bits.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Its important to note that value is not concrete within a commodity, it is abstract and represented by the commodity, and represents a general inter-human effort.Karl Marx wrote:The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogenous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour power.Does this mean that the value of one individual sock that managed to get sold is equal to the SNLT of a sock?If the answer is yes, I have another question: what makes you think this? What "evidence" is there?
Sympo wrote:Does this mean that the value of one individual sock that managed to get sold is equal to the SNLT of a sock?If the answer is yes, I have another question: what makes you think this? What "evidence" is there?1) In essence, yes.2) It is a logical deduction based on the premises previously presented: we cannot apprehend value directly, all we can observe is prices paid and infer values therefrom: I believe there have been studies that show a correlation with labour time and price movements.
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